Licensing for security and compliance

Overview

There are three suites which offer security (Defender) and compliance (Purview) capabilities for small and medium-sized businesses:

• Microsoft Defender Suite for Business Premium
• Microsoft Purview Suite for Business Premium
• Microsoft Defender + Purview Suite for Business Premium

They’re available as Add-on licenses for users already licensed with Microsoft 365 Business Premium and, as you’d expect with a “Business” branded license, there’s the usual limitation of provisioning no more than 300 licenses.

These suites are intended to give parity with the components included in the Enterprise versions of the same suites, but at a lower cost. As a comparison, the Microsoft Defender Suite is priced at $12 per user per month with an annual subscription, and the Microsoft Defender Suite for Business Premium costs $10.

Availability

These licenses, aimed at SMB organizations, are only available through CSP.

History

In March 2025 Microsoft announced that Microsoft 365 Business Premium would also qualify as a prerequisite for Microsoft 365 E5 Security (as it was called then). However, in September 2025 the special security and compliance licenses above were launched for SMB customers with Microsoft 365 Business Premium as the qualifying license. At that time, Microsoft 365 Business Premium was removed as a prerequisite for the rebranded Microsoft Defender Suite.