# Planner Plan 1 vs Plan 3 vs Plan 5: Licensing and What Each Unlocks

> Planner Plan 1, Planner and Project Plan 3 and Plan 5 (the former Project Plans): what basic Planner includes, what each license adds, and what the Project Online retirement changed.

Canonical: https://o365hq.com/blog/planner-plan-1-vs-plan-3-vs-plan-5-formerly-project-plans-licensing-2026
Provider: IT Partner LLC — US Microsoft partner since 2006. Book: https://o365hq.com/book

Published: 2026-11-09 · IT Partner

Microsoft sells premium project management in Microsoft 365 as per-user licenses called Planner Plan 1, Planner and Project Plan 3 and Planner and Project Plan 5, the products that were Project Plan 1, 3 and 5 until 18 September 2024. This article explains what the rename changed, what basic Planner already gives every Microsoft 365 user, what each paid plan adds, how the 30 September 2026 retirement of Project Online reshaped Plan 3 and Plan 5, and who in a 20 to 500 person organization needs which license.

## The rename: Project became Planner, and what Planner Premium means

At Ignite in November 2023 Microsoft announced one Planner app that folds together To Do, the classic Planner and Project for the web; it reached Teams in April 2024. The licenses followed on 18 September 2024: Project Plan 1 became **Planner Plan 1**, Project Plan 3 became **Planner and Project Plan 3**, and Project Plan 5 became **Planner and Project Plan 5**. The entitlements and the product identifiers on the price list did not change; only the names did.

**Planner Premium** is not a product you buy. It is Microsoft's term for the premium plan type inside the Planner app: the plans that used to be Project for the web, stored in Dataverse, with timeline, dependencies and portfolios. Any of the three licenses unlocks premium plans; basic plans come with Microsoft 365. In the admin center the desktop app still shows as "Project Online Desktop Client", a service plan name Microsoft kept.

## What basic Planner in Microsoft 365 already includes

Every Microsoft 365 commercial suite with Exchange Online and SharePoint includes basic Planner: Business Basic, Standard and Premium, Office 365 E1, E3 and E5, Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, and the F1 and F3 frontline plans. A basic plan gives you tasks with buckets, labels, checklists, attachments and dates; Board, Grid, Schedule and Charts views; My Day and My Tasks, which gather To Do items and everything assigned to you; the Planner app in Teams; and plans tied to Microsoft 365 Groups.

What a basic plan lacks: a timeline (Gantt) view, dependencies, subtasks, custom fields, baselines, sprints, goals, a people view for workload, task history, portfolios that roll several plans together, and the agent features described later. For many organizations of 20 to 500 people that is enough, and the right licensing decision is to buy nothing. Premium plans earn their place when someone has to answer "what happens to the finish date if this task slips.

## Planner Plan 1: Planner Premium on the web and in Teams

[Planner Plan 1](/subscriptions/planner-plan-1) is the entry license and the one most team leads should look at first. It unlocks premium plans in the Planner web app and in Teams:

- **Timeline view** with a Gantt chart and **dependencies**, so a slipped task moves its successors.
- **Subtasks**, **custom fields**, **task history** and **baselines**, so a plan can be compared with what was agreed.
- **Goals**, **sprints** and a **people view** that shows who is overloaded.
- **Portfolios**, which group premium plans and show their status and timelines together.
- Storage in **Dataverse**, which opens the plan data to Power Automate, Power Apps and Power BI.

Plan 1 does not include the Project desktop app and never included Project Online. Its audience is the marketing manager running a launch or the IT manager tracking a migration: people who need dates and dependencies, not resource leveling. Microsoft licenses premium plans per user who works in them, not per project manager, so count plan members, and confirm the current rule for members who only check My Tasks against Microsoft Learn before you order. The plan page lists the monthly and annual commitment options and the one-month trial on the Commercial price list in November 2026.

## Planner and Project Plan 3: the desktop client, and what Project Online used to add

[Planner and Project Plan 3](/subscriptions/planner-and-project-plan-3) includes everything in Plan 1 plus the **Project desktop app**, which a licensed user can install on up to five Windows PCs. The desktop app is the scheduling engine Planner Premium does not replicate: critical path, resource leveling, cost fields, earned value, master projects, and native .mpp files for exchanging schedules with contractors and government clients who still ask for them.

Until 30 September 2026, Plan 3 also carried Project Online rights: the Project Web App (PWA) site, enterprise project types, resource engagements, timesheets and publishing a desktop schedule to the server. Those rights ended with the service. What remains in Plan 3 is Planner Premium plus the desktop app, which still opens local files and connects to Project Server Subscription Edition for organizations running the on-premises server.

Plan 3 is the license for the dedicated project manager and the PMO analyst, whose deliverable is a schedule file rather than a board. In a 200-person engineering or construction firm that is usually three to ten people; everyone else who touches their plans needs Plan 1 at most. Organizations that bill project time should read the [Dynamics 365 Project Operations article](/blog/dynamics-365-project-operations-licensing-and-pricing-2026) rather than stretch Plan 3 into a finance system.

## Planner and Project Plan 5 and the Project Online retirement

Plan 5 added the portfolio layer of Project Online to Plan 3: **portfolio selection and optimization** (scoring proposed projects against business drivers and a cost constraint), **demand management** (intake forms and approval workflows), **enterprise resource management** with capacity planning, and portfolio analysis. Every one of those features lived in the Project Web App.

Microsoft announced the retirement in Message Center post MC1148537 in 2025. New Project Online-only subscriptions, including Project Online Essentials, ended on 1 October 2025, and the service retired on 30 September 2026, after which PWA sites are inaccessible and unexported data is gone. Because the features that separated Plan 5 from Plan 3 were PWA features, Plan 5 lost its reason to exist the same day. As of November 2026 Plan 5 is not on the Commercial price list we sell from, and Microsoft partner commentary states that Plan 5 and Project Online Essentials are no longer offered for purchase or renewal. For Plan 5 holders the renewal conversation is about Plan 3 plus one of the options below.

Microsoft's stated successor is Planner Premium: portfolios in Planner, Power BI on Dataverse, and the Power Platform for intake and approvals. That covers roll-up and reporting, not portfolio optimization or timesheets; for those, the realistic paths are Project Server Subscription Edition on your own servers or an independent software vendor PPM product built on Planner and Dataverse. Microsoft's own notice says Planner is not a one-for-one replacement for a complex Project Online environment.

## Who needs which plan in a 20 to 500 person organization

| Role | What they do | License |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone | Tasks, boards, My Day, Teams channel plans | Basic Planner, included in the suite |
| Team lead or coordinator | Timeline, dependencies, custom fields, a small portfolio | [Planner Plan 1](/subscriptions/planner-plan-1) |
| Project manager or PMO analyst | Critical path, resource leveling, .mpp files, Project Server | [Planner and Project Plan 3](/subscriptions/planner-and-project-plan-3) |
| Former Plan 5 holder | Portfolio scoring, demand management, timesheets | Plan 3 plus Planner portfolios, Power Platform or an ISV PPM product |

The licenses mix freely in one plan, so a Plan 3 project manager can run a premium plan that Plan 1 members update. Both paid plans come on monthly or annual commitment with a one-month trial. The price is Microsoft's list price in every case; the plan pages carry the current figure, and a [license audit](/services/microsoft-365-license-audit-optimization) finds Plan 3 seats assigned to people who have not opened the desktop app in a year.

## Dataverse, Power BI reporting and the Planner agent

**Dataverse.** Premium plans are stored in a Dataverse environment in your tenant, and each premium license adds an accrual of database capacity to the tenant pool, which Power Apps and Dynamics 365 share; the [Dataverse capacity article](/blog/dataverse-capacity-and-pricing-explained-database-file-log-add-ons) explains what happens when it fills.

**Power BI.** Microsoft publishes a Power BI template for premium plans that connects to the Dataverse tables and produces portfolio, timeline and resource reports. Sharing them needs Power BI Pro (included in Microsoft 365 E5) or Fabric capacity. Reports built on Project Online's OData feed stopped working on 30 September 2026 and must be rebuilt against Dataverse; the [Power BI report development service](/services/power-bi-dashboard-report-development) does that kind of rebuild.

**The Planner agent.** Copilot in Planner, previewed in 2024, became the Project Manager agent and is now the Planner agent. It needs a **Microsoft 365 Copilot** license on the user; none of the Planner licenses includes it. With Copilot the agent works in basic plans; a user who also holds Plan 1, Plan 3 or Plan 5 gets the premium functions, such as generating a premium plan with goals and dependencies and keeping its status current. Preview access through Planner licenses alone ended in August 2025. The [Copilot licensing article](/blog/microsoft-365-copilot-licensing-and-pricing-2026) covers the Copilot side.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is Planner Premium the same as Project for the web?

Yes. Project for the web became the premium plan type in the new Planner app in 2024, with portfolios, baselines, sprints and goals added since. Any Planner Plan 1, Planner and Project Plan 3 or Planner and Project Plan 5 license unlocks it.

### Is Planner Plan 1 included in Microsoft 365 E3 or E5?

No. The suites include basic Planner only. Premium plans need one of the three Planner licenses assigned per user, whatever the base suite.

### Can I still buy Planner and Project Plan 5?

As of November 2026 it is not on the Commercial price list we sell from, and partner sources report it is no longer available for purchase or renewal following the Project Online retirement on 30 September 2026. Holders of Plan 5 should ask for their renewal path, which in practice is Plan 3.

### Does Plan 3 work on a Mac?

The Project desktop app is Windows only. A Plan 3 user on a Mac gets Planner Premium in the browser and Teams, the same as Plan 1, unless the desktop app runs through Windows 365 or Azure Virtual Desktop.

## Sources

- Microsoft 365 Message Center, MC1148537, "Microsoft Project Online is retiring" — consulted via the [Message Center archive](https://mc.merill.net/message/MC1148537), November 2026 (dates and successor)
- [Planner and Project Plan 5](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/planner/project-plan-5) and [Microsoft Planner](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/planner) — Microsoft, consulted November 2026 (plan features)
- [Access Planner agent](https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/access-planner-agent-86bf60a1-239d-4c37-b7b6-9a4111e1cc02) — Microsoft Support, consulted November 2026 (Copilot requirement)
- [Microsoft Planner for admins](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/planner/planner-for-admins) — Microsoft Learn, consulted November 2026 (availability; Dataverse)
- [Microsoft Project Plan 3 and 5: Name Changes](https://www.schneider.im/microsoft-project-plan-3-and-5-name-changes/) — Schneider.im, consulted November 2026 (18 September 2024 rename)
- Commercial price list, November 2026: Plan 1 and Plan 3 listed; no Plan 5 line

## Key takeaways

- Project Plan 1, 3 and 5 became Planner Plan 1, Planner and Project Plan 3 and Planner and Project Plan 5 on 18 September 2024; the entitlements did not change with the name.
- Basic Planner is included in every Microsoft 365 and Office 365 commercial suite; Planner Premium (the former Project for the web) needs one of the three paid licenses per user.
- Plan 1 unlocks timeline, dependencies, subtasks, custom fields, baselines, sprints, goals and portfolios in the Planner web and Teams apps.
- Plan 3 adds the Project desktop app for Windows and, until 30 September 2026, Project Online; after that date it is Planner Premium plus the desktop app.
- Project Online retired on 30 September 2026 and Plan 5's distinguishing features went with it; Plan 5 is off the Commercial price list in November 2026 and existing holders renew onto Plan 3.
- Premium plans live in Dataverse, which is what makes Power BI and Power Automate reporting possible; the Planner agent needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, not a Planner license.

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Match your roles to the table, then start the one-month trial on the [Planner Plan 1](/subscriptions/planner-plan-1) or [Planner and Project Plan 3](/subscriptions/planner-and-project-plan-3) page, or [book a 30-minute licensing call](/book) if you hold Plan 5 seats or Project Online reports that need a new home.