Gone are the days of Teams being bundled in with standard Microsoft license packages, so its more important than ever to know exactly what you need as a business to get calling in Teams. It's true, there is now yet another layer of licensing needed to use Teams to call external numbers via a PSTN breakout, but the level of additional licenses that you'll need still depends on your requirements and is often at the centre of the first questions asked when businesses start to look at Teams voice. In this article we will be giving an in-depth look at what Microsoft licensing there is out there, what it covers and what you may need to get using Teams Phone to make calls.
Microsoft 365 licensing explained
So first things first, depending on the size of your business you will need either a Microsoft 365 Business license or a Microsoft 365 Enterprise license. Each of these licenses have per user, per month pricing structures and each of them are split into tiered bundles which have different capabilities. But what exactly are the differences between Microsoft 365 licenses?
Microsoft 365 Business licensing
Microsoft 365 Business licenses are for companies with fewer than 300 employees. There are three price tiers for Microsoft 365: Business Basic, Business Standard, and Business Premium. With each tier providing different feature and service levels.
Microsoft 365 Enterprise licensing
Microsoft 365 Enterprise licenses are for larger companies with more than 300 employees. They deliver more features and services than 365 Business licenses and come in at a higher price point. Microsoft 365 Enterprise licenses are separated into two main categories:
For businesses looking to empower their frontline workers there are also Microsoft 365 F3 licenses.
What is Microsoft Teams licensing?
In April 2024, Microsoft made the choice to stop bundling Teams with standard Microsoft licensing suites, because of this if you want to have access to Microsoft Teams you will have to buy a separate Microsoft Teams license (again there is one set of licenses for Business and one for Enterprise). Like the Microsoft 365 licenses, these are also split into tiers and have different per month/per user pricing structures to suit different needs. A Microsoft Teams license is the first thing that you will need to get calling in Teams.
With a Microsoft Teams license, companies can make calls internally, collaborate with video calls, send messages, and share files. This means that the great unbundling of Microsoft Teams presented a new opportunity for businesses who wanted to unlock Teams for collaboration (and communication, but we'll talk about this later) without paying for the more costly Microsoft 365 bundle.
Crucially though, as we've just mentioned, with just a Teams license what businesses can't do is make and receive calls externally outside of Teams. To use Microsoft Teams as a business phone system additional licensing is needed.