Microsoft Customer Agreement
Microsoft Customer Agreement. Evergreen, with no safety net.
The contract replacing the EA for many buyers. Its flexibility cuts both ways, and the discipline has to come from you.
The contract replacing the EA for many buyers. Its flexibility cuts both ways, and the discipline has to come from you.
The Microsoft Customer Agreement is the evergreen contract replacing the Enterprise Agreement for many buyers, and its flexibility cuts both ways on price and commitment.
The Microsoft Customer Agreement is a single, evergreen contract that governs your Microsoft purchases without a fixed expiry. It is Microsoft preferred direction for many commercial buyers.
Microsoft publishes the agreement at the Microsoft Customer Agreement document and explains the buying route on its how to buy page.
With no renewal date, the natural negotiation moment disappears. You must create your own checkpoints to hold price and terms.
The MCA comes in three forms. Enterprise serves large negotiated deals, Online serves self service purchases, and Partner runs through a Cloud Solution Provider.
Microsoft Customer Agreement forms
| Form | Route | Best fit | Discount style |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCA Enterprise | Direct, negotiated | Large enterprises | Negotiated |
| MCA Online | Self service | Smaller or fast buys | List or modest |
| MCA Partner | Through a CSP | Partner led estates | Partner set |
Moving from an EA to an MCA changes how your discounts, price holds, and terms are expressed. The protections you negotiated in the EA do not carry forward on their own.
Review the entitlement detail in the Microsoft Product Terms before you transition. The biggest risk is assuming continuity that the new agreement does not provide.
Model your effective price under the MCA against the EA you are leaving. Confirm every discount is restated, not assumed.
MCA billing runs either direct from Microsoft or through a partner under the Partner form. For Azure, enrollment flows through the Azure plan, which the partner channel manages in Partner Center.
Microsoft documents the Azure plan enrollment on Microsoft Learn. Choose the billing route that matches your support and cash flow needs.
Direct and partner billing carry different payment terms and support models. Align the route to how your finance team wants to pay.
Under an evergreen MCA you keep leverage by engineering your own commitment milestones, price holds, and review points into the deal.
The standard advice is that the MCA is simpler than the EA, so there is less to negotiate. We disagree. Across the EA to MCA transitions we advised, the evergreen structure quietly removed the renewal date that used to force a negotiation, and buyers who treated the move as administrative saw 5 to 15 percent annual price drift creep in unchallenged. The buyer side move is to engineer your own checkpoints, price caps, and commitment milestones into the MCA, because nothing in the contract will prompt them for you. Simpler paperwork is not a weaker negotiation. Without a renewal date, discipline has to come from you.
Source: Redress Compliance advisory engagement file, 2024 to 2025.
Simpler paperwork is not a weaker negotiation. Without a renewal date, the discipline has to come from you.
The Microsoft Customer Agreement is a single, evergreen contract with no fixed end date that governs your Microsoft purchases. It is Microsoft preferred direction for many commercial buyers and replaces the traditional Enterprise Agreement for them.
The MCA comes in three forms: Enterprise for large negotiated deals, Online for self service purchases, and Partner for buying through a Cloud Solution Provider. Each has a different route and discount style.
Moving to an MCA changes how discounts, price holds, and terms are expressed, and the protections you negotiated in the EA do not carry forward automatically. The biggest risk is assuming a continuity the new agreement does not provide.
No, the MCA is evergreen with no fixed expiry. That removes the natural renewal negotiation moment, so you must engineer your own review checkpoints.
MCA billing runs either direct from Microsoft under the Enterprise form or through a partner under the Partner form, while Azure consumption flows through the Azure plan. Choose the route that matches your support and cash flow needs.
Not automatically. The MCA can drift 5 to 15 percent a year without negotiated price caps, because the evergreen structure removes the renewal that used to force a price conversation.
You keep leverage by negotiating price caps, timing Azure commitments, and setting your own annual review checkpoints. Nothing in the evergreen contract will prompt these for you.
It depends on your support and finance needs. Direct billing keeps the relationship with Microsoft, while a partner adds a managing CSP with its own support and payment terms. Match the route to how your finance team wants to pay.
Microsoft renewal moves, the EA framework, the M365 SKU framework, the Copilot framework, and the buyer side moves across the full Microsoft estate.
Used across more than five hundred enterprise engagements. Independent. Buyer side. Built for procurement leaders running the next renewal cycle.
Simpler paperwork is not a weaker negotiation. Without a renewal date, the discipline has to come from you.
500+ enterprise clients. 11 vendor practices. Industry recognized. One conversation can change what you pay for the next three years.
One buyer side brief a week on Microsoft pricing, audit posture, and the levers that hold a discount. No vendor spin.
