Business Basic is $7.00 per user a month paid yearly, and it bundles Teams, OneDrive and the web Office apps. If all you use is the mailbox in Outlook, you have two cheaper options inside Microsoft and one outside it.
The three options, priced
| Plan | Per user a month | 5 people a year | 10 people a year | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $7.00 paid yearly | $420 | $840 | 50 GB mailbox, Teams, 1 TB OneDrive, web Office apps |
| Business Basic (no Teams) | $5.40 paid yearly | $324 | $648 | The same without Teams |
| Exchange Online Plan 1 | $4.00 paid yearly | $240 | $480 | 50 GB mailbox and 50 GB archive, custom domains, nothing else |
| Faivelo Starter | $6 flat, monthly or yearly | $72 | $72 | Unlimited mailboxes on up to 3 domains, 10 GB pooled, IMAP/SMTP, webmail |
Microsoft prices from microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/compare-all-microsoft-365-business-products and the Exchange Online plans page, checked 6 October 2026, annual subscriptions paid yearly. Faivelo is our own product.
Microsoft's compare pages only show prices "paid yearly" on an annual subscription, so the table does too. Once a paid subscription begins, Microsoft gives a 7-day cancellation window; after that you are in for the term.
Option one: drop to Exchange Online Plan 1
If you want to stay with Microsoft and only need the mailbox, Exchange Online Plan 1 is the email-only product: $4.00 per user a month paid yearly, 50 GB primary mailbox plus 50 GB archive, custom domains, no device limit. Same Exchange server, same Outlook, same admin center, no Teams or OneDrive. For five people that is $240 a year instead of $420.
Business Basic without Teams, at $5.40, is the middle path if someone still needs OneDrive or the web versions of Word and Excel. Switching plans happens in the Microsoft 365 admin center under Billing; mail and settings stay put.
Option two: keep Outlook, change the server
Outlook is a mail app. It opens any IMAP mailbox, not only Exchange ones. Move the mailboxes to a host that charges per account, add them to Outlook with the host's IMAP server on port 993 and SMTP on port 587, and the desktop you look at all day does not change. The Outlook setup guide has the exact fields.
On Faivelo that is $6 a month for everyone: unlimited mailboxes on up to three domains, with the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records written at your registrar for you where it supports a connection, and the migration tool copying each Exchange mailbox over IMAP while it keeps working. Ten people cost $72 a year rather than $480 on Exchange Online or $840 on Business Basic.
Outlook does not care whose server it talks to. Your invoice does.
Honest reasons to stay on Microsoft
Shared mailboxes. On Exchange, a shared mailbox such as support@ needs no licence and several licensed users can open it with full history, which is tidy. On a flat-rate host the equivalent is a plain mailbox several people sign in to, or an alias that copies to each person; it works, but it is a different habit.
Teams and OneDrive, if the business actually meets in Teams and stores files in OneDrive, are worth the $3 a seat difference over Exchange Online. And an organisation managed through Entra, with conditional access, device policies and compliance holds, has no equivalent at a small email host and should not pretend otherwise. The full feature table is on Faivelo vs Microsoft 365.
The verdict
Email only, want to stay with Microsoft: Exchange Online Plan 1 at $4.00 a user. Email only, more than two people, or role addresses you want as real inboxes: a flat-rate host at $6 for the lot, with Outlook unchanged. Teams, OneDrive and Entra in daily use: stay on Business Basic, and consider the no-Teams version if Teams is the one you do not open.
Keep Outlook. Change the bill.
Start a 14-day trial, add your domain, and copy the Exchange mailboxes over while they keep working. Then add the new account to Outlook and cancel the seats at the end of the term.