Cloud & Productivity

Microsoft 365 for Sydney Business: Set Up Once, Properly

Q: How much does a Microsoft 365 setup cost?

Tenant builds and hardening passes are a fixed price from around $1,000 ex GST, confirmed after a 20-minute scoping call so the number arrives before the work does. Per-user setup, mailbox migrations and ongoing admin bill at the published $180/hr ex GST. Licences are paid by you directly to Microsoft at cost; we add no margin.

A hardened tenant, a migration that lands overnight, and licensing that finally makes sense. Setup is fixed-price from $1,000, ongoing help is a published $180/hr ex GST, and your licences stay on your own card at cost. No margin, no lock-in. New guide: Business Premium vs Business Standard — which one your staff actually need. Already on M365? Add Teams calling and drop the separate phone bill.

Book a 20-Min Scoping Call Call 1300 769 337

Serving Greater Sydney, On-Site & Remote · ABN 16 696 780 597 · Essential 8-Aligned · Standard & Premium Tiers · Month-to-Month, No Lock-In

Three Ways Microsoft 365 Goes Wrong for Sydney SMBs

Nearly every enquiry we receive starts with one of these. Check whether any sound like your office.

The tenant nobody has looked at in years

It was stood up in an afternoon long ago. MFA covers some people, departed staff still hold mailboxes, and one shared admin login does everything. Nothing seems wrong, right up until a phishing email works.

The migration you keep postponing

The business lives in email, so moving off Google Workspace or an ageing host feels like surgery on a beating heart. It needs to happen overnight, correctly, the first time.

A licence bill nobody can explain

Basic here, Premium there, add-ons stacked over the years. The monthly figure keeps growing and no one can say what half of it buys. You suspect there is fat in the bill and want it found — which is what our fixed-fee Microsoft 365 licensing audit does.

What a Proper M365 Build Looks Like

Out of the box, Microsoft 365 defaults to convenient rather than secure. A proper build starts from your obligations and works backwards: identity locked down, mail authenticated, sharing governed, and every decision documented so the next change is easy. Whether the tenant is brand new or carries five years of accumulated settings, Aaron does the engineering personally.

The baseline maps to the ACSC Essential Eight, because that is the framework Australian regulators and insurers keep pointing at. Conditional Access guards sign-ins, Entra ID keeps identity clean, and Teams gets governance before sprawl sets in rather than after.

Mail authentication with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, SharePoint structure, Intune enrolment where it fits: each layer is configured deliberately and handed over in plain English. Afterwards you can run it yourself or keep us on call, with no retainer requirement either way. And when shared drives stop scaling, we design and build SharePoint intranets to bring order back.

What's Included

Tenant Setup & Configuration

Provisioning from nothing, or a structured review of what exists: domains verified, licences assigned, secure defaults applied before the first user signs in.

Entra ID & Conditional Access

Identity built around MFA for everyone, with Conditional Access rules that block risky sign-ins without harassing the legitimate ones.

Email Security & Authentication

Your domain authenticated end to end so spoofed invoices stop landing, plus anti-phishing and anti-spam policies tuned to your mail flow.

User Provisioning & Licensing

Starters and leavers handled cleanly, groups that manage themselves, and a licence mix trimmed to what people actually use.

Teams Administration & Governance

Structure, retention and guest access decided deliberately, so collaboration grows without turning into ungoverned sprawl.

Essential 8 Compliance

The tenant configured against the ACSC's eight controls wherever M365 can enforce them: application restrictions, MFA, admin lockdown and patch alignment.

Pricing You Can Read Before You Call

You should not have to fill in a form to learn a price. Ours are on this page, and everything below is ex GST.

Microsoft 365 Tenancy Setup or Hardening — fixed price

from $1,000fixed, one-off

A greenfield tenant build or a hardening pass over your existing tenant, configured to a secure Essential 8-aligned baseline. Fixed-price after a 20-minute scoping call — you know the number before we start.

Tenant creation with domain verification, or a top-to-bottom review of the one you have
Identity and access baseline with MFA enforced and legacy auth blocked
Mail security: SPF, DKIM, DMARC and anti-phishing policies
Standard tier (Security Defaults) or Premium tier (Conditional Access), with a straight recommendation on which
A plain-English handover covering what changed and why it matters

Get a Fixed-Price Quote

from $1,000Tenancy setup or hardening, fixed ex GST

$180/hrUser setup, migrations & ongoing admin, ex GST

At costM365 licences stay on your card — no SP margin

No lock-inMonth-to-month, you own the tenant

What moves the number: Standard versus Premium (Conditional Access, Defender for Business and Intune all need Premium), mailbox count on a migration, and how many devices want setting up. Outside the setup fee: Microsoft licence subscriptions (paid direct to Microsoft on your card), Intune device management as a separate engagement, and hardware. Each is quoted in writing before any work starts.

The Shape of a Typical Engagement

Short, predictable, and honest about what fits your business at each point.

Step 1

Scoping call (20 minutes)

Twenty minutes on the phone covering your current tenant, headcount, devices and obligations. You leave the call with a fixed number for the work.

Step 2

Setup or migration

The build or hardening runs to a schedule you approve. Migration cutovers happen after hours, so Monday opens in Outlook with every folder where it belongs.

Step 3

Handover & ongoing support

You receive a plain-English summary of every change. From there, call as needed at $180/hr ex GST, or add managed Security Essentials per device. Nothing obliges you to either.

Configured Deliberately vs. Left on Defaults

Both tenants send email on day one. Only one of them holds up the day someone gets phished.

What you get	DIY / set-and-forget	Support Sydney M365 setup
Multi-factor auth	Left optional, patchy coverage	Enforced for everyone, legacy auth shut off
Email authentication	SPF at best	SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up and verified working
Licensing	Guessed, usually over-bought	Trimmed to actual use, Standard vs Premium explained
Ex-staff & admin accounts	Linger for months	Offboarded cleanly, global admin locked down
Migration downtime	Business hours, fingers crossed	Overnight cutover, history intact by morning
Essential 8 alignment	None	Baseline mapped to the ACSC Essential Eight
Pricing	Unknown until the invoice	Published: setup fixed from $1,000, support at $180/hr
Lock-in	—	None. You own the tenant, month-to-month support

Why Choose Support Sydney for Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 Specialist

Architecture, security and compliance across the Microsoft stack is the specialty here, not a sideline. Sydney businesses get that depth applied to their own tenant.

Security-First Configuration

Essential 8 principles go in on day one. Security policies never get skipped to shave setup time, so protection exists from the first login.

No Surprises, No Lock-in

Ongoing admin runs at a published $180/hour (excl. GST), with no licensing tricks and no contract. You control the relationship end to end.

Local Support You Can Reach

Support runs remote-first from Australia, seven days a week for changes and troubleshooting, with direct access to the engineer rather than a call centre queue.

Frequently asked questions

Which Microsoft 365 licence does my Sydney business need?

Business Basic, Standard and Premium cover most Sydney teams. The honest differences: Basic is web apps and mail, Standard adds installed Office, Premium adds Intune and Defender for Business. We look at how your people actually work and quote the cheapest mix that meets your security obligations, which is frequently less than you pay now.

Can you migrate us from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365?

Yes, it is one of our most common jobs. Mailboxes, calendars, contacts and Drive content move across, DNS follows, and the final cutover runs outside business hours. Staff arrive next morning to a working Outlook with history intact, with OneDrive and Teams arranged so shared files have a home.

How do you secure Microsoft 365 email against phishing and account takeover?

MFA and Conditional Access come first, then SPF, DKIM and DMARC on the domain, then tuned anti-phishing, safe links and safe attachments policies. Audit logging and sign-in alerts are enabled so anything odd gets seen early. All of it follows the ACSC Essential Eight guidance for Australian businesses.

How long does a Microsoft 365 setup or migration take?

A fresh tenant with a security baseline is usually a one-to-two day job for a small team. Migration timing scales with mailbox count and data volume: a 5-20 seat Sydney business typically completes inside a week, with the mail switch itself scheduled after hours to avoid disruption.

How much does a Microsoft 365 setup cost?

Tenant builds and hardening passes are a fixed price from around $1,000 ex GST, confirmed after a 20-minute scoping call so the number arrives before the work does. Per-user setup, mailbox migrations and ongoing admin bill at the published $180/hr ex GST. Licences are paid by you directly to Microsoft at cost; we add no margin.

Do you lock us into a contract?

No. The tenant is yours, support is month-to-month at $180/hr ex GST, and you can simply stop calling. If you want proactive cover, managed Security Essentials at $29.95/endpoint/month is available, but it is never a condition. Either way there is no lock-in.

Start With the 20-Minute Scoping Call

We review your tenant, tell you straight what needs securing, and a fixed-price quote lands the same week.

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