Best M365 upgrade option for new sole trader?

Question

Best M365 upgrade option for new sole trader?

Fran Harrison 20

Hello hivemind, I'm in the process of setting up a tech stack for what will be a very small coaching and learning business, with just me trading under it. I won't be earning for a while, so need to keep costs down, but my current setup is not working! I have an MS account set up with my business email address as username (though the email is hosted through a separate provider via WordPress, who host my website).

What I want? Well, going back to my roots, here's a user story:
As a coach, I want to be able to schedule calls in Outlook where my emails come in, and for these to sync into my Teams account, so that I'm not having to copy and paste everywhere, and I can handle all my messaging and scheduling in one place.

What's the minimum I need to buy into to achieve this? Would I have to move my email provision into MS, or is it OK staying with Titan and just syncing into Outlook? Links with the rest of 365 suite would be a nice to have, but the only Must (yup, MOSCoW too) is that I can schedule and message in Teams and Outlook without any duplication of effort.

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Answer 1

Hi Fran,

Based on your requirements, the simplest and lowest-cost option would likely be Microsoft 365 Business Basic.

Business Basic includes Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online for business email, Outlook on the web, Teams meeting scheduling integrated with Outlook, OneDrive and SharePoint

With this setup, meetings scheduled in Outlook automatically appear in Teams, and Teams meetings can be created directly from Outlook without any manual copying or pasting.

You don't necessarily move your email to Microsoft, but it depends on the experience you're looking for.

If your Titan-hosted mailbox supports IMAP, you can add it to Outlook and continue using Titan for email hosting. However, your Titan calendar and contacts will not integrate with Teams in the same way as a Microsoft-hosted mailbox. Teams meeting scheduling and Outlook calendar synchronization may be limited or require workarounds. You may end up maintaining separate calendaring systems, which sounds like exactly what you're trying to avoid.

If scheduling, calendar synchronization, and Teams integration are your must-have requirements, you can go for:

Purchase Microsoft 365 Business Basic (normally the lowest-cost business plan).
Move your domain email from Titan to Exchange Online.
Use Outlook and Teams under the same Microsoft 365 account.

I hope this provides enough clarity and helps you stay inform with your current situation.

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Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.

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Fran Harrison 20 Reputation points

2026-07-17T07:47:49.2633333+00:00

Thanks! That was kind of what I expected, so it's good to have it from an expert. I think what I need to do is map out all the systems across this business and the other elements of my portfolio, to judge how best to integrate all the moving parts.
Alexis-NG 18,070 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-17T20:45:14.2033333+00:00

Hi Fran,

I hope everything is going smoothly on your end.

Thank you very much for accepting the answer. I’m truly pleased it was helpful to you.

If you have any concerns or questions in the future, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Not only will I be happy to assist you, but all moderators in the Q&A forum will also do their best to provide support and guidance. Wishing you a smooth rest of your day.