Microsoft 365 pricing Australia 2026 — every plan compared in AUD

Microsoft 365 has thirteen mainstream commercial SKUs, three pricing tiers within Copilot alone, and a regional pricing model that converts USD list prices to AUD with a margin Microsoft updates without notice. The result is a quoting environment where two Australian businesses with similar headcount and similar needs can pay 30 percent different per-seat amounts simply because of how their reseller positioned the licence.

This guide is the unbiased reference. We don't sell licences directly — Frontrow is a Microsoft partner that runs deployments and managed services on top of whichever SKU mix actually fits. The numbers below are indicative AUD figures based on Microsoft's published USD list at the date of writing, converted using the current Australian dollar rate. Always validate against your current quote.

The four families

Microsoft 365 commercial licences split into four families. Business plans cap at 300 users and are aimed at SMBs. Enterprise plans (E-series) have no cap and are the standard for organisations above 300 staff or with regulated workloads. Frontline plans (F-series) are for shift workers who need lightweight access. And the standalone add-ons — Copilot, Defender, Purview, Visio, Project — sit on top of any of the above.

Business plans (under 300 users)

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic — web/mobile Office only, Teams, Exchange. ~AUD $11/user/month. Right for orgs that don't need desktop Office.
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard — desktop Office + cloud apps, no security stack. ~AUD $19/user/month. Avoid for any org handling personal information.
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium — Standard plus Intune, Defender for Business and Entra ID P1. ~AUD $33/user/month. The default pick for AU SMBs handling any sensitive data.
• Microsoft 365 Apps for Business — desktop Office only, no Exchange/Teams. ~AUD $13/user/month. Niche; only fits orgs that already have email elsewhere.

Enterprise plans (no user cap)

• Office 365 E1 — web/mobile Office, Teams, Exchange, SharePoint. ~AUD $15/user/month. Cloud-only enterprise.
• Office 365 E3 — adds desktop Office and basic compliance. ~AUD $35/user/month. Note this is OFFICE 365 E3, not Microsoft 365 E3 — no EM+S included.
• Microsoft 365 E3 — Office 365 E3 plus Windows 11 Enterprise plus EM+S E3 (Intune, Entra P1, basic Defender, Purview baseline). ~AUD $54/user/month. The standard enterprise floor.
• Microsoft 365 E5 — E3 plus full Defender stack, full Purview, Entra P2 + Governance, Power BI Pro and Teams Phone Standard. ~AUD $86/user/month. Pays back when consolidating third-party tools.
• Office 365 F3 (frontline) — web/mobile Office and Teams, 2GB mailbox. ~AUD $5/user/month. For shift workers who don't need desktop apps.
• Microsoft 365 F1/F3 — F-series plus Intune and Defender for Endpoint P1. F3 ~AUD $12/user/month. Saves AU retail / hospitality / healthcare ~AUD $40/user/month versus E3.

Microsoft 365 Copilot add-ons

• Microsoft 365 Copilot — the enterprise SKU, requires E3/E5/Business Premium. ~AUD $45/user/month, annual commit. Grounds in your tenant data via Semantic Index.
• Copilot Pro — consumer/professional standalone, no tenant grounding. ~AUD $33/user/month. Wrong fit for most enterprises but cheap to test.
• Copilot Chat — free for E3/E5 customers (was Bing Chat Enterprise). Uses GPT but doesn't ground in tenant content.
• Microsoft Copilot Studio — pay-as-you-go for building custom agents. Starts at ~AUD $300/tenant/month for the base capacity.

Other meaningful add-ons

• Power BI Pro — ~AUD $14/user/month. Included in E5. Required for any user creating or sharing Power BI content.
• Power BI Premium Per User — ~AUD $30/user/month. Adds AI features and larger dataset limits.
• Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance — ~AUD $18/user/month. Brings the Purview suite to E3 customers. Often cheaper than upgrading to full E5.
• Microsoft 365 E5 Security — ~AUD $18/user/month. Brings Defender for Identity, Cloud Apps, full Defender for O365 P2 to E3 customers.
• Visio Plan 2 — ~AUD $22/user/month. Included in E5. Most third-party diagram tools can be retired with this.
• Project Plan 3 / Plan 5 — ~AUD $45 / $85/user/month. For project-management-heavy roles only.

Which Australian organisations pick what

Patterns Frontrow sees in the AU market. Under 50 staff, simple ops: Business Premium for everyone, Copilot for two or three early-adopter roles. 50–300 staff, mixed roles: Business Premium for knowledge workers, F3 for any frontline, Copilot for execs and assistants. 300–1,500 staff: M365 E3 across the board, F3 for frontline, E3 + E5 Compliance + E5 Security for the security-and-compliance team, Copilot for selected high-payback roles. 1,500+ or regulated: M365 E5 across knowledge workers, F3 for frontline, Copilot for the half of headcount where the ROI demonstrably lands.

Hidden costs Australian buyers miss

• Teams Phone calling plans — Teams Phone Standard is in E5 but the actual calling plan (PSTN connectivity) is extra. Roughly AUD $12/user/month for the AU calling plan.
• Defender for Endpoint server — Microsoft Defender for Servers is a separate Azure-billed product, not in M365 SKUs.
• Microsoft Sentinel — billed per GB ingested. Easily AUD $50,000+/year for a midsize tenant.
• Microsoft 365 Backup — Microsoft's own backup product, AUD ~$5/user/month. Third-party (Veeam, AvePoint, Barracuda) is sometimes cheaper.
• Premier or Unified Support — for Microsoft direct support past Standard. AUD $30,000–200,000+/year depending on tier.

How to actually save money on Microsoft 365

The licence audit is where 90 percent of cost savings live. We see Australian organisations paying for E5 across the whole org when only 30 percent of staff need it; paying for E3 across frontline workers who would be perfectly served by F3; paying for Copilot seats that haven't been touched in 90 days. Frontrow's M365 Usage Tool surfaces the typical patterns, and the Copilot Licensing Optimiser models the right SKU mix by role.