Why are basic security features locked behind expensive tiers?
Essential protections like conditional access and geo-blocking are restricted to premium licensing tiers rather than being included in standard packages. This forces organizations to pay extra for fundamental safeguards or accept lower security baselines, making it difficult to implement basic location-based policies for clients without expensive upgrades.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from September 2026.
- This comes up 148.1× more often in r/msp than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Upgrading clients to higher-tier bundles like Microsoft 365 Business PremiumDid this help you?
- 2Using on-premise Active Directory and ADFS to federate authenticationDid this help you?
- 3Relying on restrictive out-of-the-box security defaultsDid this help you?
- 4Freezing credit directly with the three major bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion)Did this help you?
- 5Using free credit monitoring offered by credit cards and banking appsDid this help you?
- 6Practicing good personal security habits like using unique passwords and enabling 2FADid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Conditional Access is like having to pay extra for a packet filtering firewall on your router.”source ↗
“Unless you pay for premium you actually get less security than if you just used on prem AD and ADFS to federate.”source ↗
“trying to explain to clients why they can't have basic location-based policies without upgrading gets old fast.”source ↗
“Microsoft gatekeeping basic geo-blocking behind P1/Business Premium in 2026 feels like a tax on fundamental security.”source ↗
“I've been paying the Lifelock subscription for ages, probably 10 years or so and I've never seen it do a single thing for me. Is it like insurance where it's a good thing if you don't need it or am I wasting my money?”source ↗
“At this point I assume my info has been leaked and just try to follow good practices like not reusing passwords, enabling 2FA, checking my account activity often, pulling my credit reports, etc. But I'd like cancel the Lifelock but I wanted to get second opinions before actually doing it.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 7Why do you have to pay thousands to remove team members?
- 3Why do restaurants charge extra for basic sides and additions?
- 5Why does software installation fail on secure systems?
- 3How to streamline Intune security policies across multiple tenants
- 4How do you know if an extra maintenance step is actually required?
- 14Why are service fees so expensive for tiny repairs?