Azure B2B vs B2C — A Slightly Humorous Breakdown
Imagine Azure identity as a giant building with different types of visitors.
The building is very secure, loves compliance frameworks, and has about 600 signs telling you where not to stand.
Inside this building, we have two very different doorways:
- • B2B: The “VIP Partner & Guest Engineer Entrance”
- • B2C: The “Customer Main Lobby With Free Wi-Fi and a Coffee Machine”
Azure B2B (Business-to-Business)
“Bring your own badge, we’ll let you in.”
Azure B2B is for external users who work with your organization—partners, vendors, contractors, and even that consultant who charges $400/hr to tell you your firewall rules are too open.
What It Does:
• Invites external users using their existing identity (Microsoft, Google, Entra ID tenant, etc.)
• Gives them controlled access to your apps, documents, and resources.
• Uses your policies (MFA, conditional access, risk rules, etc.).
Key Idea
External users keep their login, but obey your security rules.
You’re hosting a corporate workshop.
Employees walk in the normal entrance.
But your partners, vendors, and auditors?
They arrive at the “Guest Entrance,” show their company badge, and get a temporary visitor sticker.
They can:
• Attend the meeting
• Use the conference Wi-Fi
• Access the shared Teams folder
…but they can’t wander into payroll or delete your production database
Best Fits:
• Sharing SharePoint/Teams with partners
• Allowing external engineers access to an app (e.g., Jira, Azure Portal roles)
• Multi-company collaboration
• Enterprise SaaS applications accessing multiple organizations’ users
Azure B2C (Business-to-Consumer)
“Welcome customers! Make an account… or use Google… or Apple… or Facebook… or email…”
Azure B2C is for customer-facing apps, not employees, partners, or vendors.
It’s designed to handle millions of customers, their passwords, their resets, and their midnight “I forgot my password, help me” requests.
What It Does:
• Lets customers sign up with social accounts (Google, Facebook, Apple) or email/password.
• Provides customizable branded login screens.
• Handles self-service password resets.
• Lets you build user flows like registration, MFA, profile edit, etc.
Key Idea:
B2C is basically a customer identity system that you can brand and customize.
Your customers sign up like:
• Alice using Google
• Bob using his old AOL email
• Charlie using Facebook
• Derek using “Password123!” (and you silently enforce MFA)
They are not employees.
They are not partners.
They are just customers who want to track calories and complain about burpees.
Azure B2C handles all the:
• Sign-ups
• Logins
• Password resets
• MFA prompts
• Branding
• User profile storage
And it scales so well that if your app goes viral on TikTok, it’ll still work.
Best Fits
• Retail customer portals
• Banking / healthcare apps with end-user login
• Loyalty programs
• eCommerce sites
• Any external customer identity scenario
Comparison Summary
| Feature | Azure B2B | Azure B2C |
|---|---|---|
| Who logs in? | External business users (partners, vendors, contractors) | Customers, consumers, end-users |
| Login identity | Their existing identity (Microsoft, Google, Entra ID) | Whatever you configure (social logins, email/password, custom identity) |
| Branded login pages | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (heavily customizable) |
| User management | Governed by your IT policies | Governed by app requirements and user flows |
| Scale | Enterprise-level | Internet-scale (millions of users) |
| Analogy | Guest entrance with security badge | Public lobby with sign-up kiosk |
| Use case | Collaboration | Customer-facing apps |
Simpler Analogy
Azure B2B = “Invite someone to your office.”
They use their own ID badge, but must follow your building rules.
Azure B2C = “Customers visiting your store.”
They create an account or sign in however they want, and you brand everything to make it look like your store.
Final Thought
• Use B2B when people outside your company need to work with you.
• Use B2C when people outside your company need to use your public-facing app.