The new pricing tier from Microsoft costs $4 per user each month and offers a paid alternative to the existing free version of Teams
Microsoft has introduced a new paid tier for its Teams collaboration software aimed at small business customers. The new option — called Teams Essentials — offers additional features and support for $4 per user each month compared to free version of Teams that arrived in 2018, Microsoft said. “It’s the first standalone offering of Microsoft Teams designed specifically with small businesses in mind,” said Jared Spataro in a blog post on Wednesday. Teams Essentials includes a range of core features also available in the free tier, including persistent chat and video call functionality such as virtual backgrounds, meeting lobby, and the immersive Together Mode. There’s also a Google Calendar integration on the way “soon,” Microsoft said. There are some differences with the free product, however. Teams Essentials provides users with 10GB of cloud file storage — that’s double the amount of the free version, which has now been reduced from 10GB to 5GB.
