
In the last couple of months, questions about Microsoft Search Connectors licensing became very regular during trainings, calls with clients, and even in my inbox. To me, this means the demand is increasing – so here is a quick summary in case you are interested.
Basically, creating a connection or developing your custom connector is free, however you have to purchase quota for indexed items.
There are three ways to have quota entitlement:
- Microsoft 365 E5 / Office 365 E5 license: For each licensed user, you get entitlement for 500 items of index quota.
For example, if you have 100 users with E5 license, you get quote for 100 x 500 = 50.000 connector items in the search index. - Microsoft Viva Topics license: For each licensed user, you get entitlement for 500 items of index quota.
For example, if you have 200 users with E5 license, you get quote for 200 x 500 = 100.000 connector items in the search index. - Purchase additional quota: You can purchase additional quota under Microsoft 365 Admin Center / Billing / Purchase Services / Add-ons / Extra Graph Connector Capacity.
Additional quota can be purchased in increments of 1 million items.
These quota entitlements add up, which means if you have 1000 users with E5 license plus you purchase quota for 2 million items, in total you’ll have quota for (1000 x 500) + 2.000.000 = 2.500.000 items.
Note: Currently, Microsoft Graph Connectors have the following limits:
- Max. 30 Graph connections per tenant;
- Max. 5 million items per connection;
- Max. 50 million items of total index quota, which includes any built-in quota bundled into Microsoft 365 or Office 365 E5 licenses.
If you need higher scale, you can contact Microsoft by using the form mentioned in this post:
➡️ Higher connection count in Microsoft Graph connectors

More informations and details can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftsearch/licensing
Great Share!!
Hi Anges,
thanks for the great articles which is short but collects very important information about this topic. One question: if I want to connect a system to my tenant for 500 users and buy an Extra Graph Connector Capacity. Do I have to pay for 1 license, because I use 1 connector and all 500 users can search within the connected system or do I need to buy 500 licenses, because I have 500 users who need to search. Do you know that?