StrongKeep compared to Microsoft Defender
Your IT vendor has quoted you Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Here is what that buys, what it still asks of you, and what the same money buys from us.
This is not a choice between Microsoft and StrongKeep
You need Microsoft 365 for email, documents and file storage whatever you decide about security. We are not an alternative to that and we do not try to be.
The real question is narrower. Is upgrading everyone to Business Premium the best way to buy your security layer, or does a lower Microsoft tier plus a dedicated security product get you further for the same money?
What Business Premium adds, and what it still asks of you
Over Business Standard, the upgrade brings four things: Microsoft Defender for Business on your computers, Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 on your email, Intune for managing devices, and Entra ID P1 for conditional access. Intune and Entra ID in particular do things a security product does not, and if you issue company laptops they are worth having.
These are tools, not outcomes. Each one adds something else to manage, and someone to manage it.
Defender needs onboarding and policy. Intune needs enrolment profiles and compliance rules. Conditional access needs someone to decide what the conditions are. Then all three produce alerts that somebody has to read at 11pm on a Friday. Almost no firm under 200 staff has someone in-house who can do that, so you pay a consultant on retainer to do it instead, and you keep paying.
That is why a CISO-as-a-service or some virtual consultant engagement must be part of the same quote as the Microsoft licences. It is not padding. It is the cost of making the licence do something, and it is a permanent line rather than a setup fee. There is a market figure for it, and it is below.
Three things people assume are in the Microsoft package, and are not
Security awareness training and phishing simulation.
Microsoft's Attack Simulation Training needs Defender for Office 365 Plan 2. Business Premium ships Plan 1, and Plan 2 is a paid add-on on top of it.
A team password manager, that allows team-level password sharing and breach monitoring.
Neither exists in any Microsoft business tier, and multi-factor authentication does not cover the same ground. Vendor logins, shared inboxes and social accounts still get reused and passed around by email.
Scanning of your web and mail servers.
The misconfigurations an attacker looks for from outside your network are not something the Microsoft tiers check on your behalf.
What StrongKeep is
One subscription, built for firms under 200 staff, that a non-technical person can deploy and run.
- Palo Alto Cortex XDR Pro for endpoint detection and response, across Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It is the enterprise engine large organisations run, not a small-business edition of one.
- A DNS-layer firewall that blocks malicious and scam domains across all of your traffic, not only what passes through Microsoft. One of our customers had switched off a Microsoft scam-protection feature because it kept blocking legitimate client email. Ours works differently. We leave the email alone and stop the download or the link from doing damage on the laptop.
- Security awareness training, customisable phishing simulation and company-wide crisis exercises.
- A team password manager, so shared logins can carry strong passwords and two-factor even when several people use them.
- Continuous scanning of your server and domain configuration for the weaknesses attackers look for from outside.
No retainer, no consultant. Running it is part of the subscription.
Side by side
| Capability | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | StrongKeep Protection |
|---|---|---|
| Endpoint detection and response | Defender for Business on Windows and macOS, mobile only if enrolled in Intune | Palo Alto Cortex XDR Pro on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS |
| Category-based web filtering | Windows and macOS only | DNS layer, every device and all traffic |
| Security awareness training and phishing simulation | Not included in Office 365 Plan 1 | Included |
| Team password manager | Not in any business tier | Included |
| Breached-password alerts | Requires Entra ID P2 | Included |
| External web and mail configuration scanning | Not included | Included |
| Incident response retainer | Not included | Black Panda add-on, S$3.50 per device per month |
| Malicious link and download blocking | Inside Microsoft traffic, via Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 | All traffic, at the DNS layer |
| Device management and conditional access | Intune and Entra ID P1 | Not included |
| Who runs it day to day | Your IT vendor, on a retainer | We do |
| Charged by | Per user | Per device |
What each path costs
Price the upgrade, not the licence. You are paying for Microsoft 365 either way, so the number that matters is the gap between Business Premium and the tier you are on today. At Singapore list prices in September 2026, excluding GST, Business Basic is about S$8 per user per month, Business Standard about S$17, and Business Premium about S$29.
For a 30-person firm with 30 devices:
| Path | Security tools | Consultant | Total each year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upgrade 30 users from Business Standard to Business Premium | about S$4,320 | about S$4,000 | about S$8,300 |
| Keep your current Microsoft tier and add StrongKeep Protection for 30 devices | about S$2,658 | none | about S$2,658 |
StrongKeep Protection is S$49 a month for the first five devices, then S$6.90 a month for each device after that, billed annually.
The consultant figure is not ours. About S$4,000 a year is the average repeat engagement across the 28 providers CSA has appointed to its CISO-as-a-service panel. Listed three-year plans run to around S$930 a month, closer to S$11,000 a year. Neither figure covers implementing what the consultant recommends, which is quoted on top.
We are cheaper on the tools alone, by about S$1,660 a year. Count the consultant and the Microsoft path costs roughly three times what we do, every year, for as long as you keep it.
If Cyber Essentials is on your roadmap
Our Compliance plan makes it easy for Microsoft 365 users to get the evidence that they need to get certified, even without external consultant help. It is S$199 a month, S$150 above Protection, and it covers the auditor and certification cost as well. No Microsoft tier produces that at any price.
We would not tell you to buy it on day one. It is worth knowing the path exists before you commit to something that does not lead there.
Price the upgrade before you sign the quote
StrongKeep Protection is S$49 a month for the first five devices, then S$6.90 for each device after that, and no consultant retainer on top. We would rather you bought the right thing than the thing we sell, so start with the free scan and see what the Microsoft quote leaves open.
Book a 30-minute call on the numbersNo credit card required to run the free cyberscan.
Prices quoted are Singapore list prices excluding GST, correct as at 11 September 2026. Microsoft pricing changes. Check before relying on it.
Sources: Microsoft 365 Singapore business plan pricing; Microsoft Defender for Office 365 service description; Microsoft Learn on attack simulation training licensing and on web content filtering platform support; CSA CISO-as-a-service panel pricing, averaged across the 28 appointed providers.