But for large companies that blanket-upgrade lots of employees at once, these duplicate licenses could be racking up quite substantial hidden costs. It may be easy to spot and remove for one person. An employee can easily have an unused E3 license on their account. However, for larger or growing organizations, it can be difficult to keep track of assigned licenses. Conversely, a user who interacts with external collaborators and customers will be better suited for an E5 license that provides far greater protection from cybersecurity risks. An employee who only works on internal projects might need a standard Microsoft 365 Enterprise (E3) license. Payment and licensing flexibilityįlexible licensing and the option to pay-per-month or annually on a pay-as-you-go basis per employee means admins can get new starters up and running immediately and departing user accounts can be ‘shut off’ to avoid extra Microsoft 365 costs.įurthermore, you can move licenses around. Let’s look at some of those areas in more detail. When looking to implement any software, your organization will assess cost-effectiveness – weighing up the value it brings to the company against the budget you will spend on the licensing, upkeep, and resources to maintain it. The actual cost of suboptimal Microsoft 365 use However, if you are working in a larger organization – or growing – then this blog post will explain the many possible hidden costs of Microsoft 365 and how you can keep Microsoft 365 at a reasonable operating expenditure (OpEx). If you are an individual or handful of employees with a standard license, then your costs are most likely to be as they seem, but even this will change on April 1st 2023 as overall prices increase. Its success is partially down to a pay-as-you-go-payment plan, intuitive interface, familiar Office apps, customizable features, and add-ins to suit any business needs. Over a million companies companies use Microsoft 365 worldwide.