Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is Microsoft's hub for workplace communication. It brings group chat, online meetings, phone calls and shared files into one application, and it is closely tied to the rest of Microsoft 365: documents shared in a team live in SharePoint and OneDrive, meetings appear in Outlook calendars, and Word, Excel and PowerPoint files can be co-edited without leaving Teams.

Microsoft announced Teams in November 2016 and launched it worldwide in March 2017. It is sold on its own as Teams Essentials, bundled into most Microsoft 365 business and enterprise plans, and offered free for personal use.

Key features

• Chat and channels. One-to-one and group chats, plus teams organised into channels for projects or departments, with unlimited messages, file attachments and search on business plans.
• Online meetings. Business plans allow meetings of up to 300 participants and up to 30 hours, with screen sharing, custom backgrounds, noise suppression, Together mode and breakout rooms.
• Recordings, transcripts and captions. Meetings can be recorded and transcribed; live captions are offered in over 30 languages on Microsoft 365 plans and in English on Teams Essentials.
• File collaboration. Files shared in chats and channels are stored in OneDrive and SharePoint, and Microsoft Loop, Planner and Whiteboard can be used inside Teams.
• Apps and workflows. Microsoft lists more than 1,900 apps for Teams, including Salesforce, DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat, Mural, Workday and ServiceNow, and developers can build bots, message extensions and webhooks.
• Add-ons. Teams Premium adds advanced meeting features, Teams Phone turns Teams into a business phone system, and Teams Rooms equips meeting rooms.
• Copilot. Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot includes Microsoft's AI assistant in Teams for catching up on chats and meetings.

Who it is for

Teams is the natural choice for organisations that already use Microsoft 365 for email and documents, from small businesses to large enterprises and schools. IT teams value its central administration, identity management and security controls. Teams Essentials suits small companies that only need meetings and chat, while startups that rely on Google Workspace or Slack may find it heavier than they need.

Pricing at a glance

• Microsoft Teams (free): for personal use, with group calls of up to 60 minutes and 100 participants and 5 GB of cloud storage.
• Microsoft Teams Essentials: $4.00 per user per month, paid yearly, with meetings of up to 300 participants and 10 GB of cloud storage per user.
• Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $7.00 per user per month, paid yearly, adding web and mobile Office apps, business email and 1 TB of storage per user.
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot: $23.50 per user per month, paid yearly, adding desktop Office apps and Copilot.

Prices are in US dollars on Microsoft's US site as checked on 10 October 2026, on annual subscriptions that renew automatically; a one-month free trial requires a credit card. Confirm on the vendor's pricing page.

Things to consider

• Microsoft sells plans both with and without Teams, so check which edition you are buying.
• There is no native Linux desktop app; Linux users run the Teams progressive web app.
• The free personal version is not meant for business use and limits group calls to 60 minutes.
• Teams works best inside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem; organisations on other suites gain less from its document integration.

Getting started

1. Compare editions on the Teams plans page and start a trial.
2. Install the desktop or mobile app, or sign in on the web.
3. Create a team with a few channels and invite colleagues.
4. Schedule a meeting from Teams or Outlook and try recording and transcription.