Insights

From 1st May 2026, Microsoft has introduced a new top tier to its Microsoft 365 enterprise licensing stack. This article gives a clear breakdown of what E7 is, what’s included, how it compares to E3 and E5, and whether it’s worth considering for your organisation.

What is Microsoft 365 E7?

Microsoft 365 E7 is the new premium tier of Microsoft 365, which sits above E3 and E5. Microsoft has branded it the “Frontier Suite,” positioning it as the most complete and forward-looking bundle in the Microsoft 365 family.

At its core, E7 combines everything in E5 with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365 (to manage and govern AI agent creation), and Entra Suite. It’s designed for organisations that want a single, simplified licence that covers productivity, security, compliance, and AI capabilities together.

What’s included in Microsoft 365 E7? How does it compare to E3 or E5?

There are now three Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans: E3, E5 and now E7. For companies with fewer than 300 employees, the Business plans are recommended.

Microsoft 365 E3 covers the essentials: Office apps, Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, device management through Intune, and core identity and compliance features. It’s a solid foundation for most organisations; however, we do find it misses some key security features, which is why at Chorus we recommend adding Microsoft Defender Suite with it to be able to access tools such as full EDR with Defender for Endpoint P2, Entra ID P2, Defender for Identity and more.

Microsoft 365 E5 builds on E3 by adding advanced security, compliance, and analytics. This includes the powerful security capabilities within Microsoft Defender Suite, Microsoft Purview Suite for data governance and compliance tools, Teams Phone System and Power BI Pro. E5 is often the right choice for organisations that want full security and compliance tools and also the Power BI and Teams capabilities.

Microsoft 365 E7 includes everything in E5, as well as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365, and Entra Suite add-on. For organisations with E5, Copilot has been available as a separate add-on licence. With E7, it comes as part of the package and includes the new ‘Agent 365’ platform and Entra Suite add-on (more on both in a minute).

The practical difference between E5 and E7 is straightforward: if you’re already paying for E5 and purchasing Copilot licences separately, E7 may represent better value depending on your user numbers and if you’re considering Agent 365 and Entra Suit add-on. If you’re on E3 and considering the jump to E5 and use Copilot, E7 is a route worth evaluating.

What is Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Hopefully most people are aware of Copilot by now – it’s Microsoft’s AI assistant and built into your productivity apps like Word, PowerPoint, Excel etc, grounded in your secure, organisational data to give accurate context. Features include Chat, Agents and Researcher – giving you organisation-ready AI with Microsoft’s built-in security, governance and integration.

What is Agent 365?

Agent 365 is a centralised platform for organisations to gain visibility, management and governance controls over any AI agents being built by people in your company. AI is being widely used today – sometimes in an approved way, other times by people doing things their own way. Agent 365 gives you the controls to manage and govern the deployment of AI agents – something that will become crucial and AI adoption becomes widespread within organisations. It can be purchased as a stand-alone add-on to E3 and E5 or is included in E7.

What is Entra Suite add-on for Entra ID P2?

The Entra Suite add-on includes the more advanced identity and access management features into a single bundle. It includes Entra Private Access, Entra Internet Access, and other premium features. It can be purchased as a stand-alone add-on to E3 and E5 or is included in E7.

If the licensing confuses you, you’re not alone! M365 Maps is a fantastic resource and way to visualise what’s included that we would recommend: https://m365maps.com/

What does "Frontier Suite" really mean?

Microsoft calls E7 the Frontier Suite because it’s designed to sit at the leading edge of what Microsoft’s commercial platform can do today. It’s simply marketing language to represent that it is the bundle for organisations that want to move forward with AI-assisted working and be at the front of the AI race with all the right tools in place. ‘Frontier’ is going to be a term we see a lot from Microsoft going forwards.

Why should you consider upgrading to E7?

Whether Microsoft 365 E7 makes sense for you depends on where you are today and what you’re trying to achieve. There are a few scenarios where E7 is worth a serious look.

Using E5 already and buying Copilot licences – If you’re on E5 and already purchasing Copilot add-ons for a significant proportion of your users, moving to E7 would reduce complexity and could potentially lower your per-user cost overall.

Planning wide-scale Copilot adoption – If you’re evaluating Copilot adoption and want to roll it out broadly, E7 removes the friction of managing it as a separate add-on. It then also ensures you have all the right tools for the surrounding data governance and security you need to be able to roll out AI (including AI agents) confidently and securely.

If you’re a larger SMB or enterprise customer building a long-term Microsoft strategy, E7 represents where Microsoft is investing. Bundling Copilot into a core plan signals that AI-assisted productivity is becoming a standard expectation, not an optional extra.

If you’re on E3, the jump to E7 is significant in cost terms and may not be the right next step. Moving to E5 first, or exploring Copilot as a targeted add-on, may be more appropriate depending on your current maturity and budget.

Microsoft 365 E7 UK pricing: how much does it cost?

Before giving pricing its worth a short note on licensing through the ‘New Commerce Experience’ (NCE) although no longer very new. Organisations can purchase licensing with either an annual commitment (committing to an agreed minimum number of licences for a yearly term), or a monthly commitment (only committing to a month but has a 20% premium to it).

Microsoft 365 E7 pricing:

• Annual commitment, paid monthly is £85.68 per user per month
• Annual commitment, paid annually is £979.20 per user per annum
• Monthly commitment, paid monthly £97.92 per user per month

Prices correct as of May 2026 and doesn’t include any promotions. Pricing is subject to change and will be regularly evaluated against fluctuating exchange rates. Typically, Microsoft evaluate this twice a year, but it could change any time.

Microsoft 365 E7 vs E5 and add-ons

How does pricing work out compared to buying the tools separately?

Let’s do this based on an annual commitment with monthly billing. Prices below and per user per month.

*Note: Microsoft 365 E5 pricing will increase from July 2026, read this article for more information

This shows that it is worth considering E7 compared to buying the items individually with nearly £10 per user per month saving – and likely to be more when the price of Microsoft 365 E5 goes up in JUly.