Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic vs Pro: which licence do you need?

Microsoft Teams Rooms ships in two licence tiers: Basic (free) for up to 25 rooms per tenant with the core meeting experience, or Pro at roughly £36 per room per month with unlimited rooms, AI camera features and the Pro Management portal. The decision is rarely about price per room; it is about scale and whether you have AI-capable cameras in the spec.

From the floor. The cost mistake clients make is buying Basic for 24 rooms today, then triggering Pro on every room once they cross 25, which is a step change of £36 a month times the whole estate. A 50-room growth path that starts on Basic and tips into Pro costs more in year three than starting Pro on day one if you already see the headcount trajectory. Model the licence cost on a 36-month curve, not on the room count this week. — Mark Brooks, Commercial Director

The trade-offs side by side:

Choose Basic when: the estate is 25 rooms or fewer, the room hardware does not include AI cameras (no Rally Bar Pro, Poly Studio E70, Neat Center, Cisco Room Bar Pro), the IT team can manage devices manually through the standard Teams admin centre, and there is no requirement for proactive monitoring or room analytics. Most single-site SME deployments fit this profile.

Choose Pro when: the estate is 25 rooms or more (Basic is hard-capped, so growth past 25 forces Pro on every room), AI cameras are already specified, the IT team needs centralised firmware and configuration management across the fleet, or the business wants proactive monitoring rather than reactive ticketing.

One important constraint: the Basic to Pro upgrade is a one-way change per room. Once a room is licensed Pro and AI camera features are switched on, downgrade is non-trivial. Plan licensing alongside hardware procurement, not after deployment. See the Microsoft Teams Rooms deployment notes for room-by-room licence assignment.

For context, Zoom Rooms has only one licence tier at roughly £45 per room per month, with no free option. If cost on a sub-25-room estate is the deciding factor, MTR Basic wins; on larger estates the comparison is Pro vs Zoom Rooms at near parity, and the video conferencing platform choice reverts to the wider Microsoft vs Zoom estate question.

Quick reference: Basic free up to 25 rooms, no AI cameras, no Pro Management; Pro ~£36/room/mo unlimited rooms, AI camera features, centralised management; one-way upgrade per room; Zoom Rooms is ~£45/room/mo single-tier.