License & Subscription Issues

How to Calculate Microsoft 365 Education Storage Limits and Costs

Rana Garcia Sep 28, 2026 869 views

Question details

The user needs to calculate the Microsoft 365 Education pooled storage limit based on their A3 licenses and understand the cost and process for purchasing additional storage capacity.

How to Calculate Microsoft 365 Education Storage Limits and Additional Costs

Product: Microsoft 365 Education
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Planning tenant storage capacity and estimating upgrade costs for an educational institution exceeding their current 100 TB base pool.
Observed behavior: The educational tenant has exceeded the included storage entitlement and requires information on how pooled storage is calculated and priced before purchasing more capacity.

Before you start

Log in to your Microsoft 365 Admin Center and navigate to Billing > Your products to verify your exact number of paid A3 or A5 faculty licenses.

Solution 1Recommended

Calculate Your Current Pooled Storage Entitlement

Determine exactly how much free storage your tenant is allotted based on the base pool and your paid licenses.

Microsoft 365 Education storage is pooled across services like OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange. The total entitlement depends on a base allocation plus additional space per paid user.

Account for the base storage

Note that every Microsoft 365 Education institution tenant starts with a base pooled storage capacity of exactly 100 TB.

Calculate license-based storage

Multiply your number of paid A3 licenses by 50 GB (or A5 licenses by 100 GB). For example, 168 A3 licenses add 8.4 TB (168 x 50 GB) to the pool.

Find the total limit

Add the base storage and license storage together. In this scenario, 100 TB + 8.4 TB results in a total pooled storage entitlement of 108.4 TB.

Calculate Your Current Pooled Storage Entitlement

License Exclusions: Free A1 licenses do not add any additional gigabytes per user to the base 100 TB pooled storage.

Solution 2

Estimate and Purchase Additional Storage Increments

Find out how much extra capacity will cost and how to purchase it through the Microsoft admin portal.

Solution 3

Optimize and Reduce Current Storage Usage

Reduce costs by managing your information lifecycle and moving non-critical data to cheaper alternative storage.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do A1 licenses include the 100 TB default storage pool?

Yes, Microsoft 365 Education tenants generally receive the 100 TB base storage pool regardless of the license type, but A1 licenses do not add the extra 50 GB/100 GB per user to the pool. It is highly recommended to verify specific tenant eligibility with your Microsoft representative.

Can we purchase Microsoft 365 Education storage in smaller amounts than 10 TB?

Generally, Microsoft sells additional pooled storage for education tenants in standardized 10 TB increments. You cannot typically buy extra capacity on a per-gigabyte or 1 TB basis.

What happens if our school exceeds the pooled storage limit?

If you exceed your tenant's storage limit, your users may experience degraded service. Eventually, they will be restricted from uploading new files to OneDrive or SharePoint, and email capabilities may be interrupted until storage is cleared or additional capacity is purchased.

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