Finding the right platform that meets all these needs can be a challenge.
Microsoft Teams is one such solution; offering both free and premium versions with features tailored to enable secure real time coordination across dispersed groups. We have evaluated the differences between the free and premium versions so you can be informed and consider what would best fit your specific requirements.
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that allows teams to communicate, collaborate, and share files in real time. Teams Premium is a paid subscription plan that includes additional features and capabilities not available in the free version of Teams.
Some features that stand out between the two versions are:
- Larger meeting and webinar capacities in Teams Premium- up to 20,000 participants compared to 300 participants in the free version.
- Teams Premium allows for custom branding of your team site, including adding your logo and customising the colours.
- Teams Premium includes a phone system with features such as call forwarding, voicemail, and auto-attendant.
- Teams Premium includes advanced security and compliance features such as data loss prevention, eDiscovery, and retention policies.
- Teams Premium includes access to additional apps and integrations, such as Salesforce, Adobe Sign, and Trello.
Compare the key features between Teams Free and Teams Premium below:
Meetings
| Feature | Teams | Teams Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Host and attend Teams Meetings | x | x |
| Experience Teams’ standard look and feel | x | x |
| Use standard and custom meeting backgrounds at the user level | x | x |
| Read live captions during meetings and live events | x | x |
| Customise meeting templates for your organisation | x | |
| Add organisation branding to meeting lobbies | x | |
| Customise meeting backgrounds for your organisation | x | |
| Customise Together mode scenes for your organisation | x | |
| Read live translated captions during meetings | x | |
| Translate post-meeting transcriptions (coming soon) | x | |
| Turn on eCDN for Live Events* | x |
eCDN can be acquired as a standalone license, and more licenses can be purchased outside of Teams Premium if needed. To learn about eCDN standalone licensing, see Microsoft eCDN.
Webinars
| Feature | Teams | Teams Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Require attendees to register | x | x |
| Assign a co-organiser | x | x |
| Limit the number of people who can register | x | x |
| Turn on Q&A for webinars with up to 1000 attendees | x | x |
| View attendance reports | x | x |
| Integrate with Dynamics 365 | x | x |
| Set up a green room for webinar presenters | x | |
| Manage attendees’ view | x | |
| Send reminder emails to registrants | x | |
| Create a webinar waitlist | x | |
| Manually approve registrants | x | |
| Limit the day and time when people can register | x | |
| Allow registered users to bypass the lobby | x | |
| Use RTMP-In for Webinars (coming soon) | x |
Meetings Protection
| Feature | Teams | Teams Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Manage meeting lobbies | x | x |
| End-to-end encryption for one-to-one calls | x | x |
| Moderate meeting chats | x | x |
| Control who can present | x | x |
| Add watermarks to meetings | x | |
| End-to-end encryption for meetings with up to 50 attendees | x | |
| Control who can record | x | |
| Prevent copy/paste in meeting chats | x | |
| Assign Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels for meetings* | x | |
| Custom user policy packages | x | |
| Turn on advanced meeting monitoring and alerting | x |
This feature is only available to Teams Premium users with a Microsoft 365 E5 subscription or Microsoft E3 subscription plus the Advanced Compliance license. For more information on licensing requirements, see What are the requirements to purchase Teams Premium?
Meetings Reporting
| Feature | Teams | Teams Premium |
|---|---|---|
| View recordings of meetings | x | x |
| View meeting transcripts | x | x |
| View and use files added to meetings | x | x |
| View and use apps added to meetings | x | x |
| Navigate meeting recordings with autogenerated chapters (coming soon) | x | |
| Navigate meeting recordings with PPT live chapters | x | |
| View time markers in meeting recordings when you joined or left a meeting | x | |
| Search meeting transcripts with speaker suggestions (coming soon) | x | |
| View and act on autogenerated tasks from meetings (coming soon) | x | |
| View when you were @mentioned (coming soon) | x |
Virtual Appointments
| Feature | Teams | Teams Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Access Virtual Appointments with the Bookings app for scheduling, appointment management, and email notifications | x | x |
| Integrate Virtual Appointments using APIs | x | x |
| Join appointments from a browser | x | x |
| Join appointments in Teams | x | x |
| Allow users to join a virtual lobby waiting room | x | x |
| Integrate with Microsoft Forms | x | x |
| Customise the lobby waiting room with themes and logos | x | |
| Send SMS notifications | x | |
| Chat back and forth with attendees in the lobby waiting room (coming soon) | x | |
| Organisational and departmental analytics | x | |
| View and manage scheduled appointments in the queue | x | |
| View and manage on-demand appointments in the queue | x | |
| Send post-appointment follow-ups (coming soon) | x |