Updated: April 12, 2024 (March 1, 2024)

  Analyst Report

Hazards of Partial Microsoft 365 E5 Licensing

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,256 wordsTime to read: 7 min
Wes Miller by
Wes Miller

Wes Miller analyzes and writes about Microsoft’s security, identity management, and systems management technologies. Before joining Directions on Microsoft, Wes... more

  • Microsoft 365 E5 security and regulatory compliance services create license compliance risks unless all users are licensed with E5.
  • Almost all Microsoft 365 security and compliance services lack license enforcement to effectively control usage.

Microsoft 365 E5 adds enterprise-level security and compliance services to Microsoft 365 E3. The risk of Microsoft 365 E5 is that the included security and compliance services generally do not provide license enforcement to prevent unlicensed user access. Because of this weak enforcement, organizations attempting to save costs by purchasing E5 licenses for a subset of users will create long-term license compliance problems because some services (after they have been enabled) require all users in the organization to be licensed with E5 (or an equivalent). The result could be large unbudgeted charges after a license audit or review.

Description of Hazard

Microsoft offers four tiers of Microsoft 365 services for enterprise customers, all licensed on a Per-User basis:

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