Initially, customers can get good prices for a three-year package, but renewal prices tend to increase significantly. If a customer looks for an alternative solution after three years, we often find it cheaper or the same as continuing with Microsoft.
Sr software development engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-11-28T12:51:00Z
Nov 28, 2023
Microsoft is so expensive. You know it is expensive when a Fortune 100 company like ours is complaining about the cost. That has been a big thing for me. When I really want to use an Azure service, it is very hard for me to justify the cost, especially with Microsoft support.
Systems Architect at a non-profit with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-11-28T12:49:00Z
Nov 28, 2023
Everything costs money in a tough market. As a nonprofit, we have A5 licenses for nonprofits in education, so we at least have some reduced costs. Looking at Copilot and a bunch of other features that are coming out, we'll have to seriously consider that cost-to-value ratio.
It enterprise director at a university with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-11-28T11:59:00Z
Nov 28, 2023
I work for an academic medical center, where there is a watch kept over every dollar spent. I do have concerns about the micro charges for different levels or features of the product.
VP of IT at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-11-28T10:47:00Z
Nov 28, 2023
Pricing could always be better. You pay the premium for Microsoft. Sometimes, it is worth it, and at other times, you wish to have more licensing options, especially for smaller companies.
It is good. We have Office 365 E3, and then that is tied in with Azure Active Directory. I believe that we only have to pay for our technician-level access or IT department access for Azure Active Directory Premium, which I am sure they call Entra Premium P2 licensing, so it is not a very large cost. We just adopted that, and that gives us a lot of insights into user security that we would not otherwise have.
CTO at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-11-28T10:03:00Z
Nov 28, 2023
Entra ID is not too bad, but Microsoft licensing generally is insane. Most customers normally buy a bundle license with Microsoft 365, E3, or E5. Out of our 2,000 customers, for 99.9% of our customers, the Entra ID license that they are getting through the part of that would be sufficient. There are some more advanced ones that give you a bit more functionality, but we probably have not had a customer for that. We do not even internally use that ourselves. When you buy the Entra ID license on its own, it is probably three or four pounds. You just get it included in the license. Most people buy it anyway because it comes with conditional access and Intune and all such things that they might use, so that is straightforward. Okta is not cheap. For a customer with 400 or 500 users, it is about 100 grand a year. It is like a premium product in price point comparison. When you move to Okta, you are not saving money on the Microsoft side, so it is not worth it for most companies.
IT Engineer at a recruiting/HR firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-10-20T11:05:00Z
Oct 20, 2023
I think the pricing is efficient, but the licensing is overly complicated and difficult to understand. There are many tricks in the licensing that weigh against us.
Cloud Infrastructure Specialist at Francotyp Postalia
Real User
Top 20
2023-08-11T09:59:00Z
Aug 11, 2023
When it comes to setup cost, pricing, and licensing for Entra ID, I would advise others to carefully assess their organization's specific needs and requirements. It's essential to have a clear understanding of the features and capabilities needed to support your business operations effectively. Consider the scalability of your organization and how Entra ID aligns with your growth plans. Microsoft offers various licensing options, so it's worth exploring the most suitable licensing model that fits your budget and operational demands. Additionally, keep in mind that while initial setup costs may vary, the long-term benefits of a secure and efficient identity management solution like Entra ID can significantly outweigh the initial investment. It's an investment in both security and productivity. Lastly, stay updated with Microsoft's licensing updates and pricing changes to ensure that your organization remains compliant and optimized in terms of cost-effectiveness." This advice provides a general guideline for organizations considering Entra ID, encouraging them to conduct a thorough evaluation of their needs and resources.
DevSecOps CISO Architect(Feature Engineer 3)- CISO Cyber Security Dept at ING
Real User
Top 5
2023-05-11T15:48:00Z
May 11, 2023
Entra ID's pricing is comprehensive and affordable. The prices are easy to understand, and the licenses include a variety of security monitoring and additional features.
The pricing for Azure Active Directory is affordable; I would rate the cost a six out of ten. As an educational company, we have access to very good discounts on the solution, making it even more affordable.
Information Security Officer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 5
2023-01-21T03:07:00Z
Jan 21, 2023
Our customers are looking for advanced features and processes for it to be cost-effective for their organizations. They see it as an overpriced product. They are enjoying using Azure Active Directory, but they are looking for better prices.
General Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 10
2023-01-18T21:25:00Z
Jan 18, 2023
The pricing of Azure Active Directory is competitive. By default, the product exists in almost every Microsoft cloud product. But it then depends on the features that a customer really wants to make use of. The extent of the security requirements will inform what kind of plan will be suitable for the customer's situation.
Active Directory is bundled with a package of Microsoft services, so it doesn't cost much. I don't know about the individual license of Active Directory.
The pricing is good and not complex. Any organization, middle or small, can easily adopt it. Microsoft is very flexible with the Azure AD pricing plan.
IT Infrastructure & Tech Support Manager at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2022-09-13T21:44:00Z
Sep 13, 2022
The price is fair. It's not very expensive given what they offer. Of course, we did some negotiating with Microsoft. We didn't pay the list price. We have been a Microsoft customer for many years, so when the contract comes due every three years, we discuss it. Afterward, there are some discounts.
Licenses are based on the usage. There is no cap. It's based on the number of users we provision. A SaaS solution is the best product. You get it at a better price and you have many Windows-based services that are included for free.
We are using the version that comes with Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Microsoft has a very weird way of licensing the product. With the standard on-prem edition, we can do a lot of regular, day-to-day maintenance, including creating policies and the like. We can't do that in Azure Active Directory. The Azure system is very basic in nature compared to what the server provides us. There are add-on components and services, such as identity services, that we have to add to our Azure subscription. Only then can I actually say it's on par with the on-prem server edition. Why should I pay for a component? It should be included in my subscription. I understand there may be an added fee, but don't remove an essential component. I am a career IT guy. When I start comparing my on-prem server against this cloud edition, I see that there are components missing. The money issue is secondary. Give me a solution that matches the Azure standard edition. They should ensure that whatever I have on my domain controller are the facilities that run here in Azure AD. For example, on the domain controller, if you are my user, I can let you create a 14-character or a 20-character password. I can't do that on Azure AD. To do that, I must get the Directory Services module, which costs me another $100 a month. Let that cost be added to the bill and let me create my configurations as and how I want. Why do they want to restrict me? It's a detrimental business practice. Still, I say go for it. Don't worry about the pricing. Licensing, at the basic level, is sensible. But you should actively talk to your reseller about the needs of your organization. Costs will vary as you dig deeper into understanding what product or service you need. Independent of your geographic location, talk to a local Microsoft partner and understand the cost. Don't simply go online and order things. I would stress that to anybody in the world, whatever the size of their organization. The pricing module is pretty straightforward for many of the products. They have a price for up to 300 users for many of the licensed products. Up to 300 users is not considered an enterprise business.
CSO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Reseller
2022-05-04T20:11:51Z
May 4, 2022
Active Directory is a Windows component that requires a per-user license. If you're on Azure, it can be free or it's incorporated, at no extra cost, or it can become extremely complicated. If there is a cost, it is not expensive, but you have to have it if you are running an Active Directory environment. It's a have to have, not a nice to have.
Make sure to check which features your organization requires. Find out if they are applicable to all users or just a bunch of them before deciding on buying a license.
My advice concerning the pricing and licensing would vary depending upon the stage of maturity of the organization. I've been with companies that are using the Office 365 license for Active Directory, whereas others are able to use the free version of it. For organizations such as the one that I'm at now, where we require more security and have services like the Conditional Access Policies or Privileged Identity management, you have to upgrade to a higher level of the solution. I'm not sure about the specific costs or how they're calculated, but essentially, the costs go up based on the level of security that is required by the organization.
Manager, Technology Delivery at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
Real User
2022-02-14T21:20:27Z
Feb 14, 2022
The price of Azure Active Directory and Amazon AWS, are almost the same, but most people prefer Amazon AWS because they find it's a little cheaper to some extent and an easier platform to use. The prices we pay for the solution can vary because we are adding more services a lot of the time, the price keeps going up and down. The price has been one thousand before but we are still adding more services. The price depends on what services you are using. We are paying for support to use this solution which is an additional cost.
Computer Chief Specialist Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2022-01-19T08:57:15Z
Jan 19, 2022
There is a subscription model that is used for Azure Active Directory. The subscription should be categorized by business size. For example, small companies should have a discounted price, this would help small companies and the organization to be automated.
Info Security Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
MSP
2022-01-17T06:15:46Z
Jan 17, 2022
The price is fine. It's a good value for the money compared with other solutions. I cannot provide the exact numbers because we use a different type of licensing. For Azure, we have an Office 365 license. We also have a Microsoft Gold partnership and some products are included in one license.
Executive Director at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2022-01-02T20:54:00Z
Jan 2, 2022
Costs are constantly being managed. We don't really have a choice. It's the one shop in town. If you want this, you have to pay for it. We have an E5 license, which I believe is the most expensive license.
Hello, everything that has to do with identity and access management must be consolidated from an on-premises and cloud environment, in this Windows Server Active Directory Domain Services combined with Azure AD is perfect, Microsoft in this case.
With Azure AD you get perfection at the single sign-on level, it must be synchronized with the on-premises directory because the applications and endpoints will still belong to it.
In the cost, this is very possible, you get the best of the current, but also integrating everything cloud in the future, register or unsubscribe users in their workgroups and applications in an automated way, the best cost/benefit ratio, everything as a subscription is now possible.
Systems Manager at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Real User
2021-12-24T15:35:00Z
Dec 24, 2021
The solution has three types of tiers: * E1 has very basic features. * You get limited stuff in E2 and cannot have Office 360 associated with it. * E3 is on the costly side and has all the features. If you need to have an Exchange subscription or email functionality, then you need to pay more for that.
It's relatively inexpensive in comparison with third-party solutions. It's highly available and supported by Microsoft Azure in our enterprise agreements. With the addition of their B2C tenants, it's hard to beat from a cost perspective now. They changed their pricing for B2B access. You used to need shared licenses so that, if you were paying for a Premium AAD on your side, that would allow you to have five shared external mapped users. They've blown that all up and it's now dirt cheap. It works out to pennies per user per month, instead of dollars. A P1 user license in their system was $6 per user per month, which is cost-prohibitive for a lot of B2B SSO flows, but now it's down in the pennies range.
I don't have any insight on the pricing end as that is always managed by our team leader. They take care of all the pricing activities, et cetera. Any pricing-related information I don't have knowledge of.
The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do. We have to talk to someone because it's hard to find out how many licenses we need. If I'm applying for 2,000 users, how many Windows licenses do we need? They could also charge less for support. You buy the license, but if you want to keep it in good standing, you have to pay for the support, and it is expensive. It's okay to pay for the license itself, but to pay so much for support...
The product is priced quite well. The way that Microsoft prices per user and month is quite attractive to us. The level of the license cost is quite good as well.
The prices are not too out of place. We're just gradually getting out of COVID and Microsoft is actually putting some renewals, licenses, and some products out just to cushion the effect of license costs as companies recover. With Microsoft, some products also offer free trials. We'd like to see more of a discount on existing licenses. They also need to consider having some free licenses, some free subscriptions.
Technology Security Specialist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
2021-10-15T18:50:00Z
Oct 15, 2021
It can be a bit expensive for organizations, but they do have different pricing models. Their free tier can be used on a personal level, but for an organization, the licenses might be a bit expensive. In general, the licenses can become cheaper, which will make it accessible for more people. Currently, where I am working, we use an enterprise agreement. The license is renewed after every two or three years. So, we make an agreement with Microsoft to give us a license for a number of products, including Azure Active Directory, for two or three years.
Dynamics 365 CRM / Power Apps Developer at Get Dynamics
Real User
2021-10-11T18:54:00Z
Oct 11, 2021
I don't know much about the pricing. As far as licensing is concerned, there are two options. There is a set of free services that are offered through a free license and if you have a Microsoft tenant or any Microsoft service such as Dynamics 365 or Power Apps, you have access to a free set of services that Azure AD provides. This includes registration and some other items. If you want to use Azure AD's advanced features, they are not provided for free. There are two types of premium licenses that are available for anyone who is a registered licensed user.
Senior Infrastructure Security Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
2021-10-05T07:46:00Z
Oct 5, 2021
Previously, only building and global administrators could purchase subscriptions or licenses. Mid-last year, Microsoft made it so users can purchase the license online. Microsoft business subscription is for 200 to 300 users. If you have more than 300 users, you can't purchase the business plan. You have to purchase the enterprise plan. The enterprise plan is for 301 users and above. Pay as you go is also available. If you pay as you go in Azure, you will be billed for whatever you use.
Cloud Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2021-08-26T14:57:00Z
Aug 26, 2021
The cost of Azure AD is one of the biggest benefits, as it is available for use free of charge when you start with Office 365. It comes with the basic version of it and you can move to the more expensive plans with additional features, but these are still very competitive compared to other vendors. By comparison, other vendors offered an independent MFA product but at quite an expensive price. With Microsoft, it was already included in the price. The bundling approach that Microsoft uses is good; although competitors may offer a more compelling solution, we already have access to the one from Microsoft at no additional cost.
Senior DevOps engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Real User
2021-07-15T17:40:00Z
Jul 15, 2021
Azure Active Directory has a very extensive licensing model. Most of the features are available in the free and basic version, and then there are premium P1 and P2 editions. The licensing model is based on how many users you have per month. In Australia, for a P1 license, the cost is 8 dollars. With P1 and P2 licenses, you get a lot of goodies around the security side of things. For example, User Identity Protection is available only in P2. These are extra features that allow you to have a pretty good security posture, but most of the required things are available in the free and basic version.
Identity Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2021-06-15T21:20:14Z
Jun 15, 2021
The pricing is very flexible. There are a few tiers of licensing, and it is a part of an enterprise contract. It is bundled with other services and the pricing is quite reasonable.
The licensing is good and it is really easy to manage. We make sure that we only enable the licenses that are needed for the users, rather than enabling licenses in a blanket fashion. Basically, we only enable the features that are required for each of the users. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.
Founder, CEO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
2021-05-30T16:11:00Z
May 30, 2021
There are various levels of licenses. There are things called E3 and E5 licenses. E5 licenses come with more features but aren't required for some of the kinds of users who are just using email and Office. They only need an E3 license. Pricing depends on the size of your organization and the deal you get with Microsoft. If you're a public sector, rather than a private sector, you get a good deal. Academic sectors get very good deals. The vast majority of our users use E5. But we're a Microsoft partner who resells their product so we get favorable rates because of that. They have various pricing levels and the higher level you buy, the more features you get within Azure. The basic one is perfectly good for most customers. The more advanced and greater security features come with the higher pricing. And so customers who require that like military, banking, government or something are willing to pay that. The private sector generally pays more than the public sector. I know some colleagues who work in the academic sector get extremely good deals because Microsoft is very keen to have academic institutions on board. If you're working in academia or you work in the public sector, you will get a much better deal than you would in the private sector, but that's just business. An E5 or E3 license is on a per-user basis. So the number of users you sync into Azure AD is the number of licenses you need to report that is going to be consumed by the end-users. It's a per-user per-year license. The only other cost you get with Microsoft over and above the license cost of using Azure is the cost of using their operating system and software. So if you use Windows, then you can pay for your Windows licenses again through Azure. And if you use Office, meaning Excel, Word, and all that other stuff, you can pay an extra bit and they'll get a 365 license for the entire suite of offices. If you're buying an E5 Office plus Windows, then you'll get a greater discount than if you were buying those separately. Microsoft will charge you for what you actually use. So if you've got a user who isn't using Office, or isn't using Windows for whatever reason, but they are consuming services within Azure, then you just give them an Azure license. Microsoft will split up and you buy a license based on what you actually use.
Director, Infrastructure at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2021-05-11T07:57:00Z
May 11, 2021
Anytime you are dealing with Microsoft and licensing, it is always interesting. We have various levels of their licensing, which includes users on different levels of their enterprise offering. For example, some are on E3, whereas others are on E5. The differences between them have to do with the various features that we use. We're a Microsoft Teams company and we use it not only for collaboration and instant messaging, but we also use it as our phone system. We did all of that together, so when we spun up Azure Active Directory, we also spun out Microsoft teams to use as our phones and flipped off of an old PBX system. It's been very useful but the licensing can be complicated when you get into the retail partners and guests. But for the most part, Microsoft has done a good job of explaining the different levels and what we need and has given us the proper licensing. There are no additional fees for Azure Active Directory.
Product Manager/Architect at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
2021-04-05T22:12:00Z
Apr 5, 2021
If you have a different IdP today, I would take a close look at what your licensing looks like, then reevaluate the licensing that you have with Microsoft 365, and see if you're covered for some of this other stuff. Folks sometimes don't realize that, "Oh, I'm licensed for that service in Azure." This becomes one of those situations where you have the "aha" moment, "Oh, I didn't know we can do that. Alright, let's go down this road." Then, they start to have conversations with Microsoft to see what they can gain. I would recommend that they work closely with their TAM, just to make sure that they are getting the right level of service. They may just not be aware of what is available to them. We look to gain new features when updating licensing. Every time we go to negotiate an enterprise agreement, we are looking at: * What are the benefits? * What are we getting back from Microsoft? They are very good at working with us to get what we are looking for in terms of working on packaging for pricing.
With the licensing there are so many features involved, and different features for different licensing levels. Those levels include the free version, as well as Premium P1, Premium P2. My approach with my clients is usually, "What kind of licenses do you have? Okay, let's improve this, because you have it already. You're paying for it already. Why not use it?" The next step is, "These features are included in the licensing you don't have. Do you think it's worth it?" I talk to them, I explain them, and I demonstrate them. They will usually say, "Yeah, we need that one."
Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
2021-03-24T13:46:00Z
Mar 24, 2021
Make sure that you get the most out of your Office 365 licenses for Azure AD. If you have additional concerns for users who don't have an Office 365 license, consider Azure AD Premium P1 and P2. Be aware that you have to evaluate your license usage beforehand. Consider the usage of Azure AD Premium P1 and P2 when you are not assigning Microsoft or Office 365 licenses. This is really important to get access to good features, like conditional access, privilege identity management, and accessory use.
Manager Infrastructure & Architecture at BDO Global
Real User
2021-03-11T15:27:00Z
Mar 11, 2021
MS has a free version of Azure AD as well. So, if you don't do a lot of advanced stuff, then you can use the free version, which is no cost at all because it is underpinning Office 365. Some of the services that I mentioned, like conditional access, privileged identity management, and access reviews, come with a certain premium license per user. We negotiated those license fees in what we call a GEA. This is a global Microsoft contract that we have. So, the pricing seems to be quite fair. If I compare it to its competitors, Azure AD is a lot cheaper. Because Microsoft gives it to you as a SaaS, so there are no infrastructure costs whatsoever that you need to incur. If you use the free version, then it is free. If you use the advanced features (that we use), it is a license fee per user. Premier Support is an added cost, but they do it based on the amount of services that you consume. We don't have it specifically for Azure AD because we run a lot of Microsoft technologies. We have an overall Premier Support contract, which is an additional cost.
Senior Information Technology Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2021-01-26T15:36:51Z
Jan 26, 2021
I think we're on the E3 — I think it was about 35 dollars per user. We may go up to the E5, which includes Project Online and the telecom service in TEAMS. We're in the process of rolling out Office 365 internally. We've had really great feedback that people really like TEAMS and we want to move there. We had a roadmap meeting with Microsoft a few months ago. Some of the more accessible types of things were on the roadmap for the first quarter of this year. I know that Microsoft's working hard at listening to their customers, especially through COVID. Collaboration has changed. They also have military folks, that's why they created the GCC High. Once they got into the GCC high, they're like, "Oh, we need to collaborate a little bit more." So they've been pushing a little bit more on integration. We're not going to have that kind of clout where I am, but where I used to work, we would've.
We are a non-profit organization, so we get good prices from Microsoft for their products. It is working well, but it could be cheaper. For the type of organization we are, it would be good if they could give a little bit more and be more generous like Google, which has completely free services. Microsoft has free versions or web services called Office 365 E1, which is free for use, but we want to have it with more qualified clients.
This product is sold as part of the enterprise package and our licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis. You can get it as an add-on and it's not expensive.
Solution architect at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
2020-10-23T17:36:10Z
Oct 23, 2020
The pricing is really great and Office 365 packages are good. We don't pay for it separately. It's included in our package and the APIs are really great. I'm not sure of the exact cost of Azure. It's a package deal.
Microsoft Entra ID is used for extending on-premises Active Directory to the cloud, managing application access, enabling multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on. It facilitates policy enforcement and secure access, ensuring centralized identity management across cloud and on-premises resources.
Organizations utilize Microsoft Entra ID for robust user and group management, identity synchronization, and conditional access. Its seamless integration with third-party apps,...
Initially, customers can get good prices for a three-year package, but renewal prices tend to increase significantly. If a customer looks for an alternative solution after three years, we often find it cheaper or the same as continuing with Microsoft.
The pricing is expensive. It's in US dollars. I'd rate the affordability of pricing six out of ten.
It is worth the money.
Microsoft is so expensive. You know it is expensive when a Fortune 100 company like ours is complaining about the cost. That has been a big thing for me. When I really want to use an Azure service, it is very hard for me to justify the cost, especially with Microsoft support.
Everything costs money in a tough market. As a nonprofit, we have A5 licenses for nonprofits in education, so we at least have some reduced costs. Looking at Copilot and a bunch of other features that are coming out, we'll have to seriously consider that cost-to-value ratio.
I work for an academic medical center, where there is a watch kept over every dollar spent. I do have concerns about the micro charges for different levels or features of the product.
Entra is fairly priced. We get it through an E5 license, so it isn't an issue. It also costs nothing to our customers.
The solution was fairly priced the last time I checked the costs.
Pricing could always be better. You pay the premium for Microsoft. Sometimes, it is worth it, and at other times, you wish to have more licensing options, especially for smaller companies.
It is good. We have Office 365 E3, and then that is tied in with Azure Active Directory. I believe that we only have to pay for our technician-level access or IT department access for Azure Active Directory Premium, which I am sure they call Entra Premium P2 licensing, so it is not a very large cost. We just adopted that, and that gives us a lot of insights into user security that we would not otherwise have.
The product is cheap. It is free for our tenant.
It is in line. Because we are so early, we have not had to come back on a cycle where we are having to negotiate again.
Entra ID is not too bad, but Microsoft licensing generally is insane. Most customers normally buy a bundle license with Microsoft 365, E3, or E5. Out of our 2,000 customers, for 99.9% of our customers, the Entra ID license that they are getting through the part of that would be sufficient. There are some more advanced ones that give you a bit more functionality, but we probably have not had a customer for that. We do not even internally use that ourselves. When you buy the Entra ID license on its own, it is probably three or four pounds. You just get it included in the license. Most people buy it anyway because it comes with conditional access and Intune and all such things that they might use, so that is straightforward. Okta is not cheap. For a customer with 400 or 500 users, it is about 100 grand a year. It is like a premium product in price point comparison. When you move to Okta, you are not saving money on the Microsoft side, so it is not worth it for most companies.
Microsoft Entra ID's pricing is reasonable.
I think the pricing is efficient, but the licensing is overly complicated and difficult to understand. There are many tricks in the licensing that weigh against us.
Microsoft has various pricing tiers.
Its price is okay. It is easy to go from a P1 to P2 license. It is not exactly a bargain, but I would recommend the P2 license.
When it comes to setup cost, pricing, and licensing for Entra ID, I would advise others to carefully assess their organization's specific needs and requirements. It's essential to have a clear understanding of the features and capabilities needed to support your business operations effectively. Consider the scalability of your organization and how Entra ID aligns with your growth plans. Microsoft offers various licensing options, so it's worth exploring the most suitable licensing model that fits your budget and operational demands. Additionally, keep in mind that while initial setup costs may vary, the long-term benefits of a secure and efficient identity management solution like Entra ID can significantly outweigh the initial investment. It's an investment in both security and productivity. Lastly, stay updated with Microsoft's licensing updates and pricing changes to ensure that your organization remains compliant and optimized in terms of cost-effectiveness." This advice provides a general guideline for organizations considering Entra ID, encouraging them to conduct a thorough evaluation of their needs and resources.
It is costly.
The pricing is good; it's not cheap but very reasonable.
For a small business buying individual licenses, it is an affordable solution.
Entra ID's pricing is comprehensive and affordable. The prices are easy to understand, and the licenses include a variety of security monitoring and additional features.
The price is affordable, and we pay around $100 per month.
The product's price is in the midrange.
The pricing for Azure Active Directory is affordable; I would rate the cost a six out of ten. As an educational company, we have access to very good discounts on the solution, making it even more affordable.
Azure AD comes with Office 365, so we are just paying for the Office 365 license.
We are always looking for better pricing. Our agreement is on a monthly basis.
Our customers are looking for advanced features and processes for it to be cost-effective for their organizations. They see it as an overpriced product. They are enjoying using Azure Active Directory, but they are looking for better prices.
The pricing of Azure Active Directory is competitive. By default, the product exists in almost every Microsoft cloud product. But it then depends on the features that a customer really wants to make use of. The extent of the security requirements will inform what kind of plan will be suitable for the customer's situation.
Active Directory is bundled with a package of Microsoft services, so it doesn't cost much. I don't know about the individual license of Active Directory.
The pricing is good and not complex. Any organization, middle or small, can easily adopt it. Microsoft is very flexible with the Azure AD pricing plan.
The price is fair. It's not very expensive given what they offer. Of course, we did some negotiating with Microsoft. We didn't pay the list price. We have been a Microsoft customer for many years, so when the contract comes due every three years, we discuss it. Afterward, there are some discounts.
Pricing-wise, they offer a stepladder approach. You can start with the lowest level features, then start increasing based on new requirements.
Licenses are based on the usage. There is no cap. It's based on the number of users we provision. A SaaS solution is the best product. You get it at a better price and you have many Windows-based services that are included for free.
We're a Microsoft partner, so we get partner benefits. We pay almost nothing, and it's massively valuable to us.
We are using the version that comes with Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Microsoft has a very weird way of licensing the product. With the standard on-prem edition, we can do a lot of regular, day-to-day maintenance, including creating policies and the like. We can't do that in Azure Active Directory. The Azure system is very basic in nature compared to what the server provides us. There are add-on components and services, such as identity services, that we have to add to our Azure subscription. Only then can I actually say it's on par with the on-prem server edition. Why should I pay for a component? It should be included in my subscription. I understand there may be an added fee, but don't remove an essential component. I am a career IT guy. When I start comparing my on-prem server against this cloud edition, I see that there are components missing. The money issue is secondary. Give me a solution that matches the Azure standard edition. They should ensure that whatever I have on my domain controller are the facilities that run here in Azure AD. For example, on the domain controller, if you are my user, I can let you create a 14-character or a 20-character password. I can't do that on Azure AD. To do that, I must get the Directory Services module, which costs me another $100 a month. Let that cost be added to the bill and let me create my configurations as and how I want. Why do they want to restrict me? It's a detrimental business practice. Still, I say go for it. Don't worry about the pricing. Licensing, at the basic level, is sensible. But you should actively talk to your reseller about the needs of your organization. Costs will vary as you dig deeper into understanding what product or service you need. Independent of your geographic location, talk to a local Microsoft partner and understand the cost. Don't simply go online and order things. I would stress that to anybody in the world, whatever the size of their organization. The pricing module is pretty straightforward for many of the products. They have a price for up to 300 users for many of the licensed products. Up to 300 users is not considered an enterprise business.
The solution is pretty affordable. Sometimes you can get a Microsoft voucher to get some sort of discount.
Active Directory is a Windows component that requires a per-user license. If you're on Azure, it can be free or it's incorporated, at no extra cost, or it can become extremely complicated. If there is a cost, it is not expensive, but you have to have it if you are running an Active Directory environment. It's a have to have, not a nice to have.
It's included within a wider bundle of Microsoft 365 products.
Make sure to check which features your organization requires. Find out if they are applicable to all users or just a bunch of them before deciding on buying a license.
The pricing seems to be fine for our clients.
We pay an annual subscription fee.
It is very expensive. Its price should be lower. Price is the most important factor for Turkish people.
My advice concerning the pricing and licensing would vary depending upon the stage of maturity of the organization. I've been with companies that are using the Office 365 license for Active Directory, whereas others are able to use the free version of it. For organizations such as the one that I'm at now, where we require more security and have services like the Conditional Access Policies or Privileged Identity management, you have to upgrade to a higher level of the solution. I'm not sure about the specific costs or how they're calculated, but essentially, the costs go up based on the level of security that is required by the organization.
The licensing costs are yearly. There is a standard fee per user.
The price of Azure Active Directory and Amazon AWS, are almost the same, but most people prefer Amazon AWS because they find it's a little cheaper to some extent and an easier platform to use. The prices we pay for the solution can vary because we are adding more services a lot of the time, the price keeps going up and down. The price has been one thousand before but we are still adding more services. The price depends on what services you are using. We are paying for support to use this solution which is an additional cost.
There is a subscription model that is used for Azure Active Directory. The subscription should be categorized by business size. For example, small companies should have a discounted price, this would help small companies and the organization to be automated.
The price is fine. It's a good value for the money compared with other solutions. I cannot provide the exact numbers because we use a different type of licensing. For Azure, we have an Office 365 license. We also have a Microsoft Gold partnership and some products are included in one license.
We have a yearly license.
Costs are constantly being managed. We don't really have a choice. It's the one shop in town. If you want this, you have to pay for it. We have an E5 license, which I believe is the most expensive license.
Hello, everything that has to do with identity and access management must be consolidated from an on-premises and cloud environment, in this Windows Server Active Directory Domain Services combined with Azure AD is perfect, Microsoft in this case.
With Azure AD you get perfection at the single sign-on level, it must be synchronized with the on-premises directory because the applications and endpoints will still belong to it.
In the cost, this is very possible, you get the best of the current, but also integrating everything cloud in the future, register or unsubscribe users in their workgroups and applications in an automated way, the best cost/benefit ratio, everything as a subscription is now possible.
Bye.
The solution has three types of tiers: * E1 has very basic features. * You get limited stuff in E2 and cannot have Office 360 associated with it. * E3 is on the costly side and has all the features. If you need to have an Exchange subscription or email functionality, then you need to pay more for that.
It's relatively inexpensive in comparison with third-party solutions. It's highly available and supported by Microsoft Azure in our enterprise agreements. With the addition of their B2C tenants, it's hard to beat from a cost perspective now. They changed their pricing for B2B access. You used to need shared licenses so that, if you were paying for a Premium AAD on your side, that would allow you to have five shared external mapped users. They've blown that all up and it's now dirt cheap. It works out to pennies per user per month, instead of dollars. A P1 user license in their system was $6 per user per month, which is cost-prohibitive for a lot of B2B SSO flows, but now it's down in the pennies range.
We get a discount because we're working in the education sector.
I don't have any insight on the pricing end as that is always managed by our team leader. They take care of all the pricing activities, et cetera. Any pricing-related information I don't have knowledge of.
The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do. We have to talk to someone because it's hard to find out how many licenses we need. If I'm applying for 2,000 users, how many Windows licenses do we need? They could also charge less for support. You buy the license, but if you want to keep it in good standing, you have to pay for the support, and it is expensive. It's okay to pay for the license itself, but to pay so much for support...
The product is priced quite well. The way that Microsoft prices per user and month is quite attractive to us. The level of the license cost is quite good as well.
It is a packaged license. We have a Premium P1 subscription of Office 365, and it came with that.
The solution is not the cheapest in the market. It could be improved and possibly lowered slightly.
The prices are not too out of place. We're just gradually getting out of COVID and Microsoft is actually putting some renewals, licenses, and some products out just to cushion the effect of license costs as companies recover. With Microsoft, some products also offer free trials. We'd like to see more of a discount on existing licenses. They also need to consider having some free licenses, some free subscriptions.
It can be a bit expensive for organizations, but they do have different pricing models. Their free tier can be used on a personal level, but for an organization, the licenses might be a bit expensive. In general, the licenses can become cheaper, which will make it accessible for more people. Currently, where I am working, we use an enterprise agreement. The license is renewed after every two or three years. So, we make an agreement with Microsoft to give us a license for a number of products, including Azure Active Directory, for two or three years.
The cost is billed on a per-user licensing basis.
I don't know much about the pricing. As far as licensing is concerned, there are two options. There is a set of free services that are offered through a free license and if you have a Microsoft tenant or any Microsoft service such as Dynamics 365 or Power Apps, you have access to a free set of services that Azure AD provides. This includes registration and some other items. If you want to use Azure AD's advanced features, they are not provided for free. There are two types of premium licenses that are available for anyone who is a registered licensed user.
Previously, only building and global administrators could purchase subscriptions or licenses. Mid-last year, Microsoft made it so users can purchase the license online. Microsoft business subscription is for 200 to 300 users. If you have more than 300 users, you can't purchase the business plan. You have to purchase the enterprise plan. The enterprise plan is for 301 users and above. Pay as you go is also available. If you pay as you go in Azure, you will be billed for whatever you use.
The price of the solution was reasonable.
Azure Active Directory is more expensive than Google, but the capabilities they provide are superior.
The cost of Azure AD is one of the biggest benefits, as it is available for use free of charge when you start with Office 365. It comes with the basic version of it and you can move to the more expensive plans with additional features, but these are still very competitive compared to other vendors. By comparison, other vendors offered an independent MFA product but at quite an expensive price. With Microsoft, it was already included in the price. The bundling approach that Microsoft uses is good; although competitors may offer a more compelling solution, we already have access to the one from Microsoft at no additional cost.
Azure Active Directory has a very extensive licensing model. Most of the features are available in the free and basic version, and then there are premium P1 and P2 editions. The licensing model is based on how many users you have per month. In Australia, for a P1 license, the cost is 8 dollars. With P1 and P2 licenses, you get a lot of goodies around the security side of things. For example, User Identity Protection is available only in P2. These are extra features that allow you to have a pretty good security posture, but most of the required things are available in the free and basic version.
The pricing is very flexible. There are a few tiers of licensing, and it is a part of an enterprise contract. It is bundled with other services and the pricing is quite reasonable.
The licensing model is straightforward. I don't think there are any issues with the E3 license or E5 license.
The licensing is good and it is really easy to manage. We make sure that we only enable the licenses that are needed for the users, rather than enabling licenses in a blanket fashion. Basically, we only enable the features that are required for each of the users. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.
There are various levels of licenses. There are things called E3 and E5 licenses. E5 licenses come with more features but aren't required for some of the kinds of users who are just using email and Office. They only need an E3 license. Pricing depends on the size of your organization and the deal you get with Microsoft. If you're a public sector, rather than a private sector, you get a good deal. Academic sectors get very good deals. The vast majority of our users use E5. But we're a Microsoft partner who resells their product so we get favorable rates because of that. They have various pricing levels and the higher level you buy, the more features you get within Azure. The basic one is perfectly good for most customers. The more advanced and greater security features come with the higher pricing. And so customers who require that like military, banking, government or something are willing to pay that. The private sector generally pays more than the public sector. I know some colleagues who work in the academic sector get extremely good deals because Microsoft is very keen to have academic institutions on board. If you're working in academia or you work in the public sector, you will get a much better deal than you would in the private sector, but that's just business. An E5 or E3 license is on a per-user basis. So the number of users you sync into Azure AD is the number of licenses you need to report that is going to be consumed by the end-users. It's a per-user per-year license. The only other cost you get with Microsoft over and above the license cost of using Azure is the cost of using their operating system and software. So if you use Windows, then you can pay for your Windows licenses again through Azure. And if you use Office, meaning Excel, Word, and all that other stuff, you can pay an extra bit and they'll get a 365 license for the entire suite of offices. If you're buying an E5 Office plus Windows, then you'll get a greater discount than if you were buying those separately. Microsoft will charge you for what you actually use. So if you've got a user who isn't using Office, or isn't using Windows for whatever reason, but they are consuming services within Azure, then you just give them an Azure license. Microsoft will split up and you buy a license based on what you actually use.
Anytime you are dealing with Microsoft and licensing, it is always interesting. We have various levels of their licensing, which includes users on different levels of their enterprise offering. For example, some are on E3, whereas others are on E5. The differences between them have to do with the various features that we use. We're a Microsoft Teams company and we use it not only for collaboration and instant messaging, but we also use it as our phone system. We did all of that together, so when we spun up Azure Active Directory, we also spun out Microsoft teams to use as our phones and flipped off of an old PBX system. It's been very useful but the licensing can be complicated when you get into the retail partners and guests. But for the most part, Microsoft has done a good job of explaining the different levels and what we need and has given us the proper licensing. There are no additional fees for Azure Active Directory.
The P1 version costs $6 per user per month. If you need the P2 version then it is an extra $3 per month.
For the Czech people, the solution is not cheap, as we are not a rich country. However, for most countries, the product pricing is acceptable.
If you have a different IdP today, I would take a close look at what your licensing looks like, then reevaluate the licensing that you have with Microsoft 365, and see if you're covered for some of this other stuff. Folks sometimes don't realize that, "Oh, I'm licensed for that service in Azure." This becomes one of those situations where you have the "aha" moment, "Oh, I didn't know we can do that. Alright, let's go down this road." Then, they start to have conversations with Microsoft to see what they can gain. I would recommend that they work closely with their TAM, just to make sure that they are getting the right level of service. They may just not be aware of what is available to them. We look to gain new features when updating licensing. Every time we go to negotiate an enterprise agreement, we are looking at: * What are the benefits? * What are we getting back from Microsoft? They are very good at working with us to get what we are looking for in terms of working on packaging for pricing.
With the licensing there are so many features involved, and different features for different licensing levels. Those levels include the free version, as well as Premium P1, Premium P2. My approach with my clients is usually, "What kind of licenses do you have? Okay, let's improve this, because you have it already. You're paying for it already. Why not use it?" The next step is, "These features are included in the licensing you don't have. Do you think it's worth it?" I talk to them, I explain them, and I demonstrate them. They will usually say, "Yeah, we need that one."
Make sure that you get the most out of your Office 365 licenses for Azure AD. If you have additional concerns for users who don't have an Office 365 license, consider Azure AD Premium P1 and P2. Be aware that you have to evaluate your license usage beforehand. Consider the usage of Azure AD Premium P1 and P2 when you are not assigning Microsoft or Office 365 licenses. This is really important to get access to good features, like conditional access, privilege identity management, and accessory use.
MS has a free version of Azure AD as well. So, if you don't do a lot of advanced stuff, then you can use the free version, which is no cost at all because it is underpinning Office 365. Some of the services that I mentioned, like conditional access, privileged identity management, and access reviews, come with a certain premium license per user. We negotiated those license fees in what we call a GEA. This is a global Microsoft contract that we have. So, the pricing seems to be quite fair. If I compare it to its competitors, Azure AD is a lot cheaper. Because Microsoft gives it to you as a SaaS, so there are no infrastructure costs whatsoever that you need to incur. If you use the free version, then it is free. If you use the advanced features (that we use), it is a license fee per user. Premier Support is an added cost, but they do it based on the amount of services that you consume. We don't have it specifically for Azure AD because we run a lot of Microsoft technologies. We have an overall Premier Support contract, which is an additional cost.
I think we're on the E3 — I think it was about 35 dollars per user. We may go up to the E5, which includes Project Online and the telecom service in TEAMS. We're in the process of rolling out Office 365 internally. We've had really great feedback that people really like TEAMS and we want to move there. We had a roadmap meeting with Microsoft a few months ago. Some of the more accessible types of things were on the roadmap for the first quarter of this year. I know that Microsoft's working hard at listening to their customers, especially through COVID. Collaboration has changed. They also have military folks, that's why they created the GCC High. Once they got into the GCC high, they're like, "Oh, we need to collaborate a little bit more." So they've been pushing a little bit more on integration. We're not going to have that kind of clout where I am, but where I used to work, we would've.
I would say to make sure you have a trusted integration partner or someone on staff that has been through this transition.
We are a non-profit organization, so we get good prices from Microsoft for their products. It is working well, but it could be cheaper. For the type of organization we are, it would be good if they could give a little bit more and be more generous like Google, which has completely free services. Microsoft has free versions or web services called Office 365 E1, which is free for use, but we want to have it with more qualified clients.
MFA and P2 licenses for two Azures for fully-enabled scenarios and features cost a lot of money. This is where Okta is trying to get the prices down.
This product is sold as part of the enterprise package and our licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis. You can get it as an add-on and it's not expensive.
The pricing is really great and Office 365 packages are good. We don't pay for it separately. It's included in our package and the APIs are really great. I'm not sure of the exact cost of Azure. It's a package deal.
I don't have any insights into the licensing costs. I'm not a part of the accounting or payment process.
Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis and the cost depends on the number of users. There are no charges in addition to this.