Microsoft 365 Business Basic 2026 UK Price (July £/user)

Microsoft 365 commercial prices rose on 1 July 2026, with Copilot capabilities bundled into Business and Enterprise plans. Increases run from roughly 5% to 17% depending on the plan. The new rate applies at your first renewal on or after 1 July 2026 — not automatically on that date — so many UK businesses are only now seeing it land on a bill.

That timing detail is the one most commonly got wrong. Organisations that renewed before 30 June 2026 locked in the previous pricing for the full length of that agreement term.

What changed on 1 July 2026

UK prices are set in sterling at renewal. So the exact £ figure depends on your renewal date and the exchange rate on the day. Plan against the percentage movement instead — that is the reliable number.

Plan	Was (£/user/mo)	Now (£/user/mo)	Increase	Copilot included
Business Basic	£4.60	~£5.40	~17%	Copilot Chat in Teams, Outlook, Word
Business Standard	£9.60	~£10.75	~12%	Copilot Chat extended to Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Business Premium	£16.90	£16.90	No change	Copilot Chat + existing security/compliance stack
Enterprise E3	~£30.85	~£33.40	~8%	Copilot Chat
Enterprise E5	~£49.00	~£51.60	~5%	Copilot Chat + AI security analytics

Two clarifications worth making, because they are widely conflated:

• “Copilot included” means Copilot Chat, not the full Copilot licence. The standalone Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on (around £24 per user/month, billed annually) is still a separate purchase. It is what you need for agent-level capabilities and deep in-app integration. The bundled Chat tier is genuinely useful but it is not the same product.
• Business Premium held at £16.90 in the UK. If you are on Standard and were already considering Premium for the security and compliance features, the July change narrowed the gap between them.

For the official plan-by-plan detail, see Microsoft’s Business plan comparison and the Microsoft 365 Copilot blog announcement. UK reseller analyses from Bytes also break the increases down in sterling.

What the increase actually costs you

Take a 50-person London business on Microsoft 365 Business Standard. The rise works out at roughly £690 a year — about £1.15 more per user each month, across 50 users. That is manageable. On Business Basic, where the increase runs to around 17%, it is worth a harder look.

The real question is not whether the rise is justified. It is whether your team will use the Copilot features you are now paying for. If they will not, you are paying more for exactly the tools you already had.

Cutting Microsoft 365 spend before renewal

The licences you are already paying for

This is the single highest-impact action you can take ahead of your renewal date. In nearly every Microsoft 365 tenant we audit, we find:

• Unused licences assigned to former employees, shared mailboxes that do not need premium plans, or meeting room accounts on full Business Standard licences when Basic would suffice.
• Over-licensed users on E5 plans who only need E3 capabilities, or on Business Premium when Standard covers their requirements.
• Orphaned add-ons such as standalone Power BI, Visio, or Project licences that duplicate capabilities already included in higher-tier plans.

A thorough licence audit typically saves 10-20% on Microsoft 365 spend — comfortably more than the July increase costs most organisations. Our Microsoft 365 support team runs these audits every week.

Right-size each plan by role

Not everyone needs the same plan. Segment your people:

• Frontline and light users (reception, warehouse, part-time staff): Business Basic or F3 plans
• Standard knowledge workers: Business Standard
• Power users and executives who will actively use Copilot: Business Premium or E3
• Compliance-heavy roles (legal, finance, regulated functions): E5 for advanced compliance and eDiscovery

Matching the plan to the role almost always costs less than putting everyone on the same licence.

Annual billing saves around 20%

If you bill monthly, moving to an annual commitment saves roughly 20%. You give up some freedom to scale down mid-term. For a stable headcount, that is usually a trade worth making.

Negotiate with your CSP partner

Most UK businesses buy Microsoft 365 through a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner, and your partner has some room on margin. With the increase now landing at renewals, this is a fair moment to revisit your commercial terms — especially if you are consolidating several services with the same provider.

Getting value from the Copilot you now pay for

You will be paying for Copilot capabilities either way. So the question is no longer “should we buy Copilot?” but “how do we get something back from it?”

Our recommendation is a phased Microsoft Copilot deployment:

1. Start with a pilot group of 5-10 users in roles where Copilot’s strengths show fastest — executive assistants, analysts, marketing, and anyone who lives in Outlook, Word or Excel.
2. Set measurable goals, such as less time drafting documents, faster email triage or better meeting follow-up.
3. Train before you deploy. Copilot is capable but unintuitive if nobody has learned to prompt it. A 90-minute session lifts adoption sharply.
4. Fix data governance first. Copilot surfaces information based on each user’s permissions. If your SharePoint permissions are messy, it will show sensitive files to people who should never see them. Sort permissions before you roll out.

Weigh Google Workspace before you jump

Google Workspace is the main alternative, and its Gemini AI features come in at comparable prices. If you are already embedded in Microsoft — Teams, SharePoint, Entra ID, Intune — the switching cost rarely pays for itself on licensing alone. If you are choosing a platform for the first time, it is genuinely worth comparing.

Your renewal in five steps

The new rates apply from your first billing cycle on or after 1 July 2026. If you have not renewed yet, the change is still ahead of you. Do these five things now:

1. Run a full licence audit (or ask your IT provider to run one)
2. Reassign or remove unused licences
3. Right-size plans based on actual usage data from the Microsoft 365 admin centre
4. Decide your Copilot adoption strategy
5. Review your CSP agreement and billing terms

Absorb the price rise by tidying the licences you own

We manage Microsoft 365 tenants for London businesses of every size, from 5-person startups to 500-seat firms. Our free review goes through your licences and comes back as a written report: where you are overspending today, what the July increase costs you if you change nothing, and a phased Copilot plan if one makes sense for your team.