What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a chat and meetings application that works as a standalone product or as part of Microsoft 365. The free version covers personal use generously: one-to-one calls up to 30 hours, group meetings up to 60 minutes with up to 100 participants, 5 GB of cloud storage, chat with anyone who has an email address or phone number, communities, file sharing, tasks and polling, and encryption for meetings, chats, calls and files. Meeting links can be shared with people who do not have a Teams account at all. Business use requires a paid plan: Teams Essentials is $4 per user per month, Microsoft 365 Business Basic $7, and Business Standard $14. It suits both families and organisations.
Verified product facts
- Type
- team collaboration appEditorially reviewed
- Platform
- macOS
- Pricing
- FreemiumDeveloper-stated
- Developer
- MicrosoftDeveloper-stated
- Relationship to Nuanyue
- Third-party product — not published by NuanyueEditorially reviewed
- Official website
- www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/
Last updated . Facts marked developer-stated come from the developer and are not independently confirmed; editorially reviewed marks a Nuanyue judgement.
Key features
What Microsoft Teams does at a glance.
Chat
With anyone who has an email address or phone number
One-to-one calls
Up to 30 hours on the free version
Group meetings
Up to 60 minutes with up to 100 participants on the free version
Meeting links
People can join without a Teams account
Communities for collaborating
With contacts or engaging an audience
File sharing, tasks and polling
Data encryption
For meetings, chats, calls and files
5 GB of cloud storage per user
On the free version, 1 TB on Microsoft 365 plans
Meeting recordings
With transcripts and live captions on paid plans
Identity and access management
For up to 300 users on Business Basic
Web and mobile Office apps
On Business Basic, desktop apps on Business Standard
Custom business email
On Microsoft 365 business plans
What you can use Microsoft Teams for
- Meeting family or friends over video without a subscription
- Sharing a meeting link with someone who does not use Teams
- Running a small business's chat, calls and file sharing on one plan
- Recording a meeting with transcripts and captions for a team
Who is Microsoft Teams for?
- Households that want free group calls and chat with a familiar interface
- Small and medium businesses that want collaboration bundled with Office apps
Who is Microsoft Teams not for?
- Businesses that want to use it for free, since the free version is for home and personal use only
- Organisations that need to self-host their chat, which is not an option with Teams
Limitations
- The free version is for home and personal use; the vendor states that business use requires a paid option
- The free version caps group meetings at 60 minutes and 100 participants, and provides 5 GB of storage per user
- Meeting recordings, transcripts and live captions are paid-plan features
- There is no self-hosted deployment; the service runs on Microsoft's infrastructure
- The minimum macOS version is not stated in the sources Nuanyue tracks
Strengths and trade-offs
What Microsoft Teams does well, and what to weigh before choosing it. Points marked developer-stated come from the developer’s own material and have not been independently confirmed.
Strengths
- The free version includes one-to-one calls up to 30 hours, group meetings up to 60 minutes with up to 100 participants, and 5 GB of cloud storage per user.Developer-stated
- Meeting links can be shared with people who do not have a Teams account, so guests can join without signing up.Developer-stated
- Chat works with anyone who has an email address or a phone number.Developer-stated
- Meetings, chats, calls and files are encrypted, and the free version includes this rather than reserving it for paid plans.Developer-stated
- Teams Essentials is a standalone business plan at $4.00 per user per month that does not require a Microsoft 365 subscription.
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic at $7.00 per user per month adds web and mobile Office apps, custom business email and 1 TB of storage per user.
Trade-offs
- The free version is explicitly for home and personal use; the vendor states that business use requires a paid option.
- The free tier caps group meetings at 60 minutes and 100 participants, which is restrictive for anything beyond a small call.
- Meeting recordings with transcripts and live captions are not available on the free version.
- It is a hosted service with no self-hosted option, so the conversation and its data live on Microsoft's infrastructure.Derived
- Business pricing is per user per month billed yearly, so the headline figure is not what a monthly payer would see.
First-use experience
What the app asks of you when you set it up. Only established facts appear here; anything we could not confirm is left out rather than guessed at.
- Installation Developer-stated
- Downloaded from Microsoft for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, and usable in a browser without installing anything.
- First launch Derived
- Sign in with a Microsoft account for the free personal version, or with a work or school account for a business plan; no separate Teams account exists.
- System integration Developer-stated
- Integrates with the rest of Microsoft 365 on paid plans, including Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive and the Office applications.
What it does
Microsoft Teams is a chat and meetings application with two quite different lives. For households it is a free service: one-to-one calls up to 30 hours, group calls and meetings up to 60 minutes with up to 100 participants, 5 GB of cloud storage per user, chat with anyone who has an email address or phone number, communities, file sharing, tasks and polling — all encrypted, and all free. A meeting link can be shared with people who have no Teams account at all, which removes the usual friction of getting someone onto a platform before they can talk to you.
For organisations it is part of Microsoft 365, and the free version is explicitly not for that: the vendor states that a free version exists only for home and personal use, and that business use requires a paid option.
The paid plans
The entry point for a business is Teams Essentials at $4.00 per user per month, described as a standalone offering for small businesses that does not require a Microsoft 365 subscription. It raises group meetings to 30 hours and 300 participants, gives 10 GB of cloud storage per user, and adds meeting recordings with transcripts and live captions.
Microsoft 365 Business Basic at $7.00 per user per month adds identity and access management for up to 300 users, web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, custom business email, 1 TB of storage per user and more than ten additional apps. Business Standard at $14.00 adds the desktop versions of those Office applications. All three are billed per user per month paid yearly and auto-renew, so the headline figure is the annual-commitment price rather than a monthly one.
For households, a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription adds unlimited group calls and meetings up to 30 hours, up to 300 participants and 1 TB of storage per user.
What to weigh
The trade-offs are structural rather than technical. Teams has no self-hosted deployment, so the conversation and its data live on Microsoft’s infrastructure — which is precisely the reason organisations with strict data requirements choose something like Mattermost instead. Against that, its integration with Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive and the Office applications is the strongest argument for it inside an organisation already using Microsoft 365.
The minimum macOS version is not stated in the sources Nuanyue tracks. One note on sourcing: the free version’s own site, teams.live.com, did not serve a product page when Nuanyue checked it, so the free-tier details here come from Microsoft’s Microsoft Teams pages rather than from that address.
Questions about Microsoft Teams
Is Microsoft Teams free?
There is a free version, but it is for home and personal use. It includes 1:1 calls up to 30 hours, group calls and meetings up to 60 minutes with up to 100 participants, 5 GB of cloud storage per user, chat, communities, file sharing, tasks, polling and encryption. The vendor states that business use requires a paid option.
How much do the business plans cost?
Teams Essentials is $4.00 per user per month, Microsoft 365 Business Basic is $7.00, and Microsoft 365 Business Standard is $14.00. All are billed per user per month, paid yearly, and all three auto-renew.
Can someone join a Teams meeting without an account?
Yes. The free version lets you create a quick meeting with a meeting link that others can join even without a Teams account.Developer-stated
What do I get if I have Microsoft 365 Personal or Family?
Extra features in Teams for home: unlimited group calls and meetings up to 30 hours, up to 300 participants per meeting, and 1 TB of cloud storage per user, against 60-minute meetings, 100 participants and 5 GB on the free tier.Developer-stated
Is Teams Essentials a standalone product?
Yes. Teams Essentials is described as a standalone offering designed for small businesses, so it does not require a Microsoft 365 subscription. It includes unlimited group meetings for up to 30 hours and 300 participants, 10 GB of cloud storage per user, and meeting recordings with transcripts and live captions.Developer-stated
Competitors
Direct competitors: overlapping features aimed at the same users.
Slack
Team messaging with channels, huddles and integrations.
Both are team chat platforms, but Slack is a hosted standalone product while Teams is bundled with Microsoft 365 and ties into Office, SharePoint and OneDrive.
Mattermost
Self-hostable team chat platform with a free desktop client.
Both are collaboration platforms aimed at organisations, but Mattermost is self-hosted software sold as its own subscription while Teams runs on Microsoft's infrastructure and has no self-hosted deployment.
Works well with
Not a replacement — apps commonly used alongside this one.
MeetingBar
Join your next calendar meeting from the menu bar.
MeetingBar sits in the menu bar and joins the next meeting from your calendar, so it is often used alongside Teams rather than instead of it — it launches the call that Teams then hosts.
Sources
Facts on this page are checked against the sources below. Last updated .
