Microsoft Entra ID Guest Licensing Guide

In the past, Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) provided flexibility for managing and licensing guest users, whether through Premium License (P1/P2) or the Monthly Active Users (MAU) model. Here’s a detailed overview of the options:

Guest Licensing via Entra ID Premium

Previously available in a 1:5 Ratio: For each Entra ID Premium P1 or P2 license, you were able to assign access to 5 guest users for free.

MAU (Monthly Active Users) Billing Model

Flexible Pricing: The MAU model charges $0.75 per guest user per month, but only for the months when the guest actually logs in or performs an identity governance action. This allows businesses to only pay for active usage, potentially reducing costs for organizations with fluctuating guest access needs.

Free Tier: The first 50,000 guest users per month are free, which makes this model particularly attractive for businesses working with a large number of external partners, contractors, or other collaborators.

Microsoft Entra ID Governance Add-On

Many customers want to extend governance features to the identities of their business guests—contractors, partners, and external collaborators—to more fully follow least privilege access principles while still enabling seamless collaboration.

Microsoft has announced organizations can easily manage this situation by creating a new ID Governance for Microsoft Entra External ID meter for business guests. This add-on operates on a monthly active usage (MAU) model. Customers incur charges based on their actual business guest MAU.

ID Governance for External ID is priced at $0.75 per monthly governed identity.

Existing Azure AD External ID customers are grandfathered to continue using the subset of identity governance features that are included in Entra ID P1 and P2.