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MS-900 Practice Question: Planning to purchase Microsoft 365 subscriptions
A company is planning to purchase Microsoft 365 subscriptions. They want to follow the recommended process. Which of the following sequences correctly represents the order of steps from start to finish?
⚠ Common exam trap
MS-900 often tests the logical order of steps; candidates might assume that adding licenses comes before choosing a subscription, but you must choose a subscription to know what licenses to add.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Assess needs, Choose subscription, Add licenses, Assign licenses
The recommended process for purchasing Microsoft 365 subscriptions is to first assess the organization's needs, then choose the appropriate subscription, then add licenses to the tenant, and finally assign those licenses to users. This logical sequence ensures you purchase the right licenses and have them available before assignment.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Choose subscription, Assess needs, Assign licenses, Add licenses
Why it's wrong here
Starting with subscription selection before assessing needs risks purchasing an Enterprise suite when your organization only requires Business Standard capabilities, leading to wasted spend or missing compliance features. Moreover, the sequence is internally impossible: assigning licenses to users requires available licenses in the tenant, and those licenses only exist after you have added (purchased) them through the subscription. A correct procurement workflow always begins with a requirements analysis to map user count, needed apps, and security controls, then selects the matching subscription, adds license capacity, and finally assigns those licenses to users.
- ✓
Assess needs, Choose subscription, Add licenses, Assign licenses
Why this is correct
This is the only valid ordering because lifecycle management of Microsoft 365 licenses must follow a dependency chain. First, assess needs to determine the required SKU (e.g., Microsoft 365 E3 vs Business Premium) and the number of users. Second, choose a subscription to establish the licensing platform and billing terms. Third, add license capacity (either through purchasing additional seats or adjusting the license count) so there are enough available units. Finally, assign licenses to individual users via the Microsoft 365 admin center or PowerShell, consuming the available capacity.
- ✗
Add licenses, Assign licenses, Assess needs, Choose subscription
Why it's wrong here
Attempting to add and assign licenses before assessing needs or selecting a subscription is impossible in Microsoft 365 because licenses are provisioned as part of a specific subscription plan, not as standalone items. Without a chosen subscription, there is no licensing program or SKU against which to purchase seats, and without an assessment, you cannot determine the correct quantity or feature set. This reversed order also violates tenant configuration prerequisites, as assignment operations require an existing license inventory and the appropriate administrative roles (e.g., License Administrator) to be in place.
- ✗
Assess needs, Add licenses, Choose subscription, Assign licenses
Why it's wrong here
Inserting 'add licenses' before 'choose subscription' breaks the dependency between a subscription and its license capacity: adding licenses is an operation performed on a selected subscription (e.g., changing the license count or purchasing a prepaid SKU), so it cannot logically precede the subscription choice. While needs assessment correctly comes first, the subsequent steps are out of order, because you cannot add capacity for a plan that has not been defined. The correct flow is to finalize the subscription, then add the required number of licenses, and only then assign them to users; this ensures you have the exact reserved license quantity and avoid over- or under-purchasing.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Cross-Tenant Access Policies in Entra ID
Key term
Subscription
A subscription is a payment model where you pay a recurring fee to access a product or service instead of buying it once and owning it forever.
Key term
Tenant
A dedicated and isolated instance of Microsoft Entra ID that an organization receives when signing up for a Microsoft cloud service.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
This MS-900 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the MS-900 exam.