Full narration of the briefing. Click a section heading to jump the player to that moment.
For most enterprises the Enterprise Agreement has been furniture. It was simply how you bought Microsoft, and renewal meant signing the same shape again. That assumption no longer holds. I am Tom, Daniel is with me, and this briefing is about the vehicle itself: whether you will still have an EA, whether you should want one, and how the alternative becomes the strongest piece of leverage you hold.
Get this decision wrong and the discount conversation barely matters, because the container you sign into determines your terms, your flexibility and your price protection for the next three years.
Here are the facts, in order. New Enterprise Agreement enrolments closed in October 2024, so you cannot start a fresh EA. From 1 November 2025, organisations of roughly two thousand four hundred users and below can no longer renew an EA and must move to CSP or to the Microsoft Customer Agreement for Enterprise. And Microsoft has committed to EA renewals through 2027, with no commitment past that horizon.
Notice what that means if you renew in 2027 on a three year term. You will be signing an agreement whose successor Microsoft has not promised, which is a reason to negotiate your exit and transition terms now rather than discover them later.
So what are the options? The EA, if you are still large enough to hold one: familiar, annual true up, enterprise terms, and the price protection you have always relied on. The Microsoft Customer Agreement for Enterprise, MCA-E: a direct agreement with Microsoft, simpler terms, monthly and annual billing, no minimum commitment, and materially less of the price protection an EA gives you. Or CSP, buying through a partner, where the partner carries the commercial relationship and their margin, service and flexibility become part of your decision.
Those are genuinely different products, not three names for the same thing, and the right answer depends on your size, your growth and how much predictability you need.
Decide it on four questions rather than preference. One: how much price protection do you need across the term, because that is where the EA still earns its keep and where MCA-E is thinner. Two: how volatile is your seat count, because if you shrink, monthly flexibility is worth real money and an EA commitment is not. Three: who do you want owning support and administration, you, Microsoft directly, or a partner who does it for a margin.
Four: what does the transition itself cost, and be honest here. A genuine move for a ten million dollar estate is six to nine months of work: rebuilding the financial model, re papering partner arrangements, and cutting over the admin portals.
Now the part that pays for this briefing. Customers who arrive at an EA renewal with a credible, worked MCA-E migration path typically capture three to seven percent of additional discount compared with the previous term. Read the word credible carefully, because it is doing the work. Not a threat, not a slide, not a comment in a meeting.
A modelled alternative with real numbers, a transition plan with dates, and someone senior who would actually sponsor it. Your account team has heard the empty version many times and prices it at nothing. They have not heard many worked versions, and those move deal desks, because the deal desk needs a reason to approve an exception.
Expect the pressure to run in the other direction too, because Microsoft has its own reasons to move customers off the EA. It will not arrive as pressure. It will arrive as helpfulness: simpler agreement, modern commerce, better tooling, a smoother experience. Some of that is true.
What is also true is that MCA-E generally carries less price protection than the EA you are leaving, and the concession you were offered to move it is a one time payment against a term of exposure. So price the whole term, not the incentive, and never let a migration and a renewal be negotiated as one undifferentiated package. Separate them, price them separately, then decide.
The move from this briefing: model your next three years twice, once as an EA renewal and once as MCA-E, with transition cost included and price protection valued honestly rather than assumed. Whichever you choose, you now hold the other as leverage, and you will be the rare customer who can show their working. Next session we go inside your own estate, because every number in this series gets stronger when it comes from your admin data rather than their proposal. See you there.
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