Summary

Your Microsoft 365 license determines which apps and features you can use. Not all plans include desktop Office apps, advanced security, or compliance tools. This article breaks down the major plan families and what each one includes.

If you arrived here from a missing Copilot button or a Visio prompt asking you to buy, skip to section 6 — it shows you how to find out which license you are actually on, and why a plan name alone never settles the question.

In this guide

• 1. How Microsoft 365 Licensing Works
• 2. Business Plans Comparison (Up to 300 Users)
• 3. Enterprise Plans Comparison (Unlimited Users)
• 4. Common Add-Ons
• 5. "Why Can't I Use This Feature?" — License Lookup
• 6. How to Check What You Have
• 7. Key Terms Glossary

Before You Start

• A Microsoft 365 account provided by your organization.

Instructions

1. How Microsoft 365 Licensing Works

Microsoft 365 licenses are per-user and cloud-based. Your IT administrator purchases a plan (a bundle of services), then assigns individual licenses to users in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

Key concepts:

• Plan — A bundle of services sold together (e.g., Microsoft 365 E3 includes Exchange, Teams, Office apps, and more).
• Service Plan — An individual feature within a plan (e.g., Exchange Online, SharePoint Online). IT can toggle individual service plans on or off.
• Assigned vs. Available — A license must be assigned to your account for you to use it. Available licenses in the tenant do not automatically apply.
• Grace Period — If your organization's subscription expires, there is usually a 30-day grace period before services are suspended.

2. Business Plans Comparison (Up to 300 Users)

Business plans are designed for small and mid-sized organizations.

Feature	Business Basic	Business Standard	Business Premium
Email (Exchange)	✅ 50 GB mailbox	✅ 50 GB mailbox	✅ 50 GB mailbox
Web and Mobile Office Apps	✅	✅	✅
Desktop Office Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)	❌	✅	✅
Teams	✅	✅	✅
OneDrive	✅ 1 TB	✅ 1 TB	✅ 1 TB
SharePoint	✅	✅	✅
Microsoft Bookings	✅	✅	✅
Microsoft Loop	✅	✅	✅
Intune (Device Management)	❌	❌	✅
Entra ID P1 (Conditional Access)	❌	❌	✅
Defender for Business	❌	❌	✅
Azure Information Protection	❌	❌	✅
Max Users	300	300	300

Key takeaway: Business Basic gives you web-only Office apps and email. Business Standard adds the full desktop apps. Business Premium adds security and device management — it is the closest equivalent to Enterprise E3 for smaller organizations.

3. Enterprise Plans Comparison (Unlimited Users)

Enterprise plans are designed for larger organizations and include advanced compliance and security features.

Feature	E1	E3	E5
Desktop Office Apps	❌	✅	✅
Email (Exchange)	✅ 50 GB	✅ 100 GB	✅ 100 GB
Teams	✅	✅	✅
SharePoint	✅	✅	✅
OneDrive	✅ 1 TB	✅ Unlimited*	✅ Unlimited*
Entra ID	Basic	P1	P1 + P2
Conditional Access	❌	✅	✅
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)	❌	✅	✅
eDiscovery	❌	Standard	Premium
Information Protection / Sensitivity Labels	❌	✅ Manual	✅ Auto
Defender for Office 365	❌	❌	✅ Plan 2
Phone System (Teams Calling)	❌	❌	✅
Power BI Pro	❌	❌	✅
Audio Conferencing	❌	❌	✅
Advanced Compliance	❌	❌	✅

*OneDrive "Unlimited" starts at 5 TB per user and can be expanded by IT upon request.

Key takeaway: E1 is web-only (no desktop apps). E3 adds desktop apps, 100 GB mailbox, and core compliance. E5 adds advanced security (Defender), phone system, Power BI, and premium compliance.

4. Common Add-Ons

Some features are not included in any base plan and require a separate add-on license.

Add-On	What It Does	Requires Base Plan
Microsoft 365 Copilot	AI assistant across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams	Business Standard/Premium or E3/E5
Visio Plan 2	Professional diagramming (flowcharts, org charts, network diagrams)	Any M365 plan
Project Plan 3 / 5	Project management with scheduling, resource management	Any M365 plan
Power Automate Premium	Advanced workflow automation with premium connectors	Any M365 plan
Audio Conferencing	Dial-in phone numbers for Teams meetings	E1 or E3 (included in E5)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint	Advanced endpoint security beyond Defender for Business	E3/E5 or Business Premium
Teams Phone	Make and receive PSTN phone calls in Teams	E1/E3 (included in E5)

5. "Why Can't I Use This Feature?" — License Lookup

If a feature is missing or grayed out, it is usually because your license does not include it.

Missing Feature	Minimum License Required
Desktop Word, Excel, PowerPoint	Business Standard, E3, or higher
Copilot in Office apps	Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on (requires Business Standard/Premium or E3/E5)
Conditional Access (require MFA by location)	Entra ID P1 — Business Premium, E3, or higher
Power BI Pro dashboards and sharing	E5 or Power BI Pro add-on
Intune device enrollment	Business Premium, E3, or Intune add-on
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies	E3 or higher
Auto-expanding email archive	E3 or higher (Exchange Online Plan 2)
eDiscovery (Standard)	E3 or higher
eDiscovery (Premium)	E5 or E5 Compliance add-on
Sensitivity labels (automatic)	E5 or E5 Information Protection add-on
Teams Phone (PSTN calling)	E5 or Teams Phone add-on
Teams meeting dial-in numbers	E5 or Audio Conferencing add-on
Advanced threat investigation (Defender)	E5 or Defender for Office 365 add-on

6. How to Check What You Have

Every table above answers "what does that plan include" — this section answers the question you actually arrived with, which is "which one am I on, and why is the feature I want missing".

Read it in this order. The first method works even when the portal hides things from you, and the last one is the only one that sees add-ons.

Method 1 — Read it off an Office app. This is the quickest route and the one nobody can switch off for you.

1. Open Word — or Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook; they all show the same thing.
2. Select File, then select Account near the bottom of the menu.
3. Under Product Information, read the product name — something like Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise or Microsoft 365 Apps for business — and the account it is licensed to. A desktop install that activates rules out the web-only plans (Business Basic, E1, F3). It does not name your plan: E3 and E5 show the same product here, as do Business Standard and Business Premium. Method 4 is the only view that names the plan.

If you are signed into both a work and a personal account on the same computer, the account line under the product name is what tells you which one is paying for the app you are looking at.

Method 2 — The My Account portal. This is where you see the apps you are entitled to install and the services attached to your account.

1. Sign in to Microsoft365.com with your work or school account.
2. Select My Account in the left navigation pane. It also opens directly at myaccount.microsoft.com.
3. Work through the pages there. Microsoft describes this portal as the place to install and upgrade your apps, change your password, and manage your settings and privacy.

Set your expectations for this one. Microsoft's own guidance page for people who are not admins, "What Microsoft 365 business product or license do I have?", stops short of giving you a self-service license list and points you at your admin instead. Which pages appear in My Account varies between organizations. If there is no license list waiting for you, that is the product behaving normally, not you looking in the wrong place.

Method 3 — Work it out from the apps themselves. What you can and cannot do is a reliable read on your plan, and it takes seconds.

What you see	What that tells you
An Install apps option, and desktop Word and Excel that open and activate	A plan with desktop apps: Business Standard, Business Premium, E3 or E5
Word and Excel only in the browser, no install option	A web-only plan: Business Basic, E1 or F3
A dial pad inside Teams	Teams Phone, either through E5 or as an add-on
A Copilot button in the Word ribbon and in Teams	The Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on is assigned to you
Visio opens a document rather than an offer to buy	A Visio plan is assigned
A feature that is visible but greyed out, or says your admin turned it off	You hold the plan, but the individual service inside it is switched off

That last row is worth separating from the rest. Being unlicensed and being switched off look identical from your desk and need different fixes.

Method 4 — How an admin checks it for someone else. This is the only view that shows base plan, add-ons and individual services together.

1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Users > Active users.
2. Select the person's row.
3. In the right pane, select Licenses and Apps.
4. Expand the Licenses section to see which products are assigned to them.
5. Expand the Apps section to see the individual services inside each license and whether each one is switched on.

How to read the result. A plan name on its own does not answer the question, for two reasons:

• Add-ons sit beside the plan, not inside it. Copilot, Visio, Project, Teams Phone and Audio Conferencing are separate licenses and appear as their own lines in that Licenses list. An account showing Microsoft 365 E3 and nothing else has no Copilot — the plan being a good one changes nothing. If the extra line is not there, the add-on is not assigned to you. If the Copilot line is there and the button still is not, the license is not your problem — see How to Fix the Copilot Button Missing in Word or Excel.
• A service inside your plan can be switched off. The Apps list is where that shows. This is what produces the message that your admin has turned off a feature, on an account that is fully licensed.

What to send IT. Ask for all three answers in one message, because "which license am I on" comes back as a plan name that does not tell you why your feature is missing:

Hi — please check my Microsoft 365 license. In the admin center, under
Users > Active users, open my account and select Licenses and Apps.

Could you tell me:
1. Which base license is assigned to me
2. Whether any add-on licenses are assigned alongside it
3. Whether any services are switched off inside my license

I am trying to work out why Copilot is not available to me, and what it
would take to add it.

Swap Copilot for whichever feature you are chasing — Visio, the Teams dial pad, Power BI sharing. Naming the feature is what turns a license question into a decision your IT team can act on in one reply.

7. Key Terms Glossary

Term	Definition
Tenant	Your organization's instance of Microsoft 365 — all users, data, and settings live here
Subscription	The agreement that gives your tenant access to a specific plan (e.g., "Microsoft 365 E3 — 500 licenses")
License	A single seat within a subscription that is assigned to one user
Service Plan	An individual feature within a license (e.g., Exchange Online, Teams) that IT can toggle on or off
Assigned	The license has been explicitly given to a user — they can use the services
Available	The license exists in the tenant pool but has not been assigned to anyone yet
Grace Period	A 30-day window after subscription expiration during which services continue to work before being suspended

Troubleshooting

INFO

If a feature is missing or grayed out, the most common cause is that your license does not include it. Narrow it down with File > Account in Word (section 6, Method 1) — a desktop install that activates rules out the web-only plans — then compare that against the tables above. The product name there does not name your plan, and it will not tell you whether an add-on such as Copilot is assigned. Both answers live in the admin center, and section 6 has the wording to ask for them.

Symptom / Error	Potential Cause	Solution
Office apps say "Unlicensed Product"	License not assigned or sign-in issue	Sign out of all Office apps, then sign in again with your work account. If it persists, ask them to check the assignment: Word shows Unlicensed Product on my work account — please confirm a base license is still assigned to me under Users > Active users > Licenses and Apps.
"Your admin has turned off this feature"	Service plan toggled off in Admin Center	You hold the license; the individual service inside it is off. Ask them to switch it back on, naming the feature: My license is assigned but this feature reports as turned off. Please check the Apps section of my Licenses and Apps entry and enable the service behind it.
Cannot install desktop Office apps	Business Basic or E1 license (web-only)	Business Basic and E1 are web-only by design, so this is not a fault. Ask IT what an upgrade costs: I am on a web-only plan and need the desktop Office apps. What would it take to move me to Business Standard or E3?
Teams Phone / Dial Pad missing	No Teams Phone license	E5 includes Phone System. E1/E3 users need the Teams Phone add-on.
Power BI "need a license" prompt	No Power BI Pro license	E5 includes Power BI Pro. Others need the add-on. Ask IT which plan you are assigned and whether a Power BI Pro license can be added to it.
Copilot not available in Office apps	Copilot add-on not assigned	Copilot requires a separate add-on license plus E3/E5 or Business Standard/Premium. Ask IT to confirm which base plan you hold and whether a Copilot add-on is available to you.

Related Articles

• Understanding Microsoft 365 Business Basic vs Standard
• How to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot Basics
• How to Understand MFA and Prevent Account Lockouts
• How to Change Your Microsoft 365 Password
• How to Manage App Permissions and Connected Apps in Microsoft 365
• How to Set Up Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR)
• How to Manage Microsoft 365 Subscriptions and Billing

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