A Gartner style allocation model for the Microsoft Entra Suite: where the value sits, how to allocate by cohort, the take E7 or assemble decision, and five recommendations.
This white paper is a buyer side allocation model for the Microsoft Entra Suite, which bundles identity governance and secure access on a P1 or P2 base for about 12 dollars per user and now ships inside E7, making the decision a question of who actually uses the access layer.
The Entra Suite is a strong package on its merits and a frequent source of overspend in practice. Both are true. The suite undercuts its own components, which makes broad licensing look like a saving, while most estates use the high value access layer on only a minority of seats. The executive case is allocation, not avoidance.
Microsoft lists the contents and pricing on its Entra plans and pricing page, and the base prerequisite on Microsoft Learn. The buyer question is who genuinely needs the secure access and governance layers, and who only needs the identity base underneath them.
The suite layers five capabilities on an Entra ID P1 or P2 base. The value is not evenly spread across them, which is the key to allocating it well.
At about 12 dollars per user per month, the suite undercuts buying its components individually, which run about 17 dollars on a P1 base or about 23 dollars from standalone P2. The saving is genuine for users who need the access and governance pieces, and illusory for users who do not.
Split the estate. Give most users the identity base they need, and reserve the full suite for cohorts that use Internet Access, Private Access, or governance. Blanket licensing is where the overspend hides, because the suite is priced to look like a default.
Table 1. Entra options and when each fits
| Option | Approx per user | Best fit | Buyer side note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entra ID P1 | Base identity | Most users | Often enough on its own |
| Entra ID P2 | Identity plus risk | Higher risk roles | Allocate to a subset |
| Entra Suite | About 12 dollars on P1 | Need access plus governance | Right size to real need |
| Inside E7 | Part of about 99 dollars | Need all four E7 products | Do not pay for unused access |
E7 includes the full Entra Suite, so part of the E7 value depends on Entra Suite usage. If your seats only need identity and productivity, E7 makes you pay for access features they will not use. The Entra allocation and the E7 decision are therefore the same analysis, and our E7 guide and 2026 price change white paper should be read alongside this one.
Table 2. Cost of blanket versus allocated licensing
| Approach | What happens | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Blanket suite | Full suite to every seat | Access layer idle on many seats |
| Blanket E7 | E7 to every seat for the bundle | Pays for agents and access unused |
| Allocated | Base widely, suite to cohorts | Spend tracks real need |
| Allocated plus E7 | E7 only where all four used | Bundle saving is real |
Allocation becomes concrete once you map cohorts to need. Three recur across the engagements behind this paper.
Users who reach internal applications from anywhere are the natural home for Internet Access and Private Access. For them the full suite earns its price, because the access layer is used daily.
Administrators and sensitive function holders justify P2 risk features and ID Governance. The suite may fit here for governance, but the driver is risk, not blanket policy.
The majority. Most need a solid identity base, not the network access layer. Licensing them on P1, with the suite reserved for genuine need, is where the saving lives.
The common advice is that the Entra Suite is a clear saving because it undercuts its own components, so you should license it broadly. We disagree with the broad part. In most identity estates we reviewed, only 30 to 60 percent of seats used the network access features that drive suite value, while governance was configured for a fraction of users. The buyer side move is to license the identity base widely and the full suite narrowly, to the cohorts that use the access and governance layers. A bundle that undercuts its parts still wastes money when you buy it for people who never touch half of it.
Source: Redress Compliance advisory engagement file, 2024 to 2026.
A bundle that costs less than its parts is only a saving if you would have bought the parts. Buy the Entra Suite for the people who use it, and the base for everyone else.
Consider an enterprise with ten thousand users weighing the Entra Suite. The blanket path licenses the full suite to everyone at about 12 dollars on a P1 base, which looks efficient because the suite undercuts its parts. The problem surfaces in usage: the network access layer that justifies the suite is used by a fraction of the estate, so most of that spend buys capability nobody touches.
The allocated path reads usage first. Suppose three thousand users genuinely reach internal applications remotely and need Internet Access and Private Access, around one thousand privileged or high risk roles justify P2 and governance, and the remaining six thousand are standard information workers well served by a P1 identity base. The allocated estate puts the full suite on the three thousand access users, P2 with governance on the high risk roles, and a clean P1 base on the majority. The same security outcome is achieved, and the spend tracks need rather than a default.
Now layer E7. If the enterprise is pushing Copilot to, say, two thousand seats, the E7 question applies only where those Copilot seats also need agents and the full Entra access layer. For the access cohort that also needs Copilot and agents, E7 can be the efficient bundle. For Copilot seats that do not use Entra access, E7 forces payment for an identity layer they will not touch, and E5 plus Copilot plus a P1 base is the better buy. The Entra allocation and the E7 decision resolve together.
The account team presents the suite as a saving because it undercuts its components, and presents E7 as a saving because it bundles the suite. Both are true only under full use. The buyer who arrives with a usage read can accept the premise and still decline the blanket move, because the saving evaporates on seats that do not use the access layer.
Entra Suite allocation and zero trust are complementary, not in tension. Zero trust argues for strong identity everywhere and for secure access where users reach resources across boundaries. That maps cleanly onto the allocation model: a solid identity base for the whole estate, and the secure access layer concentrated on the cohorts that actually cross those boundaries. Allocating by need is not a weakening of zero trust. It is zero trust priced honestly, with controls placed where the risk is rather than spread thin to satisfy a procurement default.
Treat allocation as a short, evidence driven project. The following shape has worked across the engagements behind this paper.
Map current P1 and P2 licensing, then pull usage telemetry on Internet Access, Private Access, and ID Governance. Identify the access cohorts and the high risk roles from data, not from org charts.
Assign the base to the majority, the suite to the access and governance cohorts, and P2 to high risk roles. Model E7 per cohort against the assembled parts, and identify third party access tools the suite can replace with parity.
Reassign licenses to match the design, retire the duplicated tools, and document the allocation logic so the next renewal and any E7 conversation start from an evidence based position rather than a blanket default.
These five moves replace blanket licensing with cohort based allocation, whether you buy Entra directly or take it inside E7. They are ordered.
The findings reflect Redress Compliance advisory engagements rather than a public survey. Figures are defensible ranges from the engagement file and describe what we observed across a specific client portfolio between 2024 and 2026.
This paper is buyer side and independent. Redress Compliance does not resell Microsoft licensing and is not a Microsoft partner, so the recommendations favor the buyer, not the renewal.
The Entra Suite bundles ID Protection, ID Governance, Internet Access, Private Access, and Verified ID Premium on an Entra ID P1 or P2 base for about 12 dollars per user per month.
At least Entra ID P1. The suite price sits on top of that base rather than replacing it, so you pay for the P1 or P2 identity license plus the suite.
About 12 dollars per user per month on a P1 base. The same components bought individually run about 17 dollars on P1 or about 23 dollars from standalone P2, so the suite undercuts its own parts.
Yes. The Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Suite bundles the full Entra Suite with E5, Copilot, and Agent 365, which is why the E7 decision depends partly on how much Entra you use.
Usually not. Only 30 to 60 percent of seats use the network access features that drive suite value, so license the identity base widely and the full suite narrowly to the cohorts that use access and governance.
Internet Access and Private Access, the secure network access layer. They are typically the strongest reason to buy the full suite rather than just an identity base.
It can. Where the suite covers secure access or governance you currently buy elsewhere, you can remove that tool to offset the suite cost, after confirming feature parity.
If your seats only need identity, E7 makes you pay for Entra access features they will not use. Price E7 against P1 or P2 plus a targeted suite allocation per cohort before committing.
The cohort allocation model, the value layer analysis, the E7 versus assemble math, and the five recommendations across the Microsoft identity estate.
Used across more than five hundred enterprise engagements. Independent. Buyer side. Built for procurement leaders running the next renewal cycle.
500+ enterprise clients. 11 vendor practices. Industry recognized. One conversation can change what you pay for the next three years.
Copilot economics, EA and MCA renewal moves, packaging changes, and the Microsoft licensing signals across the practice.
