SharePoint Sites and Portals: How to Build a Microsoft 365 Intranet
A Microsoft 365 intranet is one communication home site, one hub per business function, and team sites where the work happens, surfaced inside Teams through Viva Connections. Most of it is already in the licenses you own. This guide gives the site map, Microsoft's limits that shape it, a six-week build order, the governance settings to turn on first, and what the extras cost at Microsoft's October 2026 list prices.
The short version: one home site, a hub per function, team sites for the work
Communication sites publish to many readers from a few authors. Team sites hold the files and lists a group works on, and every Microsoft Team creates one. Hubs are a navigation layer that ties related sites together with shared menus, theme, news roll-up and scoped search. The home site is the communication site that becomes the front door, in the browser and in Teams.
The counts below are our planning guidance from intranet builds, not Microsoft limits.
| Organization | Home site | Hubs | Communication sites | Team sites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 users | 1 | 2 to 3 (company, HR, operations) | 3 to 5 | 10 to 20, mostly Teams-connected |
| 150 users | 1 | 4 to 6 | 6 to 12 | 30 to 60 |
| 500 users | 1 | 8 to 12 | 15 to 30 | 150 to 300 |
A map with more hubs than departments will not be maintained; fewer sites with named owners outlast it.
Step 1: choose the site type for each purpose
| Purpose | Site type | Who writes | Decision rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company news, policies, benefits, onboarding, service catalog | Communication site | A few authors; everyone reads | Broadcast content with an owner who publishes at least monthly |
| A department's, project's or client's documents and lists | Team site connected to a Microsoft 365 group | The group's members | Collaboration, with membership managed by the group |
| A Teams team's files | Team site created by Teams; private and shared channels get their own sites | Channel members | Do not create a separate SharePoint site for a team that already exists |
| A function spanning several sites (HR, Finance, a region) | Hub: a communication site designated as the hub | Hub owner curates navigation | One hub per function that owns three or more sites |
| The front door | Home site, usually the company communication site | Communications team | Exactly one |
Two rules save rework: content lives in a team site while it is being worked on and is promoted to a communication site when it becomes official, and a Teams-connected site is already that team's collaboration space, so a second site for the same people creates two copies of every file.
Step 2: hubs, with Microsoft's limits
Microsoft's SharePoint limits page sets 2,000 hub sites per organization and limits every navigation type (site, hub, global and footer) to 500 child links at each level. A site can be associated with one hub at a time, and hubs cannot be nested inside each other, so the hub layer is flat: HR is a hub, Benefits and Onboarding are sites in it, and a Benefits sub-hub is not possible.
The working rules:
- Create a hub only for a function that owns three or more sites; below that, a section on the home site is enough.
- Name the hub owner who approves which sites join it; hub association is a request, not a free-for-all.
- Keep hub navigation to one level of eight to twelve links; the 500-link ceiling is not a target.
- Give the hub a theme and a news roll-up so associated sites inherit the look and feed the hub's news.
Microsoft's guidance is to create sites and organize them into hubs rather than build subsites; nothing new should be built as a subsite.
Step 3: build the home site and the first five pages
The home site launches with five pages and nothing more: a home page with news, quick links, events and a people spotlight; a news archive; an HR or benefits page; an IT help page; and a policy library.
Audience targeting is what makes one home page work for 500 people. It filters news, navigation links, quick links and highlighted content by Microsoft 365 groups, security groups or dynamic groups, so a warehouse team sees shift notices and the finance team sees close dates. Microsoft's documentation is explicit that targeting is not a security feature: anyone with permission can still find the item through search or a direct link. Permissions on the site, page and library still decide who can open what.
Three build rules: every news post has an author and a review date; quick links are limited to the twelve things people ask the help desk for; the policy library uses metadata (owner, effective date, review date) rather than folders. Business process automation with built-in tools, $1,500 per project, wires up the approval flows behind a policy library, and new employee onboarding with approvals is $900 per project.
Step 4: put the intranet inside Teams with Viva Connections
Viva Connections places the home site, a dashboard of cards and a feed inside Microsoft Teams on desktop and mobile. Microsoft's documentation says a home site is not required to set up Viva Connections, but the full experience, including global navigation in the Resources tab, depends on one, so designate the home site first.
The core Viva Connections experience is included with Microsoft 365 plans that include SharePoint and Teams; running several separate Connections experiences for different audiences, and the broader Viva Employee Communications and Communities or Viva Suite features, carry Viva licensing: Viva Employee Communications and Communities at $2.00 per user per month or Viva Suite at $12.00, on an annual commitment (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list).
The launch dashboard needs six cards, not twenty: time off, pay and benefits, IT help, the news feed, approvals, and one card for the thing your business does every day. Microsoft Viva employee experience deployment, from $4,950 per project, covers the dashboard, the feed and the mobile rollout.
Step 5: governance settings on day one
- Two owners per site. An orphaned site is the first thing an auditor and a Copilot rollout both find.
- External sharing default. Set the tenant default to existing guests only, and open specific sites on request.
- Naming and provisioning. A request form and a naming convention (department-purpose) before the first site, not after the fiftieth.
- Storage. Microsoft's pool is 1 TB plus 10 GB per eligible license, so 100 licenses give 2 TB. Message Center notice MC1310684 aligned quota enforcement with licensed storage between late May and June 2026; a tenant over its pool goes read-only until it buys Office 365 Extra File Storage at $2.40 per GB per year or cleans up (the cleanup order).
- SharePoint Advanced Management. Microsoft's licensing table lists the Advanced Management features unlocked by a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, including restricted access control for sites, the inactive-site policy in simulation mode and the site ownership policy; restricted site creation is not included and needs SharePoint Advanced Management Plan 1 at $36 per user per year at Microsoft's October 2026 list price.
- Lifecycle. A quarterly review that archives sites with no activity for 180 days.
SharePoint governance and information architecture review, $2,450 per project, produces these settings as a written standard. How law firms structure SharePoint for compliance shows the same rules under a regulator.
Licensing and costs at Microsoft's October 2026 list prices
Per user per year on an annual commitment, Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list, billed to you by Microsoft.
| What | Price | Intranet relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $84 | SharePoint, Teams and Viva Connections core in the web and mobile apps |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | $168 | Adds the desktop Office apps |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | $264 | Adds Intune, Entra ID P1, Defender for Business and the labels most governance plans need |
| Office 365 E1 | $120 | The enterprise equivalent of Business Basic with no 300-user cap |
| Microsoft 365 E3 | $468 | Enterprise plan with the same governance components as Business Premium |
| Microsoft 365 F3 | $120 | Frontline workers who read the intranet on a phone |
| SharePoint Plan 1 or Plan 2 | Quoted on request | SharePoint without the rest of the suite; Plan 1 vs Plan 2 explains when |
| SharePoint Advanced Management Plan 1 | $36 | Restricted site creation and the full governance set without a Copilot license |
| Office 365 Extra File Storage | $2.40 per GB | When the pool runs out |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot / Copilot Business (up to 300 users) | $360 / $252 | Copilot in SharePoint and the Advanced Management features above |
| Viva Suite, Viva Employee Communications and Communities | Quoted on request | Multiple Connections experiences, Viva Amplify campaigns, premium Engage features |
For the build itself: SharePoint Online initial planning and setup is $875 per project for a small tenant, SharePoint Online intranet design and deployment is from $9,500 per project, and the managed SharePoint Online and intranet care plan is $750 per month afterward. All are quoted in writing before work begins.
A six-week build plan
| Week | Work | Output |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Interviews with six to ten people across functions; inventory of existing sites, file shares and the help desk's ten most common questions | Site map, hub list, owner list |
| 2 | Governance standard: naming, provisioning, sharing default, storage plan, ownership rule | Signed one-page standard |
| 3 | Home site and hubs created; theme, navigation, audience groups; the five pages drafted | Working home site in a pilot group |
| 4 | Content migration for the policy library and department pages; company document migration to SharePoint or Teams is $3,500 per project | Populated sites |
| 5 | Viva Connections dashboard and feed; mobile test on iOS and Android; pilot with 20 users; search tuning with bookmarks and acronyms | Fixes list closed |
| 6 | Launch communications, owner training, care plan handover | Live intranet with a review calendar |
The schedule assumes content owners are named in week 1 and show up in week 4; the weeks that slip are the content weeks.
Copilot on the intranet: what changes
Microsoft 365 Copilot answers from the content a user already has permission to open, which turns every oversharing mistake on the intranet into a search result. Before a Copilot rollout, three checks come first: sites shared with Everyone except external users, libraries with broken inheritance nobody remembers, and old team sites whose membership outlived the project. The restricted access control and inactive-site policies that come with a Copilot license are the tools for it; the Copilot oversharing assessment and remediation, $4,950 per project, runs the whole check, and the hidden risk explains why it comes before the first seat.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use a communication site or a team site for the intranet?
Communication sites for anything a few people publish and many read: the home site, HR, IT help, policies. Team sites, connected to a Microsoft 365 group, for the files a group works on; every Microsoft Team already has one.
How many hub sites should we have?
Microsoft allows 2,000 per organization; most organizations under 500 people need between three and twelve, one per function that owns three or more sites. A site joins one hub, and hubs cannot be nested, so plan a flat layer.
Is Viva Connections included in Microsoft 365?
The core Viva Connections experience is included with Microsoft 365 plans that include SharePoint and Teams. A home site is not required but is recommended for the full experience. Running several separate Connections experiences or using the wider Viva Employee Communications and Communities features needs Viva licensing: Viva Employee Communications and Communities at $2.00 per user per month or Viva Suite at $12.00 on an annual commitment.
How much SharePoint storage do we get?
1 TB for the tenant plus 10 GB per eligible license, so 100 licenses give 2 TB. Microsoft aligned quota enforcement with licensed storage in May and June 2026 (Message Center MC1310684); a tenant over its pool goes read-only until it adds Office 365 Extra File Storage at $2.40 per GB per year at list price or cleans up.
Does audience targeting hide content from people?
No. It filters what appears in news, navigation, quick links and highlighted content for members of the chosen groups; Microsoft's documentation states it is not a security feature, and search or a direct link still shows the item to anyone with permission. Use permissions for confidentiality and targeting for relevance.
Do we need a developer to build a SharePoint intranet?
Not for the structure in this guide: sites, hubs, pages, audience targeting, Viva Connections cards and the governance settings are all configuration. Custom web parts, integrations and workflows beyond the built-in tools are development work, billed at $175 per hour through SharePoint Online and Microsoft 365 apps customization.
Sources
- SharePoint limits — Microsoft Learn, checked 2026-10-11
- Planning your SharePoint hub sites — Microsoft Learn, checked 2026-10-11
- Overview of Viva Connections — Microsoft Learn, checked 2026-10-11
- Target content to a specific audience on a SharePoint site — Microsoft Learn, checked 2026-10-11
- SharePoint Advanced Management features with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license — Microsoft Learn, checked 2026-10-11
- MC1310684: SharePoint Online storage quota enforcement updated to align with license limits — Microsoft 365 Message Center, archived by Merill Fernando, checked 2026-10-11
- Microsoft Copilot plans and pricing — Microsoft, checked 2026-10-11
Key takeaways
- A Microsoft 365 intranet is one communication home site, one hub per function that owns three or more sites, and team sites for the work, surfaced in Teams through Viva Connections.
- Microsoft's limits shape the map: 2,000 hubs per organization, one hub per site, no nested hubs, 500 links per navigation level, and 250 GB per file.
- Launch the home site with five pages, audience-target by group for relevance, and use permissions, not targeting, for confidentiality.
- The core Viva Connections experience is included with Microsoft 365 plans that have SharePoint and Teams; multiple experiences and the wider Viva features carry Viva licensing at $2.00 (Employee Communications and Communities) or $12.00 (Viva Suite) per user per month.
- Set governance on day one: two owners per site, a sharing default, naming and provisioning rules, and a storage plan against the 1 TB plus 10 GB per license pool that Microsoft now enforces.
- Business Basic at $84 per user per year already covers SharePoint and Teams; Business Premium at $264 adds the governance components, and SharePoint Advanced Management Plan 1 at $36 adds restricted site creation (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list).
- A six-week build is realistic when content owners are named in week 1; the weeks that slip are the content weeks.
If you want the site map, governance standard, home site, hubs and Viva Connections dashboard built and handed over with trained owners, SharePoint Online Intranet Design and Deployment is from $9,500 per project, quoted in writing before work begins, with Microsoft licenses billed to you at list price: start the intranet build.
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