Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams pricing — Free and Essentials
Microsoft's own published global USD list pricing for standalone Teams — a free tier and a $4/user/month Essentials plan — plus the Teams Phone, Rooms and Premium add-ons. We license, deploy and manage Teams for your organization.
How Teams licensing works
Standalone Teams has two real tiers: Free (no license) and Essentials, published as an annual subscription at $4/user/month (paid yearly, auto-renews, 7-day cancellation window with prorated refund) — Microsoft does not publish a separate month-to-month rate for Essentials. Beyond meetings and chat, Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Standard already bundle Teams with email and Office apps — see Brocent's Microsoft 365 pricing page for those real per-market rates. Brocent procures, licenses, deploys and manages Teams for your organization, including migration from your current meeting platform.
Free
Free
Up to 100 participants · 60-minute cap on group meetings
No license purchase needed. 1:1 calls are unlimited; meetings with 3+ participants cut off at 60 minutes (a new session can start immediately after with the same link). 5 GB of cloud storage.
Get a quote →Teams Essentials
Most popular$4 / user / month
Annual subscription, paid yearly
Up to 300 participants · meetings up to 30 hours · 10 GB storage per user
Unlimited meetings with recordings, transcripts and live captions (English), unlimited chat including guest access, calendar integration with Outlook or Google, and data encryption for meetings, chats, calls and files. Microsoft publishes this as an annual subscription (paid yearly, auto-renews) — no separate month-to-month rate is listed.
Get a quote →Microsoft's own published global USD list prices, observed 2026-08-24. Subject to change by Microsoft without notice.
Where this pricing applies
These are Microsoft's global commercial-cloud list prices — the standard worldwide channel Brocent licenses through for the markets it serves, including Hong Kong and Singapore. They don't apply to Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet, a physically separate, China-hosted commercial cloud independently administered by 21Vianet with some features unavailable versus the global product — deployments inside mainland China need their own quote.
Mainland China notice
Separately: Microsoft is discontinuing Teams for personal (free, consumer-account) use in mainland China — mobile access is already removed, and desktop/web access ends August 17, 2026. This affects personal Microsoft accounts only; Teams under a paid Essentials, Business, or Enterprise license is unaffected.
Add Teams Phone, Rooms and more
Beyond the two core tiers, Microsoft sells calling, room hardware and AI capabilities as separate add-ons. These are one-line mentions, not full pricing tables — ask us to size the right combination for your team.
Teams Phone Standard
$10 / user / month
Adds PSTN-capable calling to Teams (bring your own carrier or add a Microsoft Calling Plan separately).
Microsoft Teams Calling Plan
$13–34 / user / month
Bundled domestic/international minutes from Microsoft; exact rate depends on region and plan (Domestic vs. Domestic and International).
Teams Rooms Pro
$40 / room / month
Licenses a physical meeting room as a managed Teams Rooms device, with centralized management and analytics.
Teams Premium
$10 / user / month
Adds AI-generated meeting notes and recaps, advanced meeting protection (watermarking, sensitivity labels), custom branding and webinar/town-hall capacity on top of an existing Teams license.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
$18 / user / month
Not a Teams-only SKU — this is the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on, which also brings AI meeting summaries and follow-ups into Teams once licensed.
Which tier fits
Casual or internal use with no budget yet
Free needs no license purchase — 1:1 calls are unlimited and group meetings work fine within the 60-minute cap. It covers light or internal use until group meetings routinely need to run longer or need recordings.
Small businesses that want professional meetings without buying the full M365 suite
Teams Essentials at $4/user/month (paid yearly) removes the 60-minute cap (30-hour meetings), adds 10 GB of cloud recording storage per user and unlimited guest chat — the natural next step once Free's time limit and lack of recording become limiting.
Teams that already need email, files and the rest of the suite, not just meetings
Microsoft 365 Business Basic — from $7/user/month — already includes everything in Teams Essentials plus Exchange email, OneDrive and 1 TB of storage per user. See Brocent's Microsoft 365 pricing page for real per-market rates rather than paying for Teams and email separately.
Microsoft Teams pricing FAQ
Is Teams Free really free forever?
Yes — no license purchase is required and there's no expiry. The trade-offs are a 60-minute cap on meetings with 3 or more participants (1:1 calls are unlimited), and 5 GB of cloud storage rather than the 10 GB per user Essentials includes.
What's the difference between Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 Business Basic?
Essentials ($4/user/month) is meetings and chat only — no email, no Office apps. Business Basic (from $7/user/month) includes everything Essentials has plus Exchange email, OneDrive and 1 TB of storage per user. If you only need meetings, Essentials is cheaper; if you need email too, Business Basic replaces both for a relatively small premium.
Is there a month-to-month rate for Teams Essentials?
Microsoft's own pricing page publishes only the annual-subscription rate ($4/user/month, paid yearly, auto-renews) for Essentials — no separate month-to-month, no-commitment price is listed, unlike some other Microsoft 365 plans. Ask Brocent to confirm current terms before purchase.
Does Teams Essentials include Copilot AI features?
No — Microsoft 365 Copilot is a separate add-on ($18/user/month) licensed on top of an existing Teams or Microsoft 365 plan. Essentials on its own includes recordings and transcripts, but not AI-generated meeting summaries.
Is Microsoft Teams being discontinued in mainland China?
Only the free personal/consumer version — not licensed business plans. Microsoft has already removed Teams for personal use on mobile in mainland China, and will discontinue desktop and web access for personal accounts on August 17, 2026. Teams under a paid Essentials, Business, or Enterprise license — including the mainland-China-hosted Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet — is unaffected by this change.
Rolling out Teams across your team?
Tell us your headcount, whether you need Teams Phone, Rooms or Copilot, and whether you already have (or need) the rest of Microsoft 365 — we'll size the right plan, handle migration from your current platform, and configure policies for you.