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Microsoft 365 and Office 365 platform service description

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Microsoft 365 and Office 365 are available in a variety of plans to best meet the needs of your organization. If you're looking for the differences between the plans, including Exchange Online plans, this article will show you which features are included in each of them.

Microsoft 365 and Office 365 deliver the power of cloud productivity to businesses of all sizes, helping save time, money, and free up valued resources. The Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans combine the familiar Microsoft Office desktop suite with cloud-based versions of Microsoft's next-generation communications and collaboration services (including Office for the web, Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft SharePoint Online) to help users be productive from virtually anywhere through the Internet.

Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans

Microsoft 365 and Office 365 are available in a variety of plans to best meet the needs of your organization. For information about different plans, including standalone options and information on moving from one plan to another, see Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plan options.

Features available across all plans

The following features are available to Microsoft 365 Business (Basic, Standard, Premium), Office 365 E1/E3/E5, Office 365 Enterprise F3, and Microsoft 365 E3/E5/F1/F3.

Feature Feature Details
Microsoft 365 administration Microsoft 365 admin center or Windows PowerShell
Microsoft 365 suite features Microsoft Graph API, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Groups, Microsoft Search
User account management Directory Sync tool
Bulk upload Using .csv files
Exchange simple (cutover) migration
Multiple administrator roles available and Manage security groups from Microsoft 365
Domains Add custom 2nd-level and 3rd-level domains like fourthcoffee.com and marketing.fourthcoffee.com
Add up to 900 custom domains
DNS records managed by Office 365 (full redelegation)
DNS records managed at your DNS hosting provider (partial redelegation)
Use name.onmicrosoft.com domain or a custom domain name for email addresses and Microsoft Teams
Use name.sharepoint.com for your team site
Host a public website with a different provider and use a different provider for email and IM
Domain ownership verification required for custom domains
Automated domain purchase and domain verification available for domains purchased through Go Daddy
Service health and continuity Status information is available on the Service health or Service status page
Status of individual alerts available on the Microsoft 365 admin center dashboard
Admin Center Activity Reports IM and audio sessions, Video and audio/video conferences
Application sharing and file transfer sessions
Browser used and Operating system used
Create your own reports using Microsoft Graph Reports (GA release)
Service updates Regular updates provided to all customers
Option to turn on Targeted release
Notifications sent to Message Center when action is required
Roadmap.office.com for some service updates
Help and training Community, Online help, other self-help resources, and self-paced training
Networking IPv4 and IPv6 protocols
Trust Privacy, security, and transparency
Compliance SAS 70 / SSAE16 Assessments and ISO 27001 certified
FISMA Authority to Operate, EU Model Clauses and EU Safe Harbor
HIPAA-Business Associate Agreement and Microsoft Data Processing Agreement
Partners Create trial invitations and purchase orders for a customer who is using the specified plan
Provide delegated administration
Service Level Agreement
Product use rights
BlackBerry Use BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) -- not available for Microsoft 365 F1

For Domains, the use of custom domain names for your team sites is currently unavailable. For Compliance, PCI-governed PAN data feature is currently unavailable.

Feature availability across some plans

The following table lists the major Microsoft 365 and Office 365 features available to some plans (certain caveats apply -- see the footnotes for further information – this table may change without notice).

Microsoft 365 suite features Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Standard Microsoft 365 Business Premium Office 365 E1 Microsoft 365 E3 and Office 365 E3 Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 Microsoft 365 F1 Microsoft 365 F3 and Office 365 Enterprise F3
Microsoft Bookings Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes (F3 only)
Microsoft Intune No Yes No Yes (M365 E3 only) Yes (M365 E5 only) Yes Yes (M365 F3 only)
Power Automate for Microsoft 365 Yes Yes Yes1 Yes Yes No Yes1
Microsoft Forms Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Viva Insights
Personal insights2		 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Power Apps for Microsoft 365 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Microsoft Project for the web3 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Microsoft Stream Yes Yes Yes4 Yes Yes Yes4 Yes4
Microsoft Sway5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Microsoft Delve Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
User account management Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Standard Microsoft 365 Business Premium Office 365 E1 Microsoft 365 E3 and Office 365 E3 Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 Microsoft 365 F1 Microsoft 365 F3 and Office 365 Enterprise F3
Cloud identity, Federated identity, or Multi-factor authentication6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Office 365 desktop setup Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No
Delete accounts and reset user passwords from Microsoft 365 or using Windows PowerShell7 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Users can change their own password8 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Manage licenses Yes9 Yes9 Yes9 Yes9 Yes9 Yes9 Yes9
Admin Center Activity Reports Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Standard Microsoft 365 Business Premium Office 365 E1 Microsoft 365 E3 and Office 365 E3 Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 Microsoft 365 F1 Microsoft 365 F3 and Office 365 Enterprise F3
Activity reports Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Microsoft Graph Usage Reports APIs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Microsoft Graph API (BETA) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Trust Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Standard Microsoft 365 Business Premium Office 365 E1 Microsoft 365 E3 and Office 365 E3 Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 Microsoft 365 F1 Microsoft 365 F3 and Office 365 Enterprise F3
Office 365 Cloud App Security No No No No Yes No No
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps10 Discovery No Yes No Yes (M365 E3 only) Yes Yes Yes (M365 F3 only)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps10 No No No No Yes (M365 E5 only) No No
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 No Yes11 No No Yes No No
Microsoft Purview Customer Lockbox No No No No Yes No No
Microsoft Purview Customer Key No No No No Yes No No
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium)12 No No No No Yes No No
Microsoft Purview Audit (Standard)13 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium)13 No No No No Yes No No
Microsoft Secure Score14 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Office 365 Threat Intelligence15 No No No No Yes No No

1 Cloud flows only.
2 Premium personal insights and experiences, manager and leader insights and experiences, and custom analysis tools and accelerators available with the Viva Insights or Viva suite add on license.
3 Users are provided view-only access to Project for the web. These rights are restricted for use only with the Project for the web application and only for tenants that have a Project Plan 1, Project Plan 3, or Project Plan 5 license. These rights do not grant access to Power Platform applications or other data sets, Project Online desktop client, or Project Online. For feature details, see Microsoft Project service description.
4 In Office 365 Enterprise F3, Microsoft Stream is limited to viewing only (no publishing or sharing).
5 Microsoft Sway is not currently available for customers in certain geographies. Some legacy Office 365 plans that are no longer in market as of August 2015 may also not have access to Microsoft Sway.
6 Review multi factor authentication capabilities across plans.
7 If using directory synchronization with a local Active Directory, you must delete accounts or change passwords by using the local Active Directory, rather than the Microsoft 365 portal by using the Microsoft Entra module for Windows PowerShell.
8 Review the SSPR capabilities across plans.
9 Reducing seats that were purchased with a term discount may be subject to an early termination fee. This is not applicable for subscriptions paid on a monthly basis.
10 Formerly named Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS).
11 Includes Microsoft Defender for Office 365 P1.
12 eDiscovery (Premium) is supported in the United States and in the Western Europe (Netherlands) region. (Customer data from Canada and Asia Pacific is exported to the United States. Customer data from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa is exported to Western Europe [Netherlands]).
13 Audit in Microsoft 365 provides organizations with visibility into many types of audited activities across different services in Microsoft 365. Use the Microsoft 365 guidance for security & compliance audit log search to view user and administrator activity in your organization. You can also use the Office 365 Management Activity API to retrieve events from the unified audit log. When an audited activity is performed by a user or admin, an audit record is generated and stored in the audit log for the customer organization. The length of time that an audit record is retained (and searchable in the audit log) depends on the customer's Office 365 or Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription and the type of the license assigned to specific users.
14 Available at the Microsoft Secure Score security page. Requires admin permissions. For more information, see Microsoft Secure Score.
15 Office 365 Threat Intelligence is now Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, along with additional threat protection capabilities. To learn more, see Microsoft Defender for Office 365 plans and pricing and the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Service Description.

Learn more

For more information about Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans, refer the following resources:

  • System requirements: For system requirements for Microsoft 365 and Office 365, the monthly subscription-based services available for business, education, and government organizations, see System requirements for Microsoft 365 and Office resources. To review the support timelines, go to the Microsoft 365 and Office system requirements matrix.

  • Service Level Agreement: For information about Service Level Agreements, see Service Level Agreement. For information about recent uptimes for Office 365, see Service health and continuity.

  • Microsoft Purview compliance portal: For information about the compliance portal and links to additional information and availability, see the compliance portal.

  • Data storage location: To learn where your data is stored, see Where your customer data is stored.

  • Multi-Geo capabilities: Multi-Geo enables a single organization to span multiple Office 365 data center geographies, and gives you the ability to store data for Exchange Online and OneDrive for Business, at-rest, on a per-user basis, in your chosen geography. Available Geographies: Asia Pacific, Australia, Canada, European Union, India, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom, United States. To learn more, see Introducing Multi-Geo in Office 365.

  • Messaging: To stay informed of upcoming changes, including new and changed features, planned maintenance, or other important announcements, visit the Message Center. For more information, see Message center.

  • Licensing terms: For licensing terms and conditions for products and services purchased through Microsoft Commercial Volume Licensing Programs, see the Product Terms site. To learn about volume licensing, see Licensing Terms and Documentation.

  • Accessibility: Microsoft remains committed to the security of your data and the accessibility of our services. For more information, see the Microsoft Trust Center and the Office Accessibility Center.