The Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) explained. An evergreen agreement with no renewal date.

The MCA replaces the Enterprise Agreement for many buyers with one digital contract that never expires. Without a renewal date, nothing forces Microsoft to reprice your account, so the protections have to be written in at the transition.

What is the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA)?

The Microsoft Customer Agreement is a single, evergreen contract with no fixed end date. It covers products and clouds under one set of terms, and you accept and manage it digitally. Microsoft treats it as the preferred destination for most commercial buyers, and it now sits under most new Azure buying and a growing share of Microsoft 365 purchases.

Evergreen describes the agreement, and the subscriptions under it still have terms. Each Microsoft 365 subscription runs for its own period and then renews or lapses, while Azure consumption bills monthly. What disappears is the enrollment end date that sat above all of it in an Enterprise Agreement.

How do the three MCA forms differ?

Under the Partner form, Azure consumption enrolls through the Azure plan in the partner channel. Many organizations hold more than one form by accident, because a team bought Azure on a card or a subsidiary signed with a local partner. Our vehicle brief on EA, CSP and MCA covers that choice.

What does evergreen mean in the contract text?

• No end date. Either party may terminate without cause on 60 days' notice, and active subscriptions run to the end of their current period.
• Subscriptions keep their own terms. They expire at the end of their period unless renewed, and many Microsoft 365 subscriptions renew automatically while recurring billing stays on.
• Protection is per subscription. A term subscription's price is set when you buy or renew it, and material adverse changes to use rights wait until the current subscription period ends. Azure meter prices can move month to month.

How does the MCA differ from a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement?

The largest difference is the calendar. An Enterprise Agreement runs for three years and then ends, and the end forces a negotiation. The MCA has no end, so no date ever requires Microsoft to reprice your account or requires you to review it.

Why does losing the renewal date matter so much?

For all its faults, the EA gave buyers a safety net they rarely noticed. Every three years the contract ended, and budgets, discounts and counts all had to be argued again. That worked even for buyers who prepared badly, because some negotiation beats none.

The MCA removes that net under the banner of convenience: no renewal project, no procurement cycle, no signature deadline. It also removes the one scheduled moment when pricing had to survive scrutiny. Drift fills the gap, as list movements, uplifts and eroded discounts that arrive unannounced and that no event forces you to contest.

How do the 2025 and 2026 price changes affect the choice?

From November 1, 2025, Microsoft moved EA and MPSA online services to consistent pricing across price levels A to D, applied at each customer's next renewal. New list prices for Microsoft 365 suites then took effect on July 1, 2026.

Multiyear agreements keep current pricing until their next renewal after July 1, 2026, which for many three year EAs lands in 2027. Some of those customers are also being told the EA is no longer offered to them, with MCA Enterprise or CSP as the alternatives. The pricing reset and the agreement change then arrive at the same table.

What carries over when you move from an EA to an MCA?

Nothing carries over unless you write it into the new paper. In the transitions we advised, negotiated EA discount levels did not restate themselves, the three year price hold ended with the term that created it, and custom terms from EA amendments had to be negotiated again.

The Azure side is a billing change with no service downtime, which is why teams treat the transition as administration. A buyer who signs the MCA as a clerical step has signed the whole Microsoft relationship again at whatever the new paper says.

Why is the transition itself the negotiation?

The transition is the last point where your EA position still prices your MCA terms. Microsoft wants the change completed, and your readiness to sign has value until you sign. After that, no expiry brings the account team back.

Why we reject the claim that the MCA leaves less to negotiate

The standard advice says the MCA is simpler, so there is less to negotiate. The paper is simpler, and the discipline is harder, because the date that used to force a negotiation is gone and drift took its place. Run the transition as a full renewal, and hold back your signature until the written terms match your price model.

What have we seen in EA to MCA transitions from 2024 to 2026?

Across 16 to 22 EA to MCA transitions we advised between 2024 and 2026, the losses clustered around protections the buyer did not know it was giving up. Buyers who treated the change as administrative absorbed 5 to 15 percent annual price drift once the fixed term hold disappeared.

• The lost price hold. Found about a year later on an invoice, when a subscription renewed at a new list price.
• Discount resets. Treated as clerical errors to fix later, when they had become the new baseline.
• Mixed forms. Enterprise, Online and Partner purchases mixed by accident into billing finance could not reconcile.
• Continuity by default. In none of these transitions did an EA discount level restate itself automatically.

Under the EA, discipline lived in the contract. Under the MCA, it has to live with you.

An evergreen agreement with written caps, owned checkpoints and well timed commitments is a perfectly good home for your Microsoft spend, arguably better than a three year lock. Signed and forgotten, the same agreement renews every subscription at whatever price applies that day.

How much can evergreen price drift cost?

On a $2,000,000 annual spend, drift at the rates we saw costs roughly $250,000 to $1,600,000 more over four years than a 3 percent cap. The cost compounds, so most of it lands late. The table shows the hypothetical case, with the cap against the low and high ends of the drift range.

The exact gaps against the cap are $252,996 at 5 percent and $1,619,496 at 15 percent. Years 3 and 4 account for about 85 percent of the larger gap, the stretch when no renewal date would have prompted anyone to look.

What should you negotiate into a Microsoft Customer Agreement?

Ask for the protections the EA calendar used to supply, written into the MCA Enterprise documents before you accept them.

• A restated price sheet. Every product and discount from the EA, listed line by line, so no reset can be called a clerical error later.
• A cap on renewal increases. A maximum annual uplift on subscription renewals despite the evergreen term.
• Subscription term choice. The right to buy the longest term available for your core suites, since price protection now lives there.
• Reduction rights. The right to lower quantities at each subscription anniversary, written per product.
• MACC terms. A commitment sized to forecast consumption, with clear treatment of any shortfall.

How should the form choice change with company size?

A 500 user company with modest Azure spend often gains little from MCA Enterprise and may do better with a capable CSP under MCA Partner. The priority there is a CSP contract with its own price hold and exit terms.

A 20,000 user company usually belongs on MCA Enterprise. Its risk is fragmentation: regional teams on MCA Online, a subsidiary with a CSP, Azure spread across billing profiles. Map which purchases flow through which form, and stop new ones going around the map.

How do Azure commitments become your negotiation dates?

A Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment renewal is the closest thing the MCA world has to a renewal date. Microsoft wants the next commitment, so time it deliberately and bring Microsoft 365 pricing into the same conversation. The commitment sizing discipline applies in full, and one MCA can share the MACC benefit across several tenants.

What will the Microsoft account team say about the MCA transition?

Expect the change to be presented as paperwork. These are the lines we hear most, with replies that keep the commercial questions open.

• "Your pricing carries over." Ask for the carried pricing as a price sheet attached to the MCA documents before acceptance.
• "There is nothing to renew any more." Say you will run a review on a fixed date each year, and that caps are the price of skipping a formal renewal.
• "Price protection is built into your subscriptions." Ask which subscriptions, for how long, and what happens at the first renewal after July 1, 2026.
• "We will review your discount once the MCA is in place." Decline. A discount reviewed after signature is one you no longer hold.

How do you build your own renewal calendar under an MCA?

Pick a fixed annual checkpoint, give it an owner, and keep a real option to retender through a CSP or another form. Place it a few months before your largest subscription anniversary or your MACC end date.

How do you check your own MCA position?

• Azure portal. Cost Management + Billing shows the billing account, its billing profiles, invoice sections and progress against your MACC.
• Price sheet. Download the MCA price sheet for each billing profile and compare it with the EA price sheet you are leaving.
• Microsoft 365 admin center. Under Billing, each product shows its renewal date and auto renew setting.

What mistakes do buyers make in the first year of an MCA?

• Letting auto renew set the price. A subscription then picks up whatever list applies on its renewal day.
• Skipping the cost data export. After migration, subscription owners can no longer see the EA trend data needed for the next negotiation.
• Treating the first discount reset as a billing error. Raise it as a commercial dispute within the month, before it becomes the baseline.

The renewal mechanics you are leaving behind are covered in our EA renewals brief, and the wider library sits in the Microsoft knowledge hub.

What to do next

1. Before the transition. Model the MCA against your current EA line by line, and price the difference as the negotiation it is.
2. In the MCA documents. Restate every discount and protection in writing, and assume nothing carries.
3. On price. Write caps against the evergreen drift and choose subscription terms that hold price as long as possible.
4. On structure. Choose the form and billing route deliberately, Enterprise, Online or Partner, and map which purchases flow through which.
5. On Azure. Time your commitments as the negotiation events the contract no longer schedules.
6. Every year. Hold an owned checkpoint with a live CSP alternative. Our Microsoft practice runs the transition and the annual reviews with you.

Frequently asked questions