Microsoft 365 Education Licensing: A1, A3, A5, Faculty vs Student, and the Student Use Benefit

The ladder has three rungs. Office 365 A1 is the no-fee tier: web and mobile Office apps, Exchange Online, Teams for Education, SharePoint and OneDrive, no installed desktop apps. Office 365 A3 and A5 add the installed Microsoft 365 Apps and, at A5, Teams Phone, Audio Conferencing, Power BI Pro and advanced security for Office. Microsoft 365 A3 and A5 add the Windows and management layer: Windows 11 Education, Intune for Education, Entra ID P1 or P2, and Microsoft Defender. Every paid suite has a faculty SKU and a lower-priced student SKU.

A1 changed in 2024. Office 365 A1 Plus, the no-fee tier that also carried desktop apps for schools that had licensed Office institution-wide, was retired; Microsoft's retirement page states that all existing A1 Plus licenses expired in 2025 (Microsoft, Office 365 A1 Plus retirement FAQ, read October 2026). A1 users keep the web apps, mail and Teams; they do not get Word, Excel or PowerPoint installed.

Storage changed with it. Microsoft's education storage page states that from February 1, 2024 each Office 365 A1 user is limited to 100 GB of OneDrive, and that since August 2024 every education tenant receives 100 TB of pooled storage across OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange, with each paid Microsoft 365 A3 user adding 50 GB and each paid A5 user adding 100 GB; A1 licenses consume from the pool and add nothing (Microsoft, Microsoft 365 Education storage options, read October 2026). More capacity comes in 10 TB blocks: Microsoft 365 Education 10 TB Additional Storage is $3,600.00 per year, $300.00 per month on an annual term. Office 365 A1 for faculty and students is $0.00 per user on every term for a verified academic institution (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list).

The faculty SKU is for employees: teachers, administrators, support staff, any account that is not a student. The student SKU is for enrolled students only, is priced lower, and the student use benefit can take it to zero. Annual-term list prices from the October 2026 price list, per user per year, with the monthly equivalent shown as the annual figure divided by 12:

• Microsoft 365 A3: faculty $69.60 per year, which is $5.80 per user per month on an annual term ($69.60 ÷ 12); students $51.60 per year, $4.30 per month.
• Microsoft 365 A5: faculty $129.60 per year, $10.80 per month; students $96.00 per year, $8.00 per month.
• Office 365 A3: faculty $39.60 per year, $3.30 per month; students $30.00 per year, $2.50 per month.
• Office 365 A5: faculty $96.00 per year, $8.00 per month; students $72.00 per year, $6.00 per month.

All figures are Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list, Education segment, annual commitment; monthly-commitment rows cost more. Microsoft 365 Copilot for A3 and A5 faculty is a separate add-on at $216.00 per year, $18.00 per month.

Buy the faculty SKU for your employees, and students receive the matching product at no additional charge, within a ratio Microsoft sets per product. Microsoft's Product Terms state the ratios: each paid faculty or staff license of Microsoft 365 A3, A5 or A7, Office 365 A3 or A5, Enterprise Mobility + Security A3 or A5, or Windows Education carries up to 40 student instances; each paid license of a standalone product such as Entra ID P1 or P2, Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise or Defender for Office 365 carries up to 15. The benefit is available in the Cloud Solution Provider program as well as Microsoft's education agreements, and licenses acquired through it are not eligible for Software Assurance benefits (Microsoft Product Terms, Student Use Benefits and Academic Programs, read October 2026).

Two practical rules follow. The student benefit matches the faculty product: A3 for faculty yields A3 for students, not A5, and where an institution mixes tiers the Product Terms say the entitlement follows the lower plan ordered across the covered users. And Microsoft's education programs expect the paid faculty licenses to cover the institution's faculty and staff, not a handful of accounts; order the real staff count and the student side is a formality.

On the October 2026 price list the benefit appears as its own $0.00 rows: Microsoft 365 A3 for Students use benefit, Microsoft 365 A5 Student use benefit, the Office 365 A3 and A5 equivalents, and matching rows for Entra ID P1, Intune for Education, Microsoft 365 Apps and Windows Enterprise A3 and A5. We add them to the order against your faculty count, and each student account carries a real license.

Over Office 365 A1 and Office 365 A3, Microsoft 365 A3 for faculty adds the pieces a district runs the school on:

• The installed Microsoft 365 Apps on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets and five phones per user.
• Windows 11 Education through the Windows 10/11 Enterprise A3 entitlement, which upgrades the Windows license that came on the device.
• Intune for Education, Microsoft's simplified console for school devices, with the full Intune service behind it.
• Microsoft Entra ID P1: Conditional Access, group-based licensing, self-service password reset, and the MFA controls cyber insurers ask for.
• Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 1 and the baseline Microsoft Purview tools.
• 50 GB per paid user into the pooled storage.

If you need only one piece, the standalone rows exist: Microsoft Intune Plan 1 for Education is $9.00 per year ($0.75 per month) for faculty or students, Microsoft Entra ID P1 for education is $7.20 per year ($0.60) for faculty and $3.60 ($0.30) for students, and Windows 10/11 Enterprise A3 is $26.40 per year ($2.20) for faculty and $19.20 ($1.60) for students, each with a $0.00 student use benefit row (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list).

Device licenses: the suites are user licenses, and there is no Microsoft 365 A1 per-device SKU on the October 2026 list we sell from. Shared carts and labs are covered because the license follows the signed-in student, and Windows on the shared device is covered by the per-user Windows Enterprise entitlement of whoever signs in. The Microsoft 365 A3 Unattended License rows are for automation accounts, not shared devices.

A5 for faculty takes A3 and adds the security, compliance and voice layer:

• Microsoft Entra ID P2: Identity Protection and Privileged Identity Management.
• Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, Defender for Identity and Defender for Cloud Apps.
• Purview premium compliance: eDiscovery Premium, Insider Risk Management, advanced data loss prevention and longer audit retention.
• Teams Phone Standard and Audio Conferencing; calling plans and minutes are separate, and Microsoft's calling charges are always the customer's.
• Power BI Pro, and 100 GB per paid user into the pooled storage.

A5 costs $60.00 more per faculty user per year than A3 ($129.60 against $69.60) and is worth the step when the district will run at least three of its pieces: Teams Phone for the front office, Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 for the technology team, eDiscovery Premium for the records officer. Districts that need those for some people mix the tiers, A5 for those staff and A3 for everyone else, with the student benefit following the lower plan.

None of this is orderable until Microsoft has verified the institution. Microsoft's documentation states that an education customer in the Cloud Solution Provider program goes through an academic verification review before education offers can be purchased: the partner submits the institution's details, and Microsoft reviews them against its qualified educational user definitions, which cover accredited K-12 schools, districts, higher education institutions and certain administrative offices. The review is Microsoft's, it can take several business days, and a declined institution can buy commercial or nonprofit SKUs instead. Make the tenant domain and the legal name on the order match the school's public records; a mismatch is the usual reason for delay. Verification is per customer tenant, and once it clears, every Education-segment row on the price list opens.

Is Office 365 A1 still available at no charge for schools?

Yes: $0.00 per user on the October 2026 price list for a verified academic institution, Microsoft-sponsored and subject to eligibility. It no longer includes desktop apps, and A1 users are limited to 100 GB of OneDrive.

How many student licenses do I get per faculty license?

Microsoft's Product Terms allow up to 40 student instances per paid faculty suite license and up to 15 per paid standalone license such as Entra ID P1.

Do we have to buy A3 for every employee to get the student use benefit?

Microsoft's education programs tie the benefit to covering the institution's faculty and staff with paid licenses. Order against the real staff count; the student rows are added at $0.00.

Can a school mix Microsoft 365 A3 and A5?

Yes. A5 for the staff who need Teams Phone, Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 or eDiscovery Premium, A3 for everyone else; the student entitlement follows the lower plan.

• Microsoft NCE price list (US), October 2026, Education rows: Microsoft 365 A3 (CFQ7TTC0LHPL), Microsoft 365 A5 (CFQ7TTC0LHPJ), Office 365 A1 (CFQ7TTC0LHPK), Office 365 A3 (CFQ7TTC0LHPP), Office 365 A5 (CFQ7TTC0LHPM), Intune Plan 1 for Education (CFQ7TTC0LSNL), Entra ID P1 (CFQ7TTC0LFLS), Windows 10/11 Enterprise A3 (CFQ7TTC0J1S4), 10 TB Additional Storage (CFQ7TTC0N1T1), Copilot for A3 and A5 (CFQ7TTC0MM8R)
• Microsoft Product Terms, "Student Use Benefits and Academic Programs"; Microsoft, "Microsoft 365 Education storage options"; Microsoft, "Office 365 A1 Plus retirement"; all read October 2026
• Microsoft Learn, "Verify education customers" (Partner Center) and the Microsoft 365 Education plan comparison; not fetched at the time of writing, so the feature lists are kept to items the plan comparison has carried consistently
• IT Partner service pages: content/services/ITPWW310IMPOT, ITPWW240SECOT and ITPWW140MIGOT