What can UK SMEs automate with Microsoft 365 Business Premium?
Most small businesses pay for Business Premium and use a fraction of it. Beyond email and Teams, it bundles the building blocks for serious workflow automation — at no extra licence cost.
What Business Premium actually includes
At around £16.90 per user per month, Business Premium is more than Office plus email. It adds the Power Platform "seeded" rights, security and device management that turn Microsoft 365 into an operating system for your business.
Included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium
| Component | What it lets you automate |
|---|---|
| Power Automate (standard) | Cloud flows across Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, Excel and Forms — reminders, notifications, file moves, handoffs. |
| Power Apps (in-context) | Apps over SharePoint lists with standard connectors — request forms, simple internal tools. |
| SharePoint & Lists | Structured data, document libraries, version control and content approval. |
| Approvals (in Teams) | Routed sign-off with reminders and a full audit trail. |
| Microsoft Forms | Structured intake that triggers a flow — onboarding, requests, surveys. |
| Bookings | Self-service scheduling with automatic calendar invites and reminders. |
| Entra ID P1 + Intune | Conditional access, device management and the governance to do all of the above safely. |
What you can build today with no extra licence
Common Business Premium automations
- Invoice and payment reminders triggered by an overdue date
- Client or staff onboarding from a single Form
- Document approval workflows with version control
- Internal request desks built on SharePoint lists
- Automated meeting booking and reminders via Bookings
- Scheduled internal notifications and digest emails
Where you do need to pay more
The line is the premium connector and Dataverse. The moment a flow or app must connect directly to an external system (a CRM, an accounting package) via a premium connector, or needs Dataverse as a robust data store, you move to Power Automate Premium (~£12.30) or Power Apps Premium (~£16.40) per user. A good build avoids that where it sensibly can.
Indicative UK list prices, per user per month, ex-VAT, mid-2026. Microsoft is changing some Microsoft 365 and Copilot prices from 1 July 2026 — always confirm current pricing before you commit.
Want this applied to your business?
A free 30-minute automation review turns any of these ideas into a costed plan for your own processes.