Cyber security for Irish small businesses

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 Basic, Standard or Premium: what each adds for security, at Irish prices

All three Microsoft 365 business plans filter spam and malware and switch two-step sign-in on by default. Business Premium adds four things to that, and on 29 October 2026 Microsoft's Irish price for it was €27.73 a user a month, paid yearly, before VAT.

By Oscar CobbeCurrent as at 5 minute read6 sources

What every plan already has

Microsoft's security overview for its business plans starts from the same base for Basic, Standard and Premium:

  1. 1Microsoft Entra ID Free, which includes security defaults. Security defaults are on by default, so two-step sign-in is on by default for every user. Our Microsoft Authenticator guide covers what that asks of staff.
  2. 2The built-in protection for every cloud mailbox: anti-malware, anti-spam and spoofing protection, all on by default.
  3. 3Basic Mobility and Security, which Microsoft describes as a limited subset of Intune: device management for company data in supported apps on enrolled phones and tablets.

What Business Premium adds

Microsoft's table of the three plans, by area, and what each Premium addition does:

  1. 1Conditional Access, through Entra ID P1: rules for who can sign in, from what and where, in place of one setting for everyone. A rule can, for instance, ask for two-step sign-in every time from outside the office, or allow company data only on devices the business manages.
  2. 2Defender for Office 365 Plan 1: impersonation protection in the anti-phishing policies, Safe Attachments, which checks attachments in a virtual environment before they are delivered, Safe Links, which checks links again when they are clicked, and Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams.
  3. 3Intune Plan 1: full device management, including Macs, and app protection that keeps company data separate on a member of staff's own phone without managing the whole phone.
  4. 4Defender for Business: endpoint security for laptops and desktops, which Microsoft describes as equivalent to Defender for Endpoint Plan 1 with some features from Plan 2.
BasicStandardPremium
Sign-in and accountsEntra ID Free, security defaultsEntra ID Free, security defaultsEntra ID P1, with Conditional Access
Email and collaborationBuilt-in mailbox protectionBuilt-in mailbox protectionAdds Defender for Office 365 Plan 1
DevicesBasic Mobility and SecurityBasic Mobility and SecurityAdds Intune Plan 1 and Defender for Business

The Irish prices, 29 October 2026

From Microsoft's Irish plan page, per user per month, paid yearly, on an annual subscription that renews automatically, before VAT. The page has views with and without Teams; these are the prices it opens with.

PlanPrice a user a month
Microsoft 365 Business Basic€6.07
Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot€20.36
Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot€27.73
Microsoft Defender for Business, on its own€2.60

For ten people

Moving ten people from Standard to Premium at these prices costs €884.40 a year more before VAT (€7.37 a person a month). Basic has web and mobile apps only; Standard and Premium add the desktop apps.

Which plan fits which business

Basic and Standard have the same security, so the choice between them is about the apps. Premium is the security decision.

  1. 1Basic, where everyone works in a browser and on their phone. Its security is the same as Standard's.
  2. 2Standard, where staff need the desktop apps. It adds no security to Basic.
  3. 3Premium, where the business needs to decide which devices can reach its data, where staff use their own phones for work email, or where laptops need managed protection. If a cyber insurance proposal form asks about device management or endpoint protection, Premium answers both; our guide to the insurance questionnaire covers the rest of what it asks.
  4. 4Standard with Defender for Business added, where the gap is protection on laptops and desktops but not Conditional Access or device management.

Settings that matter on every plan

Microsoft's own advice in the same overview is that the default email protection is good and that the Standard or Strict preset security policies are better, so turning one of them on is the first change on any plan. Leave security defaults on unless Conditional Access replaces them. And switch on DKIM for your own domain: on every plan, Microsoft signs mail with the tenant's onmicrosoft.com name until you do, which our Microsoft 365 email guide explains step by step.

Sources

  1. 1.Microsoft 365 for business security overview · Microsoft Learn
  2. 2.Find the best Microsoft 365 plan for your business (Ireland) · Microsoft
  3. 3.Requirements for Microsoft Defender for Business · Microsoft Learn
  4. 4.Safe Attachments in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 · Microsoft Learn
  5. 5.Safe Links in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 · Microsoft Learn
  6. 6.Security defaults in Microsoft Entra ID · Microsoft Learn

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Who wrote this

Oscar Cobbe · Founder, FourWinds Digital

Writes and maintains the legal explainers on this site, and does the compliance work behind them. Every date and article number here is checked against the legislation itself before it is published, and each article shows the date it was last checked.

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Written on 29 October 2026; it describes the law as FourWinds read it on that date. This is general information about how the rules work, not legal advice on your situation. Where you need a solicitor, we say so. How we check the law.