White Paper · Microsoft

License the audit trail, not every seat

A buyer-side guide to scoping Microsoft Purview Audit Premium and 10-year retention so investigation-grade logging never becomes a fleet-wide E5 bill.

Format PDF + HTML
Read Time 18 Minutes
Last Updated July 14, 2026
What you will take away
  • Why Purview Audit Standard is already in your E3 with 180-day retention since October 2023.
  • The three mailbox events Microsoft de-gated after Storm-0558 — and why they no longer justify E5.
  • How Premium, 1-year, and the 10-year add-on actually stack, and who each tier is for.
  • A worked 10,000-seat scenario showing a ~$2.39M/year gap between fleet-wide E5 and scoped Premium.
  • The persona map that ties entitlements to named investigators and a 5-10% high-risk subset.
500+Enterprise Clients
$2B+Under Advisory
11Vendor Practices
100%Buyer Side
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