Azure CSP vs EA, and now the MCA-E. How to pick the vehicle that sets your discount.

CSP buys Azure monthly through a partner at retail rates. The EA trades a multi year commitment for discounts, but Microsoft has been retiring it since January 2025, so the MCA-E is the third vehicle every Azure buyer must price.

How do Azure CSP and an Enterprise Agreement differ?

CSP buys Azure month to month through a partner, with no commitment, at pay as you go retail rates and the partner's margin built in. An Enterprise Agreement buys Azure directly from Microsoft under a multi year commitment, in exchange for negotiated discounts.

There is now a third option you have to price. Microsoft is declining a growing share of EA renewals and moving those customers to the Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise (MCA-E). Each of the three vehicles trades flexibility for price in a different way.

What CSP gives you, and what it costs

Under CSP, your Azure subscriptions sit on an Azure plan that a partner provisions and bills. You accept the Microsoft Customer Agreement, but the partner holds the billing relationship and sets your invoice. You can scale down or stop at any month end.

The cost of that freedom is price. You pay list rates for consumption, and the partner keeps whatever margin sits between its cost and your invoice. Reservations and savings plans are still available through the partner, so CSP does not lock you out of the standard Azure discounts.

What the EA gives you

The EA gives you a direct contract, a fixed term and a negotiated Azure discount tied to what you commit. It rewards scale and predictability. It also carries the risk of paying for consumption you never use, and Microsoft decides whether you get to renew it. Our EA guide covers the full agreement.

Why the MCA-E has to be in your model

The MCA-E is evergreen, so there is no enrollment end date to renegotiate against. Azure discounts under it come almost entirely from the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) you sign. If your EA is one of the renewals Microsoft declines, this is the vehicle you land on, whether or not you priced it.

At what Azure spend does a commitment beat CSP?

Usually at around $1M of annual Azure spend. Below that, CSP's flexibility is usually worth more than the discount a committed vehicle offers. Above it, the committed vehicle wins on price, and the gap widens as spend grows.

The comparison itself is stable: CSP retail rates against the committed vehicle's negotiated discount, net of the commitment risk your consumption volatility carries. The input that changes is your spend. That is why the vehicle decision needs a fresh check every year, with this year's numbers.

How the answer shifts with the size of your Azure bill

• Around $300,000 a year. Stay on CSP. A discount on this base is small in dollars, and a commitment adds sizing work and shortfall risk. Spend your effort on the partner conversation and on reservations for steady workloads.
• Around $1M a year. This is the crossover zone. Price all three vehicles, because volatility decides it. Steady production workloads favor commitment, while a year of migration or replatforming favors CSP.
• Several million a year. A committed vehicle usually wins, and the question becomes how large the commitment should be. Get that wrong and the discount is gone, as the example below shows.

Worked example: sizing the commitment on floor or forecast

Say you spend $1.4 million a year on Azure at list rates. Rightsizing and reservation work would bring the steady baseline to $1.2 million. Microsoft's account team forecasts growth to $1.8 million and proposes a three year commitment of $5.4 million.

Assume, for illustration only, a 6 percent discount at the forecast size and 4 percent at the $3.6 million floor. Then suppose actual consumption at list comes in at $1.2 million, $1.4 million and $1.6 million over the three years, a total of $4.2 million. These are round hypothetical figures chosen for the arithmetic.

The floor commitment saves $168,000 against CSP. The forecast commitment costs $1.2 million more than CSP, because Microsoft bills the unused balance at the end of the term. Had consumption reached the forecast, $5.4 million at list over three years, the larger commitment would have saved only $108,000 more than the floor.

The common advice to commit high for a deeper discount, and why we disagree

The usual advice is to commit to your growth plan, because a bigger number earns a bigger discount. We disagree, because the example shows the trade: a small extra discount if the forecast holds, and a seven figure bill if it slips.

Size the commitment to your post optimization floor, with reserved coverage worked out first, and let growth above it earn credit toward your next negotiation. Our Microsoft negotiation guide covers the wider deal.

How does the MCA-E price Azure?

It prices Azure through the MACC. Under the EA, program mechanics carried part of the pricing. Under the MCA-E, the negotiated consumption commitment carries almost all of it, so the whole Azure discount conversation comes down to one number and the terms around it.

On the MCA-E, sizing the consumption commitment is the negotiation. Everything else on the Azure side follows from that one number.

Microsoft's own documentation is plain about the downside. If you do not reach the total MACC amount by the end date, a shortfall charge is applied for the remaining balance, in the form of an Azure prepayment credit. A MACC can also carry milestones, and a missed milestone triggers the same kind of charge on its due date.

Deal with Copilot and AI consumption before you set the number

Account teams increasingly present Copilot and Azure AI consumption as the growth that will fill a larger MACC. Decide what that consumption is, and whether it decrements the commitment, before you agree the size. Our brief on Copilot credits and the MACC works through that question, and the MACC sizing guide covers the baseline method.

Contract wording to ask for

• Milestones that ramp. Set annual milestones that start at the floor and rise gently, so an early slow year does not trigger a charge.
• Shortfall rollover. Ask that any unmet balance roll into a renewal or extension of the commitment. Accept a shortfall invoice only as the last resort.
• A written definition of eligible spend. List which services and which Microsoft Marketplace offers decrement the MACC, because not every Marketplace purchase counts.
• Discount held for the full term. Tie the negotiated Azure rates to the commitment period, with no reset when Microsoft changes list prices.
• A reduction right. Allow the commitment to fall if you divest a business unit or move a named workload off Azure.

Can Azure pricing under CSP be negotiated?

It can, once your Azure spend is material. CSP partner margin is built largely on the partner earned credit, a discount Microsoft applies to the partner's own Azure bill for managing your environment. Part of that credit can be negotiated back to you, and a buyer who knows it exists gets a different CSP deal from one who does not.

How the partner earned credit works

Microsoft applies the credit when the partner holds qualifying admin access to your subscriptions, through admin on behalf of rights, Azure Lighthouse, or user accounts and service principals with the right role. If that access is removed, the partner loses the credit. The rate is published in the Azure plan price list in Partner Center, which customers do not see.

The credit does not apply to everything. Azure plan reservations, savings plans, Spot virtual machines, third party products and Microsoft Marketplace offers are all excluded. A partner with a large share of your spend in those categories earns less credit, which changes how much it can give back.

Questions to put to your CSP partner

1. Which of our subscriptions earn the partner earned credit today, and which do not?
2. What share of that credit will you pass back to us as a discount on consumption?
3. Will you enable the cost visibility policy so we can see our usage in Cost Management?
4. What managed service do we receive in return for the access that earns the credit?
5. What notice and exit terms apply if we move the Azure plan to another partner or to a direct agreement?

Is Microsoft retiring the Enterprise Agreement for Azure?

It is doing so in stages. Since January 2025, Microsoft has declined a growing share of direct market EA renewals and sent those customers to the MCA-E. If your EA is affected, the only open question is timing, and a transition run at your renewal on your terms beats an administrative switch on every term that matters.

Handled at your renewal, with your licenses reconciled and protections written into the new paper, the transition carries your position forward. Accepted as routine paperwork, it resets whatever the EA protected, starting with the Azure discounts. Our Azure EA guide and the EA and MCA-E comparison set out what changes.

Why the transition needs nine months

Plan to start about nine months before enrollment expiry, because the transition is three projects sharing one date. They are the commitment sizing negotiation, the carry over terms for your licensing, and the cutover of billing and administration. Start early and you negotiate each part.

Start late and each part arrives as a form to sign, on a date the account team chose. Microsoft's routing is not neutral, so set the timetable before it does.

What the account team will say, and what to say back

• "Your EA is not eligible for renewal, so we will move you to the MCA-E." Ask for that in writing, with the transition date set at your enrollment expiry and your current Azure discounts carried over.
• "A larger commitment gets you a deeper discount." Show your post optimization floor and ask for the discount at that size, with milestones that ramp.
• "Copilot and AI will fill the commitment easily." Ask which of those services decrement the MACC, and size the commitment without them until you have usage data.
• "This offer only holds until quarter end." The quarter end is Microsoft's deadline. Yours is the enrollment expiry, and a price your numbers justify this quarter is still justified by them next quarter.

What have we seen in Azure purchasing reviews?

In the Azure environments we benchmark, the purchasing vehicle was inherited far more often than chosen. The inheritance had a price in both directions, and in each case the cause was the same: no one owned the yearly check.

• CSP past the crossover. Companies stayed on CSP retail rates years after their spend passed the point where a committed vehicle would have paid.
• The unfilled commitment. EA commitments were held against consumption that had since moved to another platform, so the customer paid for a discount its spend no longer earned.
• The unasked partner question. At material CSP spend, raising the partner earned credit recovered points the buyer had never asked about, because the margin was invisible from the customer side.

The remedy was the same each time: a yearly check with current numbers, instead of assuming last cycle's answer still held.

How do you check which Azure vehicle fits your spend?

Pull twelve months of cost data, separate steady workloads from one time projects, and price all three vehicles against the result. It takes about an afternoon once the data is in hand.

Where to find the numbers

• Cost analysis. In Microsoft Cost Management, use the amortized cost view so reservation and savings plan purchases are spread across the months they cover.
• Reservation and savings plan usage. Low usage means your floor is lower than your bill suggests. Azure Advisor lists further rightsizing and reservation recommendations.
• MACC progress. On an MCA, open Cost Management + Billing, select Benefits and then the MACC tile. On an EA, the same data sits under Credits + Commitments.
• CSP cost visibility. The cost visibility policy is off by default. Once your partner enables it, you see usage in Cost Management at pay as you go rates, without the partner's credits, which is the right baseline for comparing vehicles.

Compare that baseline with your partner's invoice. If the invoice sits at pay as you go on eligible services, the partner is keeping the whole credit, and the credit is what you negotiate. For the committed side, our guide to reservations and savings plans shows how to work reserved coverage out before you size any commitment.

What to do next

1. Check the vehicle every year. Price current Azure spend against CSP, the EA and the MCA-E. Give one person ownership and put the date in the calendar.
2. Raise the partner earned credit. Wherever CSP stays at material spend, ask the partner what credit it earns on your subscriptions and what share it will pass back.
3. Size any commitment to the floor. Work reserved coverage out first, settle the Copilot consumption question, then set the number.
4. Start transitions early. Work from the timeline above, from the renewal question at 12 months to billing tests in the final month.
5. Carry EA protections into the new paper. Write the discounts, caps and terms into the MCA-E explicitly, or the routing resets them. Our Microsoft practice runs the decision with you.

Frequently asked questions