Skip to main content
license/atlas

Methodology and sources

How License Atlas is put together, where every value comes from, and what changed.

An independent reference

License Atlas is an independent Microsoft 365 licensing reference. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Microsoft. Microsoft, Microsoft 365 and the product names on this site are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Licensing terms are Microsoft’s: confirm what you buy with Microsoft or your licensing partner.

What “verified” means

A value is verified on a date when it was compared that day with the Microsoft page it cites: plan coverage with the service plan reference, Microsoft’s plan comparison pages and Microsoft Learn; prices with Microsoft’s own pricing pages; retirement dates with the official notice each record links to. It does not mean Microsoft reviewed this site. The catalog was last verified on November 1, 2026.

Accuracy is measured, not assumed: a random, stratified sample of plan-feature cells is checked against the sources, and the error rate before and after fixes is published with the evidence for every cell (November 2026: 111 cells, 9 errors found and fixed, 0 after).

Coverage rules

  • A feature counts as included only when the sources say so outright. Partial, announced, add-on and “verify” cells are shown but never counted.
  • A suite includes what its components include (Microsoft 365 E5 includes E3), and a “no Teams” offer is its base plan without the Teams features.
  • Government clouds (GCC, GCC High, DoD) differ by cloud, so commercial coverage inherited by a government plan is marked “verify” unless a Microsoft source confirms it for that cloud.
  • Prices are US list prices per user/month with an annual commitment, exactly as Microsoft shows them. A price in another unit (per room, per device) or a “from” price is shown as such and never ranked against per-user prices. When Microsoft publishes no price, the page says why. Prices are never estimated.
  • Find a plan combines a base plan with add-ons only when each add-on’s prerequisite is met, carries over user limits (Business plans: 300 users) and adds published prices. A combination with an unpriced license has no total.
  • Retirement dates are the day Microsoft gives, or the month when it gives only a month (shown as “Month only”). Days count in UTC.
  • Included
  • Included at that level
  • Add-on
  • Partial or announced
  • Unclear in the sources; verify before buying
  • Not included

How it stays current

A check runs every day. It fails, and opens an issue for the maintainer, when a coverage marker names a date that has passed, or when the catalog, a lifecycle dataset, a list price or an announced cell has not been re-checked for 90 days. The site is rebuilt every day, so lifecycle horizons and relative dates are always counted from today. Every data change goes through a scripted pipeline that validates the catalog before each build.

Sources

Licensing

Retirements

Each price, plan page and retirement also links to the exact page it was read on.

Changelog

  1. Every plan now shows a price or says why it has none

    • List prices for six plans that showed none, read on Microsoft’s pages: Microsoft Viva Suite ($12.00), the Microsoft Defender Suite and the Microsoft Purview Suite for Business Premium ($10.00 each, $15.00 together), Exchange Online Archiving ($3.00) and Exchange Online Protection ($1.00), per user/month with an annual commitment.
    • Prices in their own unit for six: Teams Rooms Pro ($40.00 per room/month), Teams Rooms Basic (no cost, up to 25 rooms), Teams Shared Space ($8.00 per device), and Windows 365 Business, Enterprise and Flex (“from” prices for the smallest Cloud PC, monthly subscriptions). They are shown but never ranked against per-user prices.
    • The reason Microsoft publishes no price for fifteen more, such as the frontline Defender and Purview suites, Office 365 F3 (sold to new customers through partners only), Teams EEA (euros only) and Copilot Studio (priced by usage).

  2. Lifecycle dates say when Microsoft gave only a month

    • Twelve retirements whose source gives only a month (for example “in March 2027”) are shown as that month, tagged “Month only”, count in months and are never shown as “Today” or “In 3 days”.
    • Impact ratings were removed: Microsoft does not publish one, and only 29 of 168 records had a rating, which could not be applied consistently across products, services and APIs. Each record’s notes say what happens on the date.
    • Replacements that Microsoft does not name are no longer shown as “Move to Not specified by Microsoft”, and versions are no longer repeated in titles.

  3. Clearer catalog sections and feature names

    • Eighteen plan categories, several with two or three plans, became twelve sections; old category links open the section they joined.
    • Feature names follow one naming guide (sentence case, abbreviations spelled out). Feature ids, and so every link, are unchanged.
    • The Office apps and services row now shows Business plans’ edition instead of “—”, which read as “no Office”; “SCA” is spelled out as shared computer activation.
    • Every add-on states its prerequisite in a form Find a plan can check, so it can combine a plan with add-ons.

  4. Matrix audit and official list prices

    • A random, stratified sample of 111 plan-feature cells was checked against the service plan reference, Microsoft’s plan comparison pages and Learn: 9 errors before, 0 after. The systematic causes were fixed across whole rows (341 cells).
    • Official US list prices were recorded for 57 plans, and Find a plan ranks by them.
    • Eleven announced Copilot Chat cells were confirmed as available; the other 53 announced cells each have a dated record and are re-checked within 90 days.

Compare plans · Find a plan by feature · Microsoft retirements