What Teams Phone license do I need?

Microsoft's Teams Phone licensing guide puts the requirement in terms of two applications. A user who needs their own phone number must have licensing that includes Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft 365 Phone System application. Teams Phone is the name on the license, and Phone System is the application it switches on. You can see which applications an account has under its assigned licenses in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

E5 is the case where the phone system is already there. The guide says that where any Microsoft 365 E5 license is used, the stand-alone Teams Phone Standard license isn't necessary. An older E5 includes both Teams and the phone system. The newer Microsoft 365 E5 (no Teams) includes the phone system and leaves Teams out, so that account needs a Teams license such as Microsoft Teams Enterprise beside it. In both cases, buying Teams Phone Standard for an E5 user pays for the phone system twice.

Accounts on plans that don't include the phone system add it. Microsoft lists the plans that Teams Phone Standard can be added to, and the list is long. It includes Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3, Office 365 E1 and E3, and Microsoft Teams Enterprise. On its US price list, Teams Phone Standard is $10.00 per user per month on an annual subscription paid yearly. Frontline plans have their own version. A worker on Microsoft 365 F1 or F3 or Office 365 F3 can take Teams Phone Standard for Frontline Workers.

This choice is about the carrier. Teams Phone Standard is the phone system alone. The bundle adds a Microsoft Calling Plan, which makes Microsoft the carrier that connects calls to landlines and mobiles. That is the difference between Teams Phone and a Calling Plan. Microsoft lists the domestic bundle at $17.00 per user per month for a US user, paid yearly, with 3,000 outbound domestic minutes a month included.

If another carrier provides the calling and the account needs the phone-system add-on, Standard supplies it. The licensing guide says Microsoft requires no further license when you use an operator other than Microsoft, because you pay that operator for the calling. The one exception is by country: for phone service in India, the guide requires a separate India-specific Teams Phone license from a licensed telecom operator there.

Atlantech Online is one operator outside Microsoft. Its Operator Connect page publishes a flat rate "as low as $3 per user/month" with unlimited calling in the US and number porting listed. That is the carrier's charge for its service. It doesn't replace the Microsoft license, and Atlantech quotes the rate for each organization.

The bundle isn't the only way to get Microsoft as the carrier. Microsoft's Calling Plans page says a Calling Plan can also be bought as its own license once the account has Teams Phone. That is the route for an account that already has the phone system, whether from E5 or from a Standard license bought earlier. It adds a Calling Plan and avoids paying for the phone system a second time.

Some accounts don't belong to a person, and Microsoft licenses them differently. A phone in a lobby or break room signs in with its own account. That account takes a Teams Shared Space license, which includes the phone system. Each license covers one device. Microsoft called this license Teams Shared Devices before April 2026, and some of its pages still use the old name.

Auto attendants and call queues run on resource accounts, which nobody can sign in to. Microsoft's resource account guide says each resource account needs a Teams Phone Resource Account license to work with an auto attendant or call queue.

The same guide says a subscription with Teams Phone gets an allotment of these licenses at zero cost. You still have to go through the purchase in the admin center to receive them, and more can be bought if the allotment runs out. Neither a shared phone account nor a resource account needs a Microsoft Teams Enterprise license.

A Teams Phone license doesn't have to come with a personal phone number. With Shared Calling, a group of users make and receive outside calls through one number that belongs to a resource account attached to an auto attendant. Microsoft's licensing guide says these users need only a license for Teams Phone. They don't need a dedicated number or a Calling Plan. If the shared number is a Microsoft number, the resource account needs a pay-as-you-go Calling Plan.

So Shared Calling changes where the number and the calling plan are assigned. Every person who uses the shared number still needs the phone-system entitlement. The number itself is a separate matter, since a Teams Phone license doesn't include a phone number.

Suppose a 36-person firm wants a main number with an auto attendant, a call queue for its support group, and a phone in the lobby. The auto attendant and the queue each have their own resource account. Six partners have Microsoft 365 E5 that includes Teams. The other 30 people have Microsoft 365 E3 with Teams Enterprise. The firm plans to use Atlantech's Operator Connect service as its carrier.

The six partners need nothing more from Microsoft for the phone system. The 30 E3 users each need Teams Phone Standard, which comes to $300.00 a month at the US list price. The subscription is paid yearly, so that is $3,600.00 for the year. The lobby phone needs one Shared Space license. The two resource accounts need two Resource Account licenses, which cost nothing as long as the firm's allotment covers two. Atlantech then quotes the calling service, and Microsoft asks for no Calling Plan.

Change one assumption and the list changes. If the firm made Microsoft the carrier for all 36 people, the 30 E3 users could take the $17.00 bundle in place of Standard, and the six partners would each add a Calling Plan. If the partners had E3 with Teams Enterprise like everyone else, the firm would need 36 Teams Phone Standard licenses, and its Microsoft bill for the phone system would be $60.00 a month higher. The carrier is a separate decision, and it comes down to which PSTN connectivity option fits the firm.

Calls between colleagues in Teams don't need one. Microsoft's add-on licensing page says most Microsoft 365 plans let Teams users call each other inside the organization. Those calls run on the Teams license the users already have. The Teams Phone license adds the phone system features, such as auto attendants and call queues, and it is what a carrier connection attaches to.

Dialing in to a meeting from a phone is a different license as well. That is Audio Conferencing, and the same page says it doesn't require a Teams Phone license. It also says an Audio Conferencing license is already included in an E5 subscription. A company that only wants people to join meetings by phone can skip Teams Phone for those users.