Redress Compliance provides Microsoft licensing experts who act as your independent Microsoft licensing consultant, led by an ex Microsoft practice lead and paid by no reseller. We establish your license position, choose the right program and defend audits. Licensing reviews are fixed fee, and negotiations can run on a 25 percent success fee.
Microsoft EA: Where the Leverage Really Is, and the Mistakes That Give It Away
Leverage lives in Microsoft's calendar and targets, and in credible movement at the edges of the estate. The three mistakes that hand it back: the copy and paste renewal, licensing where everyone gets everything, and negotiating on price alone under their clock.
A Microsoft licensing consultant establishes what you own, what you use and what you owe, then turns that into a position Microsoft has to negotiate against. The output is an effective license position, a program recommendation and a price target, before any number reaches Microsoft or the LSP.
The work covers the Microsoft licensing programs, the M365 SKU family, and the Unified Support framework, not just seat counts.
An LSP and a reseller earn on Microsoft volume, so their advisory work sits inside a sales motion. An independent licensing expert earns nothing from Microsoft, so the SKU and program selection follows only your economics.
Ethan Mullins, our Microsoft Practice Lead and a former Microsoft employee, leads the practice, and Co Founder Morten Andersen partners on the largest engagements. You work with them directly.
Bring one in 9 to 12 months before an EA or MCA E renewal, the day an audit notice or SAM invitation arrives, or when Microsoft proposes a program migration or a Copilot rollout.
The leverage sits before the LSP files a proposal and before Microsoft’s June 30 year end sets the pricing deadline.
Many Microsoft partners offer licensing advice to the same customers they sell Microsoft to, so the advice sits inside the sales motion. An independent licensing expert has no such conflict and can recommend buying less.
Microsoft runs compliance reviews through partner led SAM engagements and through contractual audits under the verification clause. We validate the install base, contest the methodology and settle on a defensible baseline through our Microsoft audit defense service.
With one Online Services price across Levels A to D, the EA no longer wins on volume discount alone. We compare the EA, MCA E and CSP on your own seat and cloud mix before Microsoft frames the choice for you.
It runs in five steps, from raw data to a position you can act on. First deliverables land within 10 business days of complete data.
Five documents that stay with you after the engagement. Each is written for use with Microsoft, not for a shelf.
What a Microsoft licensing expert hands you
| Deliverable | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Effective license position | Entitlements against deployments, SKU by SKU, with every owned license claimable, including acquired, OEM and older agreement licenses. |
| Program comparison | The EA, MCA E and CSP priced on your own seat and cloud mix, with the renewal eligibility question answered in writing. |
| Right sizing model | E5, E3, F3 and Copilot seats set by job family from measured usage, with point product overlap removed. |
| Quote or claim verdict | A written read of the Microsoft proposal or audit claim: the price target, the clauses to change and the walk away line. |
| Governance kit | A license request workflow, quarterly reconciliation and a checklist to run before each true up. |
We draft the SKU optimization, the program selection brief, the audit counter and the side letter, and brief the steering committee. Your team keeps every conversation with Microsoft.
Three published results show what a measured license position does to the price. Each figure comes from its case study page.
More outcomes sit on our 281 published case studies page.
The difference is who pays the advisor and what the advisor gains when you buy more. Each option can suit a given buyer, and the table compares them on the four points that matter most.
Redress vs Big Four consultancy vs reseller or Microsoft partner vs in house
| Option | Independence | Conflicts of interest | Microsoft experience | How fees work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Redress Compliance | No Microsoft partner status, reseller agreement or referral fee | None tied to what you buy | Practice led by an ex Microsoft lead; licensing and commercial terms only | Fixed fee for reviews and audits; 25 percent of savings on negotiations; never hourly |
| Big Four consultancy | Separate from Microsoft sales; some firms hold alliance or implementation ties | Possible where the firm also sells Microsoft implementation | Broad advisory bench; licensing depth varies by team | Usually time and materials |
| Reseller or Microsoft partner | Paid by Microsoft through margin and incentives | Earns more when you buy more or pick a given program | Deep product and transaction knowledge | Advice usually bundled into the license margin |
| In house team | Full | None | Knows your estate best; limited view of what comparable buyers achieved | Staff time only |
The cloud volume discount ended, smaller EAs lost their renewal path, and suite list prices rose. Each change makes an independent license position more valuable.
Our Microsoft Enterprise Agreement 2026 renewal guide covers the renewal side in detail.
Licensing reviews and audit defense are a fixed fee, scoped to the work and agreed up front. Negotiation engagements can instead run on a success fee of 25 percent of what we save you.
On a success fee you keep 75 percent, and if we save nothing you pay nothing. We never bill by the hour.
We are not a Microsoft LSP or a Microsoft partner. We do not resell or implement Microsoft, and we take no Microsoft referral fees or Microsoft Partner Network status. The independence test passes before the first meeting.
The standard market advice is to use your LSP or reseller for licensing advice, since they know Microsoft best. We disagree. In roughly 6 of 10 LSP advisory proposals we benchmarked, the SKU mix favored the reseller margin over the buyer outcome by 8 to 18 percent of program value.
The buyer side move is to separate the advice from the reselling, treat the LSP as a transaction partner only, and engage an independent licensing expert for the SKU, program and audit positions.
Source: Redress Compliance advisory engagement file, 2024 to 2025.
Licensing reviews and audit defense are a fixed fee, scoped to the work and agreed up front. Negotiation work can instead run on a success fee of 25 percent of what we save you, so you keep 75 percent and pay nothing if we save nothing. We never bill by the hour.
A Microsoft licensing expert establishes what you own, what you use and what you owe, then turns that into a position Microsoft has to negotiate against. The output is an effective license position, a program recommendation and a price target.
No. We hold no Microsoft partner status, sell no Microsoft licenses, take no referral fees and earn no Microsoft margin. The only income we earn on your estate is the fee you pay us.
The reseller is paid by Microsoft on what you buy, so its advice sits inside a sales motion. We are paid only by you, so the seat mix and program choice follow your economics, and both can work on the same deal.
Yes. Our Microsoft audit defense service reconciles your position before anything is disclosed and challenges the draft claim line by line. Across 30 to 45 Microsoft compliance reviews we advised in 2024 and 2025, findings commonly fell 20 to 50 percent between the opening figure and settlement.
Engage 9 to 12 months before any program renewal, or the day an audit notice or SAM invitation arrives. Earlier is cheaper, because the leverage sits before the LSP files a proposal.
Your Microsoft agreements and enrollments, admin center usage reports, Azure consumption data and any open proposal or audit letter. We reply within one business day with scope and fee, and first deliverables land within 10 business days of complete data.
The EA, MCA E, CSP and MPSA, across Microsoft 365, Windows Server, SQL Server, Azure, Dynamics, Copilot and Unified Support. SQL Server core counts and Windows Server virtualization are where audit disputes concentrate, so we check those first.
A reseller’s licensing team is paid by Microsoft on what you buy. An independent licensing expert is paid only by you. Both can be in the deal; only one sits on your side.
Engage our Microsoft licensing experts on a renewal, an audit, or a program migration. We rebuild the SKU and program position with zero Microsoft revenue on our side.
Independent. Buyer side. Zero reseller margin, zero referral fee, zero vendor influence.
Open the buyer side paper in your browser. Corporate email only.
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