Checked by Hanny Ramzy on 25 September 2026. Drafted with AI help, then checked against Microsoft's own product pages and documentation.
Office 365 and Microsoft 365 are mostly the same thing under two names. On 21 April 2020, Microsoft renamed its small business and home Office 365 plans to Microsoft 365. Microsoft said at the time that only the names changed, not the prices or features. If your invoice, an old quotation or your IT person still says “Office 365”, you almost certainly have one of today’s Microsoft 365 plans.
There is one catch, and it trips up a lot of business owners: the old Office 365 Business Premium is not today’s Microsoft 365 Business Premium. It is today’s Business Standard. The table below shows every rename.
We are an authorised Google Workspace reseller and we also run our own business email, Office Niaga Mail. Malaysian business owners who are comparing us with Microsoft often ask us which Microsoft plan they are on, so we wrote this guide to answer that clearly. Because we sell a competing product, we have stuck to Microsoft’s own pages for every fact below.
What each old business plan is called now
Microsoft renamed four small business plans on 21 April 2020. The renames happened automatically, so nobody had to do anything:
| Old name (before April 2020) | Name today |
|---|---|
| Office 365 Business Essentials | Microsoft 365 Business Basic |
| Office 365 Business Premium | Microsoft 365 Business Standard |
| Office 365 Business | Microsoft 365 Apps for business |
| Microsoft 365 Business | Microsoft 365 Business Premium |
The trap is in rows two and four. “Business Premium” was the top Office 365 small business plan, and the name then moved to the plan above it. So if a supplier quotes you “Business Premium” and your old invoice also says “Business Premium”, check the date. The old one had the Office apps, email and file storage. Today’s Business Premium adds device management and extra security on top of that, so it is a bigger plan than the old one.
At the same time, Office 365 ProPlus, the apps-only plan for large companies, became Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise.
Home plans: Personal and Family
The home subscriptions changed on the same date. Office 365 Personal became Microsoft 365 Personal, and Office 365 Home became Microsoft 365 Family, which the owner can share with up to five other people.
These are consumer plans, meant for a person or a household. They do not include email on your company domain or the Microsoft 365 admin centre, which you get with the business plans. If you want email on your own company domain, it is the business plans below that provide it.
Where the name “Office 365” still exists
The Office 365 name did not disappear completely. Microsoft kept it for its enterprise plans, which are for companies of any size, including those with more than 300 users. Microsoft lists two families of enterprise plans:
- Office 365 E1, E3 and E5. The Office apps (on E3 and E5), email, file storage and online services.
- Microsoft 365 E3 and E5. Everything in the matching Office 365 plan, plus Windows 11 Enterprise, device management with Microsoft Intune, sign-in protection with Microsoft Entra ID (Plan 1 in E3, Plan 2 in E5) and Microsoft Defender security tools.
Put simply, at the enterprise level, Microsoft 365 is Office 365 plus Windows and security. In May 2026 Microsoft also added Microsoft 365 E7, which is E5 plus its paid AI assistant, Copilot, and extra identity and AI agent tools.
Teams has also changed. Since 1 April 2024, new customers have bought these enterprise plans in a version marked “(no Teams)” and bought Teams separately. Companies that already had a plan with Teams can keep and renew it. For the business plans, Microsoft sells versions both with and without Teams, so read the plan name on a quotation carefully.
What today’s business plans include
Microsoft’s four business plans are designed for companies with up to 300 users. This is what Microsoft lists for each one, as of September 2026:
| Plan | Mailbox on your domain | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook | Teams | Cloud storage (OneDrive) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Basic | 100 GB | Web and mobile only | Yes, or a “(no Teams)” version | 1 TB per user |
| Business Standard | 100 GB | Desktop, web and mobile | Yes, or a “(no Teams)” version | 1 TB per user |
| Business Premium | 100 GB, plus an archive that can grow to 1.5 TB | Desktop, web and mobile | Yes, or a “(no Teams)” version | 1 TB per user |
| Apps for business | No mailbox | Desktop apps | No | 1 TB per user |
A few details matter when you compare them:
- Desktop apps. Business Standard and Business Premium let each user install the apps on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets and five phones. Business Basic has no desktop apps.
- Security. Business Premium adds Microsoft Intune for managing company laptops and phones, Microsoft Defender for Business against malware and ransomware, Defender for Office 365 for email, and a more advanced version of Microsoft Entra ID for sign-in security. It also includes an upgrade to Windows 11 Pro.
- Apps for business is the old Office 365 Business: the apps and OneDrive, but no company email and no Teams.
- Copilot. Microsoft now also sells Business Standard and Business Premium “with Copilot”, with its AI assistant built in. On the other plans, Copilot is an add-on.
Which one do I have?
There are two quick ways to check, depending on whether you manage the account or just use it.
If you are the admin, sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin centre at admin.microsoft.com and go to Billing > Your products. If your admin centre opens in the simplified view, select Subscriptions instead. You need to be a global admin or billing admin to see this page. It lists every subscription with the product name, the number of licences and the status. The page uses the current names, so a subscription bought as Office 365 Business Premium should show as Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
If you are a user, open Word (or Excel) on your computer and go to File > Account. Under Product Information you will see the product name, such as Microsoft 365 Apps for business. Your work email address appears under User Information.
Both screens should show one of the current names from the table above. If Word shows something like Office Home and Business 2021 or Office Professional 2021 instead, you have a one-time purchase of the desktop apps, not a subscription. Microsoft’s support for Office 2021 ends on 13 October 2026, after which it gets no more security fixes.
If you cannot see any of this, ask whoever set up your Microsoft account. That is often an outside IT supplier.
The app and website names changed too
The confusion does not stop at plan names. Microsoft has renamed its home app and website several times:
- The app. What was once simply “Office” became the Microsoft 365 app and then the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. In August 2026 Microsoft announced a simpler name again: the Microsoft 365 Copilot app is now called Microsoft Copilot. The new name and icon started arriving on 18 August 2026, with the wider rollout from mid-September, so you may see either name for a while.
- The website. When we tested on 25 September 2026, office.com and portal.office.com both forwarded to m365.cloud.microsoft. Microsoft has announced that the web app is moving again, to copilot.cloud.microsoft, with automatic redirects from the old address.
None of this changes your account, your email or your files. It is the same sign-in with your work email address.
How we checked this guide
Every fact in this guide comes from Microsoft’s own pages. We used Microsoft’s March 2020 announcements of the rename, its current plan and service descriptions on Microsoft Learn, its business plan comparison page, its Partner Center announcements up to September 2026, and its support articles on checking your product. We tested the office.com and portal.office.com redirects ourselves on 25 September 2026. We did not include prices, because Microsoft’s prices vary by country and supplier.
We drafted this guide with AI help. Hanny Ramzy then checked every plan name, rename and menu path against Microsoft’s pages on 25 September 2026. Microsoft renames products often, so we will update this page when names change again.
Choosing between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace?
If you are weighing up Microsoft 365 against Google Workspace for your team, WhatsApp our team on +60 16-916 3324 and we will talk it through with you. We sell Google Workspace, so we are not neutral. Tell us what you use today and we will say plainly whether a move makes sense.
To see what Google Workspace costs in Ringgit, see our Google Workspace pricing. If you have already decided to switch, our migration guide explains how we move email, calendars and files across.
Hanny RamzyHanny Ramzy runs Office Niaga at Web Impian Sdn. Bhd. (SSM 920163-H) in Kota Bharu, Malaysia, helping businesses and agencies move to Google Workspace and business email with Ringgit billing and local support.