Microsoft Purview is a comprehensive portfolio of services spanning data governance, data security, and risk and compliance solutions. It helps organizations govern, protect, and manage data wherever it lives, providing a powerful platform for data security and governance. This article provides guidance on how to license Microsoft Purview capabilities for your organization.

This licensing guidance applies to the Microsoft Purview family of services including Data Lifecycle Management, Data Loss Protection, Insider Risk Management, eDiscovery, Audit, Communication Compliance, and more. 

You can license Purview data compliance and data security solutions for your Microsoft 365 data with user-based subscriptions. Pay-as-you-go options are available for security and governance and compliance of your non-Microsoft 365 data (for example, Azure SQL Database and Fabric data). 

You can license Microsoft Purview services on a user subscription basis as add-ons and through various Microsoft 365 plans. (See User subscription options below for further details.) Typically, the end users to whom the Purview services are applied require a license. For example, when an admin uses the Purview Data Governance service to set a retention policy for all SharePoint files across the organization, every SharePoint user is accessing and benefiting from that service and therefore needs the appropriate User Subscription License. [View related Product Terms]

Refer to the Microsoft 365 guidance for security & compliance article for further details about how users access and benefit from specific Purview services and the corresponding User Subscription License options.

You must appropriately license the use of a service regardless of technical enforcement. Some services check for a license before granting access or allow you to restrict access to licensed users via your admin portal. Others may not enforce this yet but could in the future. Ensure you are properly licensed regardless of what technical enforcement is currently available.

Refer to the Microsoft 365 guidance for security & compliance article to learn more about the license requirements for specific Purview services, how they are deployed to your tenant by default, and how to limit access to licensed users only.

You must properly license any user or device that directly or indirectly accesses, uses, or otherwise benefits from a service. Using hardware or software to pool connections, reroute or indirectly access information, and/or reduce the number of devices or users that directly access or use a service to reduce the number of users or devices accessing or being managed by the service (often referred to as “multiplexing”) does not reduce the number of licenses you need. For additional information, refer to the Microsoft Multiplexing Overview. [View related Product Terms]

You can reassign a User Subscription License, but not within 90 days of its last assignment unless the user is absent (for example has left your organization or is on leave). If you reassign a Subscription License within 90 days of the last assignment for any other reason, that reassignment must be for the remaining duration of the subscription term. [View related Product Terms] 

You can use some Purview services for your non-Microsoft 365 data on a pay-as-you-go-basis. Find pricing details for Microsoft Purview pay-as-you-go services.

You can license your users for Purview services through Microsoft 365 user-based subscriptions. What is included in the various Microsoft 365 plans is summarized below. Some of these services may also be included in Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) plans.

There are typically subscription options for education users (A plans) and United States government users (G plans) that align to subscriptions for commercial enterprise users (E plans). For example, there are separate Microsoft Purview Suite, Microsoft Purview Suite Edu, and Microsoft Purview Suite Gov plans. Microsoft also offers plans for small and medium business.

Refer to the following for detailed comparison of the products and capabilities included in various user subscription plans:

• Compare plans for enterprises
• Compare plans for businesses
• Compare plans for education
• Compare plans for US Government Community Cloud (GCC)
• Compare plans for US GCC-High
• Compare plans for the US Department of Defense (DoD)

Microsoft 365 E3/A3/G3, Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5, Microsoft 365 F1, Microsoft 365 F3, and Microsoft 365 Business Premium include some core capabilities associated with the following Purview products:

• Information Protection (manual, default, and mandatory sensitivity labeling in Microsoft 365 apps)
• Data Loss Prevention for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online & OneDrive for Business
• Data Lifecycle Management (manual retention labels and basic org-wide or location-wide retention policies)
• Compliance Manager
• Basic Message Encryption
• eDiscovery (Standard)
• Audit (Standard)

The simplest way to provide all the Purview services to your information and knowledge workers is to license them with a Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5 subscription. You can also add Purview services for users with subscriptions for Microsoft 365 E3/A3/G3, or Office 365 E3/A3/G3 + Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) E3/A3 by adding Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5 Purview Suite.

You also have the option of licensing users for subsets of advanced Purview services by adding Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5 Information Protection and Governance, Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5 Insider Risk Management, or Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5 eDiscovery and Audit.

You can license all the Purview services for your frontline workers by adding Microsoft Purview Suite (or Microsoft Defender + Purview Suite) to Microsoft 365 F1, Microsoft 365 F3, or Office 365 F3 + Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) E3 (K).

You also have the option of licensing frontline workers for subsets of advanced Purview services by adding Microsoft 365 F5 Information Protection and Governance, Microsoft 365 F5 Insider Risk Management, or Microsoft 365 F5 eDiscovery and Audit to Microsoft 365 F1, Microsoft 365 F3, or Office 365 F3 + EMS E3 (K).

You can license all the advanced Purview capabilities for your Microsoft 365 Business Premium users by adding the Microsoft Purview Suite for Business Premium. You can also include advanced Microsoft Defender capabilities by adding the combined Microsoft Defender and Purview Suites for Business Premium.

The following table summarizes the advanced Purview services included in these plans.

You have multiple options for where you buy subscription licenses, including:

• From a Microsoft partner
• From Microsoft Sales
• From the Microsoft 365 website or your Microsoft 365 Admin Center

To learn more about these options, refer to the How to Buy guide. 

Except for Microsoft 365 E5, your options for adding advance Microsoft Purview services are through add-on licenses that require the user to have a prerequisite license. Please see the License Prerequisites Table in the Product Terms.