Many organizations running Microsoft 365 E5 are also paying separately for SASE products, zero trust tools, standalone identity platforms, and a Copilot license.
That is three to four additional vendors, three to four contracts, and a per-user cost that adds up quickly.
Microsoft 365 E7 consolidates all of it. Announced on March 9, 2026, and generally available May 1st, it is the first new enterprise Microsoft 365 SKU since E5 launched in 2015.
For organizations already carrying most of those components, the upgrade math is worth a close look.
Microsoft 365 E7 starts where E5 leaves off.
It takes the full E5 stack and adds three components: the Entra Suite, Copilot for Microsoft 365, and Agent 365. Microsoft has branded it the "Frontier" SKU, a designation for organizations that are moving beyond AI experimentation and need the infrastructure to operate it at scale.
The list price is $99 per user per month.
Microsoft has used the term "Frontier" consistently over the past year to describe organizations leading in AI adoption. It is both a brand framework and a technical classification inside the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Enabling Frontier features in your tenant unlocks access to Copilot capabilities before they reach general availability. Some features are org-wide, while others can be scoped to specific users, giving IT teams flexibility to pilot advanced functionality without rolling it out to everyone.
A few examples of what Frontier unlocks:
Frontier status is also a prerequisite for early Cowork access. Microsoft has published a process for enabling the required features in your tenant, which is the entry point for the early access program.
E5 is the foundation of E7 and includes:
At approximately $60 per user per month, E5 has been the most comprehensive Microsoft licensing option available prior to E7.
The Entra Suite is one of the clearest consolidation opportunities in the E7 bundle for organizations currently paying for a third-party SASE or identity platform.
It includes SASE capabilities through Global Secure Access and Private Access, which enables an always-on VPN from managed endpoints. This is useful for organizations with legacy line-of-business applications in on-premises data centers that should not be exposed to the public internet.
It also includes zero trust controls that restrict access to devices coming in over secure, managed connections, along with additional identity protection capabilities. The Entra Suite is priced at approximately $12 per user per month when purchased separately.
E7 includes the full Copilot for Microsoft 365 license, embedding AI assistance across Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, Excel, and Word. It also includes Copilot Studio for building and deploying custom agents. This license runs approximately $30 per user per month on its own.
Copilot Cowork is being added to this license and does not require E7 to access. Cowork shifts AI from assisting with individual tasks to executing multi-step workflows across applications on a user's behalf.
Agent 365 is Microsoft's governance layer for AI agents running inside your Microsoft 365 environment. It gives IT administrators centralized visibility over every agent in the tenant, including third-party agents, with identity-grade controls and audit trails built in.
It is priced at approximately $15 per user per month.
Here is how the components break down individually versus bundled:
|
Component |
Individual Cost |
|
Microsoft 365 E5 |
~$60/user/month |
|
Entra Suite |
~$12/user/month |
|
Copilot for Microsoft 365 |
~$30/user/month |
|
Agent 365 |
~$15/user/month |
|
Total Individual |
~$117/user/month |
|
Microsoft 365 E7 |
$99/user/month |
For organizations currently running E3 with multiple third-party tools bolted on, the gap widens further. Standalone SASE products, identity platforms, and agentic management tools each carry their own contract and administrative overhead. E7 consolidates those into a single Microsoft agreement.
Microsoft is also offering a 15% first-year discount on E7 through qualifying partners, with a minimum of five seats required to be eligible.
Organizations already under an E5 commitment have options to upgrade mid-term, which is worth reviewing with your Microsoft partner before purchasing.
Tools from Anthropic, OpenAI, and others have made significant inroads among enterprise users, particularly those reaching for productivity and automation tools outside of their corporate stack.
Microsoft is positioning E7 as the enterprise-grade alternative to the growing number of AI tools employees are already reaching for outside the corporate stack. The difference is that everything runs inside the Microsoft 365 tenant, under the compliance and e-discovery framework organizations already have in place.
There is also a security argument embedded in the timing. Microsoft acknowledged in the E7 announcement that developing AI introduces security challenges that did not previously exist. Rather than releasing the AI capabilities first and addressing governance later, E7 pairs the features with the full Purview compliance stack and Agent 365 from day one.
When is Microsoft 365 E7 Available?
Microsoft 365 E7 will be generally available around May 1, 2026. Copilot Cowork was released in public preview in April 2026, initially rolling out through the Frontier preview program.
Not every organization is at the point where E7 makes sense.
For those already on E5 and carrying separate costs for identity, SASE, or Copilot, the comparison is worth running. For those still building their Microsoft foundation, the additional components may be more than what is needed right now.
The Sourcepass MCOE team can help you figure out where E7 fits, or whether it does at all.
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Nicole Walker