Microsoft 365 · Microsoft Teams
Chat, meetings, calling, apps — and for many mid-market firms the actual work frontend. We license precisely (Microsoft 365 plan, Essentials, Premium, Phone, frontline F1/F3), implement phone integration via Direct Routing or Operator Connect, integrate Teams with Dynamics 365, and develop custom Teams apps with tabs, bots, and messaging extensions.
Teams licenses at a glance
Microsoft Teams isn't only "included in the Microsoft 365 plan" — alongside that there are standalone, premium, and phone licenses with clearly different purposes. The table shows what fits when.
| License | Features | Price (approx.) | When it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teams in Microsoft 365 plan | Chat, meetings, channels, files, calling option, app integration. Included in Business Standard/Premium and E3/E5. | In the plan (from ~11 €) | Standard setup for companies with Microsoft 365. |
| Teams Essentials | Chat, meetings, 10 GB cloud storage. No Office apps, no Exchange, no SharePoint. | ~4 € / user / month | Micro-firms without Microsoft 365 — rarely useful in the mid-market. |
| Teams Premium | Add-on: live translation, advanced webinar features, sensitivity labels in meetings, watermarking, town halls. | ~10 € / user / month additional | Sales with international meetings, webinar-driven marketing, sensitive content in meetings. |
| Teams Phone Standard | Cloud calling in Teams — call routing, voicemail, auto-attendants, call queues. Phone numbers separately via Direct Routing or Operator Connect. | ~7 € / user / month | Firms with existing SIP trunk or carrier connection. |
| Teams Phone with Calling Plan | Teams Phone plus Microsoft Calling Plan — phone number and minutes package directly from Microsoft. | ~13 € / user / month | Easy entry without an own carrier connection. |
Teams Phone
Teams Phone is the calling engine. How phone numbers and the external world get connected is a separate decision with three options.
Phone number and minutes package come directly from Microsoft, bundled in the Teams Phone with Calling Plan license. Simplest path, but not available in every country and not economical for every volume.
Fits for: standard demand, fast adoption, predictable usage.
A certified telecommunications provider (operator) delivers phone numbers and routing directly into Teams — no SBC needed, contracts run with the operator. In Germany available via providers such as Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, BT, BICS.
Fits for: SMBs with a classic carrier relationship, international sites.
Bring your own SIP trunks into Teams via a Session Border Controller (SBC). Maximum flexibility, any provider, existing lines usable — but setup and operations are more demanding.
Fits for: existing SIP connections, multi-site with IP phones, special cases (emergency calls, emergency location).
Frontline worker
Frontline worker licenses address staff who don't primarily sit at a desk — production, warehouse, care, field service, service technicians. Microsoft 365 F1 and F3 are significantly cheaper but deliberately cover only parts of the feature set.
Mixed setup is typical: mid-market firms often run F3 for production/service technicians plus Business Standard or Premium for office workers. The mix calculation is clarified in the License Cost Calculator.
Integration · Dynamics 365
Sales and service use Microsoft Teams alongside Dynamics 365 — data entry becomes duplicate work. arades GmbH provides a productively used Teams integration for Microsoft Dynamics 365 as a dedicated product.
arades apps for Teams
Microsoft Teams isn't just a ready-made app — it's a platform. We embed extensions directly into Teams as tab, bot, or messaging extension, with Adaptive Cards, Entra ID SSO, and Microsoft Graph.
Data views in the Teams channel — industry dashboards, third-party system cockpits, Power BI embeds. Personal tabs for individual user views.
HR onboarding bots, service request bots, reporting bots. Conversational logic with clean slot-filling flows or LLM-backed. Also deployable as Copilot Studio agent.
Search and actions in any conversation — find customers, create tickets, share records. In compose mode with Adaptive Card output directly into the chat.
Free Microsoft 365 trial guidance
arades sets up a test tenant for 3 users, trains your key users, runs weekly office hours — and tells you honestly at the end whether Microsoft 365 is the right fit. Free of charge.
30 min initial conversation
In 30 minutes we clarify whether Teams Premium, Phone, or frontline licenses make sense, which phone connection fits — and where a custom Teams app actually unburdens the workflow in sales, service, or back office.
Accompanying services
Engineering projects rarely stand alone — licensing logic, architecture clarification, quality gates, knowledge transfer, and follow-on operation usually run in parallel. Below the most common accompanying services we add into discovery spikes, sprint fixed prices, or application care contracts.
Upfront · Architecture
Before any implementation: tenant structure, data model, security concept, integration mapping. The result is an architecture document any engineering team can work with — including a different one than us.
Read more →
Upfront · CSP
Which license bundles for which users, which add-on SKUs are required, where you are over- or under-licensed. Sourced via Microsoft licensing partner — with the option to use CSP only as a control mechanism without margin maximization.
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During · Quality gate
Independent second opinion during an ongoing implementation project — regardless of whether we run it ourselves or another partner does. CMMI-based quality gates, risk reviews, fixed price per gate.
During · Adoption
Not the classic two-day workshop forgotten a week later — but a dynamic learning program over 4–6 weeks with initial training, application phases, and follow-on sessions. Training matrix for roles and topics.
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After · Operation
After go-live: a plannable application care contract with monthly flat fee, SLA-based. Including releases, hotfixes, extensions, tenant hardening — and continuous accompaniment instead of just ticket reaction.
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After · Knowledge
When the original developers have left, the previous partner is unreachable, or the documentation is outdated — reverse engineering of the existing solution with a documented result: code map, data model, customizing inventory.
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Frequently asked questions
Microsoft Teams is included in all Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise plans (Business Basic, Standard, Premium, E3, E5). In addition there is Teams Essentials as a standalone license for around 4 € per user per month. Teams Premium costs around 10 € per user per month on top and adds live translation, advanced meeting features, and webinar controls. Teams Phone for cloud calling is around 7 € — or around 13 € with Calling Plan.
Teams Phone is available as a standalone license (around 7 € per user per month) or as Teams Phone with Calling Plan (around 13 €), which includes a phone number and a minutes package. Alternatives to Microsoft's Calling Plan are Direct Routing (own SIP trunk via Session Border Controller) and Operator Connect (a certified carrier delivers numbers directly into Teams).
Teams in the Microsoft 365 plan is the regular Teams license included in Business Standard, Premium, E3, and E5 — with chat, meetings, calling option, and app integration. Teams Essentials is a low-cost standalone option for firms without a Microsoft 365 plan: chat, meetings, 10 GB cloud storage. Teams Premium is an add-on on top of existing licenses that adds live translation, advanced webinar features, and sensitivity labels in meetings.
Microsoft 365 F1 (around 2.10 € per user per month) and F3 (around 7 €) are specifically designed for shift workers, production, field service, and service staff who typically don't sit at a fixed desk. F1 includes Teams, SharePoint, and Yammer; F3 adds web and mobile Office apps as well as a 2 GB Exchange mailbox. Prerequisite: the frontline worker definition (no primary desk workplace) must be met.
Yes — arades GmbH provides a productively used Teams integration for Microsoft Dynamics 365 as its own product. Sales and service teams see CRM records directly in Teams conversations, capture activities without switching apps, and use Adaptive Cards for approvals. Details on the product page.
We build Teams apps on the official Microsoft platform: tabs for data views in channels, bots for workflows and conversational logic, messaging extensions for search and actions in any conversation. Publication as tenant-only sideload or in Microsoft AppSource. We also take over existing Teams apps for maintenance in the Application Care model.
Direct Routing means using a private SIP trunk connection via a Session Border Controller (SBC) inside Teams Phone — flexible, with the phone provider of your choice, ideal for grown telephony infrastructure. Operator Connect is the leaner option: a certified telecommunications provider (operator) delivers numbers and routing directly into Teams without requiring an in-house SBC. For SMBs with standard needs, Operator Connect is usually the simpler choice.
