Microsoft 365 Backup pricing, explained
There is no per-seat licence and no tier to choose. Microsoft 365 Backup is metered: $0.15 per GB of protected content per month, billed through Azure. Everything that makes the price hard to predict comes from what "protected content" turns out to mean.
Rate source: Microsoft 365 Backup pricing, last verified .
One unit, one rate
The meter counts gigabytes of protected content, measured continuously and charged monthly. It does not count users, mailboxes, sites or restores. Two tenants with the same headcount can differ several times over on the same rate card, and the same tenant's bill moves whenever its storage does, in either direction.
This is the whole reason a headcount-based quote misleads. If you want the number for a specific tenant rather than the shape of the model, the Microsoft 365 backup cost calculator takes your own volumes and gives you a monthly figure.
What the meter counts
| Billable | Not billable |
|---|---|
| Primary mailboxes in the policy | Restores, at any volume or frequency |
| Online archive mailboxes | Mailboxes and sites outside the policy |
| OneDrive accounts and SharePoint sites | Teams chat, which native backup does not protect |
| File version history on those sites | Data already past its retention period |
| Recoverable items — the recycle bin and deleted-item stores | Egress, because the data never leaves Microsoft |
The right-hand column is why quotes come in low and invoices come in high. Archives, version history and recoverable items are all billable and none of them appear in the usage reports most estimates start from. The PowerShell scripts for archive and deleted-item sizes read the parts the reports leave out.
A rate this simple has no volume discount, no committed-use tier and no minimum, which cuts both ways: nothing to negotiate, and nothing to forecast wrong. The only lever you have on the invoice is what you choose to put in the policy.
Billed through Azure, not through your Microsoft 365 licence
Charges land on an Azure subscription as consumption, not on the Microsoft 365 bill, and the feature cannot be enabled without one. For most organisations that is a procurement step rather than a technical one, and it is the most common reason a tenant that has decided to use native backup still isn't running it a month later. There is no annual commitment to sign: usage starts and stops with the policy.
Per-GB against per-user
Almost every third-party backup product prices per user per month, typically between $2.63 and $7.00. That is a different model, not merely a different number, and the two behave in opposite directions.
- Per-user pricing is flat. A user with a 90 GB mailbox and a user with a 2 GB mailbox cost the same, so the price is predictable and heavy tenants are subsidised by light ones.
- Per-GB pricing tracks what you actually hold. Light tenants pay very little; a tenant with large archives can pass the per-user band without anyone noticing, because nothing about the rate card changes when it does.
For the 300-seat tenant modelled on the cost page, native works out to $9.13 per user per month — which is the figure a per-user quote has to beat, and the comparison most rate-card tables never make. The worked examples at 50, 300 and 1,000 seats show where the crossover falls at each end of that band.
Costing several tenants at once is a different exercise again, because the per-GB bill does not follow headcount and your smallest client is not reliably your cheapest. The MSP portfolio view prices a book of clients together and reports the margin on each.
What the price does not include
Pricing and coverage are separate questions, and the cheaper number is worth nothing if it does not protect what you need back. Native backup covers Exchange, OneDrive and SharePoint only, restores into the same tenant, and keeps data for a bounded retention period — what native backup doesn't cover at any price is the half of the decision no rate card settles.
Price your own tenant Compare with third-party backup
Frequently asked questions
How is Microsoft 365 Backup priced?
Microsoft 365 Backup is priced at $0.15 per GB of protected content per month. There is no per-user licence; the bill depends on mailbox, archive, OneDrive and SharePoint storage.
What counts as protected content?
Protected content includes primary mailboxes, online archives, OneDrive accounts, and SharePoint sites. It also includes version history and recycle-bin contents, which are billable but not shown in the standard usage reports.
Is Microsoft 365 Backup cheaper than third-party backup?
It depends on data volume. A per-user third-party product in the $2.63-$7.00 range wins when protected storage per user is high. The crossover for this page's example is shown in the comparison table.
Is Microsoft 365 Backup included in my Microsoft 365 licence?
No. Microsoft 365 Backup is an add-on billed through Azure at the per-GB rate. It is not included in Microsoft 365 Business, Enterprise or Education plans.
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