Microsoft Entra ID Licenses

Overview

This article discusses licensing options for the Microsoft Entra product family. It's intended for security decision-makers, identity and network access administrators, and IT professionals considering Microsoft Entra solutions for their organizations.

Plan

Price

Billing

Description

Microsoft Entra ID P1

$6.00

User/Month, Paid Yearly (Annual Commitment)

Microsoft Entra ID P1 (formerly Azure Active Directory P1) is available as a standalone offering or included with Microsoft 365 E3 for enterprise customers and Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small to medium businesses.

Microsoft Entra ID P2

$9.00

User/Month, Paid Yearly (Annual Commitment)

Microsoft Entra ID P2 (formerly Azure Active Directory P2) is available as a standalone offering or included with Microsoft 365 E5 for enterprise customers.

Microsoft Entra Suite

$12.00

User/Month, Paid Yearly (Annual Commitment)

The Microsoft Entra Suite combines network access, identity protection, governance, and identity verification solutions. A subscription to Microsoft Entra ID P1 or a package that includes Microsoft Entra ID P1 is required. Special pricing is available for Microsoft Entra ID P2 and Microsoft 365 E5 customers.

 

Note

If you're troubleshooting licensing assignment issues, review Identify and resolve license assignment problems for a group in the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal.

Microsoft Entra Licensing Options

Microsoft Entra is available in several licensing options that allow you to choose the package best suited to your needs.

Note

The licensing options on this page aren't comprehensive. You can get detailed information about the various options at the Microsoft Entra pricing page and at the Compare Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans and pricing page.

Microsoft Entra ID Free - Included with Microsoft cloud subscriptions such as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, and others.

Microsoft Entra ID P1 - Microsoft Entra ID P1 is available as a standalone product or included with Microsoft 365 E3, F1, F3, and Enterprise Mobility + Security E3 for enterprise customers. Entra ID P1 is also included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small to medium businesses.

Microsoft Entra ID P2 - Microsoft Entra ID P2 is available as a standalone product. It is also included with the following offers for enterprise customers:

Microsoft 365 E5
Microsoft Defender Suite (formerly Microsoft 365 E5 Security)
Microsoft Defender Suite FLW
Microsoft Defender + Purview Suite FLW
Enterprise Mobility + Security E5

Entra ID P2 is also included in Microsoft Defender Suite for Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft Defender and Purview Suites for Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small to medium businesses.

Microsoft Entra Suite - The suite combines Microsoft Entra products to secure access for your employees. It allows administrators to provide secure access from anywhere to any app or resource whether cloud or on-premises, while ensuring least privilege access. A Microsoft Entra ID P1 subscription is required.

The Microsoft Entra Suite Includes Five Products:

Microsoft Entra Private Access
Microsoft Entra Internet Access
Microsoft Entra ID Governance
Microsoft Entra ID Protection
Microsoft Entra Verified ID (Premium Capabilities)

Important

User and group license assignments are managed through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

For more information on how to assign or unassign licenses to users and groups, see this article: - Assign or unassign licenses for users in the Microsoft 365 admin center

App Provisioning

Microsoft Entra application proxy requires Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 licenses. For more information about licensing, see Microsoft Entra pricing.

Authentication

The following table lists features that are available for authentication in the various versions of Microsoft Entra ID. Plan out your needs for securing user sign-in, then determine which approach meets those requirements. For example, although Microsoft Entra ID Free provides security defaults with multifactor authentication, only Microsoft Authenticator can be used for the authentication prompt, including text and voice calls. This approach might be a limitation if you can't make sure that Authenticator is installed on a user's personal device.

Feature

Microsoft Entra ID Free - Security defaults (enabled for all users)

Microsoft Entra ID Free - Global Administrators only

Office 365

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Protect Microsoft Entra tenant admin accounts with MFA

(Microsoft Entra Global Administrator accounts only)

Mobile app as a second factor

Phone call as a second factor

SMS as a second factor

Admin control over verification methods

Fraud alert

MFA Reports

Custom greetings for phone calls

Custom caller ID for phone calls

Trusted IPs

Remember MFA for trusted devices

MFA for on-premises applications

Conditional Access

Risk-based Conditional Access

Self-service password reset (SSPR)

SSPR with writeback

 

Managed Identities

There are no licensing requirements for using Managed identities for Azure resources. Managed identities for Azure resources provide an automatically managed identity for applications to use when connecting to resources that support Microsoft Entra authentication. One of the benefits of using managed identities is that you don't need to manage credentials, and they can be used at no extra cost.

For more information, see What is managed identities for Azure resources?.

Microsoft Entra Agent ID

Microsoft Entra Agent ID is a product within Microsoft Entra that provides the platform for creating and managing agent identities and agent identity blueprints. Agent ID is available for all Microsoft Entra customers.

Integration with Microsoft Agent 365 enables agents to operate across Microsoft 365 services and enterprise workflows, which requires a Microsoft Agent 365 license for each user.

For pricing details, see Microsoft Agent 365 plans and pricing.

Technical requirements that enable the security features for agents within Microsoft Entra require Microsoft 365 E5 or the following licensing:

Conditional Access for agents: Microsoft Entra ID P1
ID Protection for agents: Microsoft Entra ID P2
ID Governance for agents: Microsoft Entra ID P1

Network controls for agents: Microsoft Entra Internet Access, included in Microsoft Entra Suite or licensed separately.

For more information, see What is Global Secure Access.

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

The following table shows the licensing requirements for Microsoft Entra ID Governance features for member users. Microsoft Entra Suite includes all features of Microsoft Entra ID Governance. Licensing information and example license scenarios for Entitlement management, Access reviews, and Lifecycle Workflows are provided following the table.

Features by License

The following table shows what features associated with identity governance are available with each license.

For more information on other features, see Microsoft Entra plans and pricing. Not all features are available in all clouds; see Microsoft Entra feature availability for Azure Government.

Feature

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

Provisioning

API-driven provisioning

HR-driven provisioning

Account Discovery

Automated user provisioning to SaaS apps

Automated group provisioning to SaaS apps

Automated provisioning to on-premises apps

Cross-tenant synchronization for users (same cloud)

Cross-tenant synchronization for groups (same cloud)

Cross-cloud synchronization

Lifecycle Workflows (LCW)

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

Lifecycle Workflows

LCW + Custom Extensions (Logic Apps)

LCW + Agent Sponsorship tasks

Access reviews (AR)

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

AR - Capabilities previously generally available in Microsoft Entra ID P2

AR - PIM For Groups (Preview)

AR - Reviews scoped to inactive users without active users in the review

AR - Reviews scoped to active and inactive users with review decision helpers for inactive users for the reviewer

AR - Machine learning assisted access certifications and reviews

AR - Catalog Access Reviews (Preview)

AR - Custom data provided resource (Preview)

Entitlement management (EM)

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

EM - Capabilities previously generally available in Microsoft Entra ID P2

EM - Users assigned to access packages

EM - Agents and service principals assigned to access packages

EM - Users request access for themselves

EM - Admins directly assign a user assignments(including guests)

EM - Admins directly assign agents and service principals

EM - Admins directly assign any user - via email address for users not yet in your directory

EM - Managers requesting on behalf of employees

EM - Owners and sponsors request access on behalf of their agents or service principals

EM - Supported resources

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

EM - Groups and teams in access packages

EM - Eligible group ownerships and memberships in access packages (PIM for Groups)

EM - Applications in access packages

EM - SharePoint sites in access packages

EM - Microsoft Entra Roles (Preview)

EM - SAP Identity Access Governance (IAG) business roles (Preview)

EM - API permissions in access packages

EM - Approval options

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

EM - Multi-stage approvals with alternate approvers if no action is taken

EM - Specific approvers

EM - Managers as approvers

EM - Internal sponsors as approvers (from assignees' connected organizations)

EM - External sponsors as approvers (from assignees' connected organizations)

EM - Sponsors as approvers (from assignees' user profile)

EM - Agent Sponsors as approvers

EM - Externally determine approval requirements using custom extensions

EM - Collect additional requestor information for approval

EM - Lifecycle

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

EM - Expiration of access package assignments

EM - Manage the lifecycle of external users

EM - Mark guest as governed

EM - Additional capabilities

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

EM - Separation of duties

EM - Custom Extensions (Logic Apps)

EM - Auto Assignment Policies

EM - Verified ID integration

EM - Microsoft Entra ID Protection integration

EM - Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management integration

EM - Conditional Access Scoping

My Access

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

My Access portal

EM - My Access Search

EM - Suggested access packages in My Access

EM - Configure whether requestors can see approver details in My Access (Preview)

EM - Delegate approvals in My Access (Preview)

Privileged Identity Management (PIM)

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

Privileged Identity Management (PIM)

PIM For Groups

PIM Conditional Access Controls

Other

Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft Agent 365

Identity governance dashboard

Insights and reporting - Inactive guest accounts

Conditional Access - Terms of use attestation

 

Entitlement Management

Using this feature requires a Microsoft Entra ID Governance subscription for your organization's member users. Some capabilities within this feature can operate with a Microsoft Entra ID P2 subscription. Some capabilities within this feature require guest billing.

Example License Scenarios

Here are some example license scenarios to help you determine the number of licenses you must have.

Scenario

Calculation

Number of Licenses

An Identity Governance Administrator at Woodgrove Bank creates initial catalogs. One of the policies specifies that All employees (2,000 employees) can request a specific set of access packages. 150 employees request the access packages.

2,000 employees who can request the access packages

2,000

An Identity Governance Administrator at Woodgrove Bank creates initial catalogs. They create an auto-assignment policy that grants All members of the Sales department (350 employees) access to a specific set of access packages. 350 employees are auto-assigned to the access packages.

350 employees need licenses.

351

 

Access Reviews

Using this feature requires a Microsoft Entra ID Governance subscription for your organization's member users, including for all employees who are reviewing access or having their access reviewed. Some capabilities within this feature might operate with a Microsoft Entra ID P2 subscription. Some capabilities within this feature require guest billing.

Example License Scenarios

Here are some example license scenarios to help you determine the number of licenses you must have.

Scenario

Calculation

Number of Licenses

An administrator creates an access review of Group A with 75 member users and 1 group owner, and assigns the group owner as the reviewer.

1 license for the group owner as reviewer, and 75 licenses for the 75 users.

76

An administrator creates an access review of Group B with 500 member users and 3 group owners, and assigns the 3 group owners as reviewers.

500 licenses for users, and 3 licenses for each group owner as reviewers.

503

An administrator creates an access review of Group B with 500 member users. Makes it a self-review.

500 licenses for each user as self-reviewers

500

An administrator creates an access review of Group C with 50 member users. Makes it a self-review.

50 licenses for each user as self-reviewers.

50

An administrator creates an access review of Group D with 6 member users. Makes it a self-review.

6 licenses for each user as self-reviewers. No additional licenses are required.

6

 

Lifecycle Workflows

With Microsoft Entra ID Governance licenses for Lifecycle Workflows, you can:

Create, manage, and delete workflows up to the total limit of 50 workflows.
Trigger on-demand and scheduled workflow execution.
Manage and configure existing tasks to create workflows that are specific to your needs.
Create up to 100 custom task extensions to be used in your workflows.
Using this feature requires a Microsoft Entra ID Governance subscription for your organization's member users. Some capabilities within this feature require guest billing.

Example License Scenarios

Scenario

Calculation

Number of licenses

A Lifecycle Workflows Administrator creates a workflow to add new hires in the Marketing department to the Marketing teams group. 250 new hire member users are assigned to the Marketing teams group via this workflow once. Other 150 new hire member users are assigned to the Marketing teams group via this workflow later the same year.

1 license for the Lifecycle Workflows Administrator, and 400 licenses for the users.

401

A Lifecycle Workflows Administrator creates a workflow to pre-offboard a group of employees before their last day of employment. The scope of users who will be pre-offboarded are 40 users once. We offboard 40 licensed users. Now, we can re-assign these 40 licenses and assign 10 more licenses later in the year to pre-offboard 50 more users.

50 licenses for users, and 1 license for the Lifecycle Workflows Administrator.

51

 

Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance (Preview)

The following table shows what features associated with Tenant Governance are available with each license.

Note

Microsoft Entra P1 is also included in Microsoft 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Microsoft Entra P2 is also included in Microsoft 365 E5. Microsoft Entra ID Governance is also included in Microsoft Entra Suite and Microsoft 365 E7.

Configuration management

Feature

Free

Microsoft Entra P1

Microsoft Entra P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Single tenant configuration monitoring and drift reporting

Up to 30 monitors, up to 800 configuration resources per tenant per day

Up to 30 monitors, up to 800 configuration resources per tenant per day

Up to 30 monitors, up to 800 configuration resources per tenant per day

Single tenant configuration snapshots

Up to 20,000 resources per tenant per month, up to 12 active snapshot jobs

Up to 20,000 resources per tenant per month, up to 12 active snapshot jobs

Up to 20,000 resources per tenant per month, up to 12 active snapshot jobs

 

Related Tenants

Feature

Free

Microsoft Entra P1

Microsoft Entra P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Discover related tenants through B2B collaboration, multitenant apps, and shared billing accounts

 

Governance Relationships

Feature

Free

Microsoft Entra P1

Microsoft Entra P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Governance relationship with cross-tenant granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP)

Governance relationship with custom multitenant app injection

 

Secure tenant creation

Feature

Free

Microsoft Entra P1

Microsoft Entra P2

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

New tenant creation with governance relationship

 

Microsoft Entra Connect

Using this feature is free and included in your Azure subscription.

Microsoft Entra Connect Health

Using this feature requires Microsoft Entra ID P1 licenses. To find the right license for your requirements, see Compare generally available features of Microsoft Entra ID.

Microsoft Entra Conditional Access

Using this feature requires Microsoft Entra ID P1 licenses. To find the right license for your requirements, see Compare generally available features of Microsoft Entra ID.

Customers with Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses also have access to Conditional Access features.

Risk-based policies require access to Microsoft Entra ID Protection, which is a Microsoft Entra ID P2 feature.

Microsoft Entra Suite includes all Microsoft Entra Conditional Access features.

Other products and features that could interact with Conditional Access policies require appropriate licensing for those products and features.

When licenses required for Conditional Access expire, policies aren't automatically disabled or deleted. This grants customers the ability to migrate away from Conditional Access policies without a sudden change in their security posture. Remaining policies can be viewed and deleted, but no longer updated.

Security defaults help protect against identity-related attacks and are available for all customers. 

Microsoft Entra Domain Services

Microsoft Entra Domain Services charges accrue per hour based on the SKU the tenant owner selects. 

Microsoft External ID

Microsoft Entra External ID core features are free for your first 50,000 monthly active users. More licensing information is available at the External ID FAQ.

Microsoft Entra ID Protection

Using this feature requires Microsoft Entra ID P2 licenses.

To find the right license for your requirements, see Microsoft Entra plans and pricing.

Capability

Details

Microsoft Entra ID Free / Microsoft 365 Apps

Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft Entra ID P2 / Microsoft Entra Suite

Risk policies

Sign-in and user risk policies (via Conditional Access)

No

No

Yes

Security reports

Overview

No

No

Yes

Security reports

Risky users

Limited Information. Only users with medium and high risk are shown. No details drawer or risk history.

Limited Information. Only users with medium and high risk are shown. No details drawer or risk history.

Full access

Security reports

Risky sign-ins

Limited Information. No risk detail or risk level is shown.

Limited Information. No risk detail or risk level is shown.

Full access

Security reports

Risk detections

No

Limited Information. No details drawer.

Full access

Notifications

Users at risk detected alerts

No

No

Yes

Notifications

Weekly digest

No

No

Yes

MFA registration policy

Require MFA (via Conditional Access)

No

No

Yes

 

Microsoft Entra Internet Access

Microsoft Entra Internet Access is available on its own or as part of the Microsoft Entra Suite.

Microsoft Entra Monitoring and Health
The required licenses vary based on the monitoring and health capability.

Capability

Microsoft Entra ID Free

Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 / Microsoft Entra Suite

Audit logs

Yes

Yes

Sign-in logs

Yes

Yes

Provisioning logs

No

Yes

Custom security attributes

Yes

Yes

Health

No

Yes

Microsoft Graph activity logs

No

Yes

Usage and insights

No

Yes

 

Microsoft Entra Private Access

Microsoft Entra Private Access is available on its own or as part of the Microsoft Entra Suite.

Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management

To use Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management, a tenant must have a valid license. This article describes the license requirements to use Privileged Identity Management. To use Privileged Identity Management, you must have one of the following licenses:

Valid licenses for PIM

You need either Microsoft Entra ID Governance licenses or Microsoft Entra ID P2 licenses to use PIM and all of its settings. Currently, you can scope an access review to service principals with access to Microsoft Entra ID, resource roles with a Microsoft Entra ID P2 or users with Microsoft Entra ID Governance edition active in your tenant.

Licenses you must have for PIM

Ensure that your directory has Microsoft Entra ID P2 or Microsoft Entra ID Governance licenses for the following categories of users:

Users with eligible and/or time-bound assignments to Microsoft Entra ID or Azure roles managed using PIM
Users with eligible and/or time-bound assignments as members or owners of PIM for Groups
Users able to approve or reject activation requests in PIM
Users assigned to an access review
Users who perform access reviews

Example License Scenarios for PIM

Here are some example license scenarios to help you determine the number of licenses you must have.

Scenario

Calculation

Number of Licenses

Woodgrove Bank has 10 administrators for different departments and 2 Privileged Role Administrators that configure and manage PIM. They make five administrators eligible.

Five licenses for the administrators who are eligible

5

Graphic Design Institute has 25 administrators of which 14 are managed through PIM. Role activation requires approval and there are three different users in the organization who can approve activations.

14 licenses for the eligible roles + three approvers

17

Contoso has 50 administrators of which 42 are managed through PIM. Role activation requires approval and there are five different users in the organization who can approve activations. Contoso also does monthly reviews of users assigned to administrator roles and reviewers are the users' managers of which six aren't in administrator roles managed by PIM.

42 licenses for the eligible roles + five approvers + six reviewers

53

 

When a license expires for PIM

If a Microsoft Entra ID P2, Microsoft Entra ID Governance, or trial license expires, Privileged Identity Management features are no longer available in your directory:

Permanent role assignments to Microsoft Entra roles are unaffected.

The Privileged Identity Management service in the Microsoft Entra admin center, and the Graph API cmdlets and PowerShell interfaces of Privileged Identity Management, will no longer be available for users to activate privileged roles, manage privileged access, or perform access reviews of privileged roles.

Eligible role assignments of Microsoft Entra roles are removed, as users will no longer be able to activate privileged roles.

Any ongoing access reviews of Microsoft Entra roles ends, and Privileged Identity Management configuration settings are removed.

Privileged Identity Management no longer sends emails on role assignment changes.

Microsoft Entra Verified ID

Microsoft Entra Verified ID is included with any Microsoft Entra ID subscription, including  

Microsoft Entra ID free, at no extra cost. Core Verified ID functionality help organizations:

Verify and issue organizational credentials for any unique identity attributes.

Empower end-users with ownership of their digital credential and greater visibility

Reduce organizational risk and simplify the audit process

Create user-centric, serverless apps that use Verified ID credentials.

Microsoft Entra Verified ID also provides Face Check as a premium feature available as an add-on. Face Check is included as a full capability in the Microsoft Entra Suite.

Microsoft Entra Workload ID

Microsoft Entra Workload ID supports application identities and service principals in Azure, requiring licenses per workload identity per month.

Multitenant Organizations

In the source tenant: Using this feature requires Microsoft Entra ID P1 licenses. Each user who is synchronized with cross-tenant synchronization must have a P1 license in their home/source tenant. To find the right license for your requirements, see Microsoft Entra ID Plans & Pricing.

In the target tenant: Cross-tenant sync relies on the Microsoft Entra External ID billing model.

To understand the external identities licensing model, see MAU billing model for Microsoft Entra External ID. You also need at least one Microsoft Entra ID P1 license in the target tenant to enable autoredemption.

All multitenant organizations features are included as part of Microsoft Entra suite

Role-Based Access Control

Using built-in roles in Microsoft Entra ID is free. Using custom roles require a Microsoft Entra ID P1 license for every user with a custom role assignment.

To find the right license for your requirements, see Comparing generally available features of the Free and Premium editions.

Roles

 Administrative units

Using administrative units requires a Microsoft Entra ID P1 license for each administrative unit administrator who is assigned directory roles over the scope of the administrative unit, and a Microsoft Entra ID Free license for each administrative unit member. Creating administrative units is available with a Microsoft Entra ID Free license. If you are using rules for dynamic membership groups for administrative units, each administrative unit member requires a Microsoft Entra ID P1 license.

To find the right license for your requirements, see Comparing generally available features of the Free and Premium editions. 

Restricted Management Administrative Units

Restricted management administrative units require a Microsoft Entra ID P1 license for each administrative unit administrator, and Microsoft Entra ID Free licenses for administrative unit members.

To find the right license for your requirements, see Comparing generally available features of the Free and Premium editions.

 

 

If you want to learn more about Microsoft cloud licensing structures and service capabilities, see the book Comprehensive Microsoft Cloud Licenses Reference Guide. It provides detailed explanations of Microsoft 365, Office 365, Microsoft Entra ID, Defender, Purview, EMS, Business, Education, and Government licensing models. The guide also includes feature comparisons, service limits, and architecture overviews for enterprise environments.

Available at ITCloudAcademy.net

 

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