Microsoft 365 E3 vs E5

31/03/25 Wavenet

Microsoft 365 E3 vs E5

Microsoft 365 is widely recognised as the go-to business IT solution provider supporting millions of businesses around the world to be more productive and collaborative around-the-clock. Known for its Office suite of apps, Microsoft 365 has been powering everyday business activities for years. As businesses adopt more of the features included in their Microsoft 365 licensing plan and experience the benefits in terms of productivity, collaboration, and cyber resilience, they often seek additional ways to benefit from advanced functionality, and naturally look to move to the next plan type.

As businesses become increasingly security-conscious in response to emerging threats and look to find ways to protect their data, they often consider whether the existing licensing plan is sufficient to meet their needs.

In this post, we explore the benefits of upgrading from Microsoft 365 E3 to E5 plan, and why businesses should consider investing in additional features.

Whilst the E3 plan offers excellent protection from cyber security, businesses can benefit from even greater advanced security, compliance capabilities and sophisticated business analytics by upgrading to the E5 plan.

Here are some of the most common benefits that organisations choose to take advantage of when upgrading to Microsoft 365’s E5 plan.

Enhanced security capabilities

The primary reason businesses move from E3 to E5 is for the extensive and advanced security features that come with upgrading, which offer additional levels of security and resilience. The advanced features covered include protection against targeted cyberattacks with Microsoft Defender for Identity, protection against malicious threats with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, which both reduces the risk of attacks from happening but also detects when they have, allowing you to take swift action. With an E5 plan, 97% of threats are automatically eliminated or contained.

Advanced analytics and insights

With an E5 plan, users can access advanced Power BI capabilities with Power BI Pro, including the ability to share and collaborate on reports, as well as taking advantage of generative AI-enabled insights to support with business decision making. With Power BI Pro, access to real-time insights has never been easier.

Bolstered compliance

By upgrading to E5, businesses may be able to replace disparate 3rd party vendor solutions, keeping everything you could possibly need under one roof, which in itself offers data protection benefits as the number of locations you’re sharing sensitive data is reduced.

Internal risk management

At a time when 93% of businesses are concerned about insider risk, Microsoft 365 E5 plan provides businesses with rich insights about risky users and opportunities to automate risk management processed to restrict those users to protect against data breaches. With E5 licensing, businesses can protect and govern sensitive data better than ever before.

Improved identity and access management

Through Azure Active Entra ID (Formerly Azure Active Directory), businesses can protect access to data and resources through an enhanced and easy-to-update access policies. Manage access and identified in one central place, keeping users productive with a unified experience that spans multi-cloud environments.

Is the E5 upgrade right for your business?

When you compare Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licenses side-by-side, it’s no surprise that E5 comes out on top. With the investments Microsoft are making in the security of their customers, businesses can rest assured knowing that their systems have the best possible security.

Despite a higher per-license cost, the benefits of upgrading make the investment both a sensible and strategic one. An independent study by Forrest Consulting found an average return on investment of 203%, with many businesses reporting that prior to moving from E3 to E5, they had duplicate capabilities and solutions that they have since been able to consolidate.

If you are concerned about an unforeseen cost, you can look at your business use case and consider which users would benefit from an upgrade, without having to upgrade your entire workforce.

Add value to your investment with Wavenet’s Security Operations Centre

Wavenet’s 24x7x365 UK based Security operations Centre (SOC), can add value to the E5 subscription by providing monitoring and fast incident response in the event of a cyber-attack. Our specialists use the inbuilt tools in E5 to identify compromises and act promptly to stop cyber breaches occurring before our customers data or identity is encrypted or stolen.

Making the right choice

Wavenet offer a variety of services and solutions that can help accelerate and secure your business. If you’re looking to upgrade but would like to discuss your options, our expert team are on hand to help. By assessing your needs, we can advise on the right plan for you, as well as answer any of your questions you may have to help make your business brilliant!

Get in touch here.

Microsoft, Microsoft E3, Microsoft E5

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