What Business Premium includes
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is the SMB-equivalent of E3, capped at 300 users. It bundles the Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Exchange Online), Microsoft Intune for device management, Microsoft Entra ID P1 for Conditional Access and self-service password reset, and Defender for Business — Microsoft's SMB-tuned EDR. It's significantly cheaper per seat than E3 because it's restricted to organisations under 300 users.
Why most Australian SMBs land here
Business Premium is the cheapest SKU that gives you everything you need to hit ACSC Essential Eight Maturity Level 1 and most of Maturity Level 2 in the Microsoft stack. You get Conditional Access, MFA, application control via Intune, OS patching, user application hardening, Defender EDR and a backup story (with Microsoft 365 Backup as a paid add-on or third-party). For Australian businesses under 300 staff, this is usually the right answer.
When to graduate to E3 / E5
Three triggers move SMBs out of Business Premium: (1) headcount approaches the 300-user cap and Microsoft starts requiring a transition, (2) you need full Defender for Identity / Cloud Apps / advanced Purview which Business Premium doesn't have, or (3) you need Privileged Identity Management for Entra (Entra ID P2). Many Australian businesses hit (2) first when they pursue Essential Eight ML2 properly or are subject to APRA CPS 234.
Common gotchas
Business Premium does not include Microsoft 365 Copilot — the Copilot add-on is sold separately at AUD ~$45/user/month. It also does not include the full Defender stack (no Defender for Identity, no Defender for Cloud Apps, no advanced threat hunting). The Power Automate / Power Apps entitlements are limited to in-context flows; building broader Power Platform solutions needs separate Power Platform licences.