Microsoft Backup & Recovery Licensing Guide 2026

What's Inside the Guide

• 01

  Microsoft's Backup Landscape: Products, Pricing & What Most Organisations Miss

  All 6 Microsoft backup products explained — billing mechanisms, coverage scope, and the compounding cost problem that trips up 3-year EA budgets.

• 02

  Microsoft 365 Backup: Coverage, Gaps, and Cost Models

  What M365 Backup covers (and doesn't) — Teams channels, Loop, Forms, SharePoint Server exclusions. Cost tables for 500 to 10,000 users.

• 03

  Azure Backup: Instance Pricing, Hidden Costs & What Enterprises Actually Pay

  The SQL Server double-count problem. MABS vs per-instance billing. 200-VM cost model showing how $10/month becomes $62,400/year.

• 04

  Azure Site Recovery: DR Licensing and the 31-Day Free Period

  Pricing by scenario, 300-VM cost model ($74,640/year), storage cost traps, and how to stage replication waves to maximise the free window.

• 05

  Veeam vs Microsoft Native Backup: 3-Year TCO Comparison

  Side-by-side 3-year TCO for 300 VMs + 1,000 M365 users. When Veeam wins. When Azure Backup wins. How to use each as leverage against the other.

• 06

  Negotiation Tactics: Getting Better Terms on Microsoft Backup

  Five proven levers — storage commitment tiers, competitive displacement discounts (15-25%), MACC bundling, growth caps, and SA/MABS strategy.

• 07

  Building Your Backup Licensing Assessment: The Right Framework

  4-step assessment process — baseline consumption, identify coverage gaps, model 3-year growth, and establish competitive benchmarks before EA negotiation.