Intune requires licensing, but Microsoft licensing can sometimes be an enigma.  In addition, Microsoft licensing is constantly changing.  In this post and video, we review the licensing options for Intune and the bundles that include Intune licensing. 

One important note on the date of this post.  Licensing changes frequently, and the following information may be out of date.  Always check with a Microsoft licensing specialist when making purchasing decisions.

Intune Plans and Add-ons

To get us started, let’s look at Intune plans and add-ons.  Please be aware that Plan 2 and the Intune Suite options listed below are add-ons to Plan 1.  If a Plan 2 or Intune Suite feature is required, it is an additional purchase to Plan 1.

Intune Core Capabilities

Plan 1 provides the core Intune capabilities for cross-platform endpoint management, endpoint security, mobile application management, and endpoint analytics.  It likely meets most end-user device management requirements.  It also comes with a Microsoft Configuration Manager license (SCCM), but that’s not the topic at hand.

Intune Tunnel for Mobile Application Management

The Intune Tunnel for Mobile Application Management is a Plan 2 and Intune Suite feature that provides a lightweight VPN solution for iOS and Android mobile devices that does not require device enrollment.

Intune management of specialty devices

Intune management of specialty devices is a set of management and configuration capabilities included in Plan 2 and Intune suite.  It is for purpose-built devices like augmented reality headsets, smart screens, and conference room devices.

Microsoft Intune Remote Help

Microsoft Intune Remote Help is a cloud-based solution that enables secure user-to-helpdesk connections.  Intune Remote Help is included in Intune Suite and is an add-on to Plan 1.

Microsoft Intune Endpoint Privilege Management

Microsoft Intune Endpoint Privilege Management allows standard users to perform elevated operations approved by the organization.  Microsoft Intune Endpoint Privilege Management is available with Intune Suite and is an add-on to Plan 1.

Microsoft Intune advanced endpoint analytics

Microsoft Intune advanced endpoint analytics is a set of analytic capabilities to help IT amins understand and improve the end-user experience.  It is available with Intune Suite with plans for it to be a Plan 1 add-on in the future.

Azure AD Premium

Azure AD Premium is not required for Intune but adds some features that an organization may want to use.  Auto-enrollment allows for automatically adding a computer to Intune management when it joins Azure AD or is Hybrid Azure AD joined to Azure AD.  Auto-enrollment requires Azure AD Premium P1 or above.

Another Azure AD Premium feature most enterprises will leverage is conditional access policies.  With conditional access, policies are enabled that set the conditions for accessing company resources.  For example, we can assign a policy that requires MFA when accessing company resources from a personal device.

Microsoft Intune Bundles

Microsoft loves to bundle licensing.  If an organization uses Microsoft 365 products, it may have Intune licensing as part of an existing bundle.  Many Microsoft licensing bundles including Microsoft 365, Enterprise Mobility + Security, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, and Microsoft 365 Government bundles include Intune Plan 1 and Azure AD Premium.  Below is a list of popular bundles that include Intune Plan 1 and Azure AD Premium P1 or higher.

If you are just starting out and testing, Microsoft offers a free trial for many of the bundles below.

View License Status

Now that our licensing is in order, we can view the current licensing status in the Intune Portal.  Navigate to Tenant administration and view the total number of Intune licenses applied to users and the total number of licenses in the tenant.

Apply a License to a User

Once we have licensing in place we can apply a license to a user from the Azure AD portal, the Microsoft 365 admin center, or the Intune admin center.  They can be applied directly or based on group membership.  Below we walk through the steps to apply a license to a user in the Intune admin center.

From the Intune admin center, go to Users and locate the user the license will be applied to.

Open the user and go to Licenses under Manage.

Select Assignments.

From there, select the license to assign to the user.  You can also select what license option applies to the user.  The example below uses an Enterprise Mobility + Security E3 bundle.

That is all there is to it!  I hope this post and video help you better understand Intune’s licensing options and how to manage licensing through the Intune admin center.