Full narration of the briefing. Click a section heading to jump the player to that moment.
On the first of May 2026 Microsoft put a new tier above E5. It is called E7, sometimes the Frontier suite, and it lists at ninety nine dollars per user per month. Inside it: Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 Copilot, the Entra Suite and Agent 365, in one line on your order form. If your renewal is in 2027, E7 will be in your proposal, and it will be positioned as the simple answer.
I am Daniel, Claire has the arithmetic, and this briefing is how to decide whether it is the right answer for any of your users, and for which ones.
Do the arithmetic first, because it is simpler than it looks. After the July 2026 rise, E5 lists at sixty dollars per user per month. Microsoft 365 Copilot is thirty on top of a qualifying suite. So E5 plus Copilot, bought as two lines, is ninety dollars.
E7 is ninety nine. That nine dollar difference is what you are paying for the Entra Suite and Agent 365. And there is a promotion: through the thirty first of December 2026, at a hundred seats and above via CSP, fifteen percent off brings E7 to about eighty four dollars, which is six dollars a month below buying the two parts separately. That promotion has an end date, which is exactly why it is being shown to you now.
But that arithmetic only matters after you have answered a different question, and this is where most estates go wrong. E7 is good value for a user who would have received E5 and Copilot anyway. For that person it is the same stack, one line, possibly cheaper. For everybody else it is not a discount, it is an upgrade you did not intend to buy.
The test is not whether ninety nine is less than the sum of the parts. The test is whether this particular user was going to get both parts. If the honest answer is no, then the comparison is not ninety nine against ninety. It is ninety nine against what they have today.
So decide by persona, not by estate. Take the file from the last session and split your users into populations: frontline workers who need F tier, general office staff who need E3, people whose role genuinely requires E5 security and compliance, and the smaller group who will actually use Copilot every week. Then price each population at its own tier. What falls out is almost always a mix rather than a single answer, and the mix is where the savings are.
The most expensive decision in Microsoft licensing is putting an entire organisation on one tier because it is administratively simpler, and E7 is the most expensive version of that mistake yet available.
Value the components honestly, one by one. The Entra Suite is real capability if you were going to buy identity governance and network access anyway, and it is worth nothing to you if you were not. Agent 365 governs and secures AI agents: identity, compliance and administration for them. That matters a great deal if you are deploying agents at scale in 2027, and it is a solution to a problem you do not yet have if you are not.
So the fair way to value E7 is the sum of what you would otherwise have purchased, at your own negotiated rates, not the sum of the list prices Microsoft attaches to each part.
If E7 does fit part of your estate, negotiate three things into the paper. First, the right to hold a mixed tier estate without a penalty on your other lines, because bundle pricing is often quoted assuming you standardise. Second, step up and step down rights, so a population can move tier at anniversary as adoption becomes real rather than being locked at the count you guessed. Third, and most important, protect the price beyond the promotional window: a promotion that expires on the thirty first of December 2026 inside a term that runs to 2030 is a one year discount attached to a three year commitment.
Get the post promotion rate written down before you sign.
The move from this briefing: split your users into four populations, price each at the tier its role actually needs, and put E7 only against the population that was already getting E5 and Copilot. One page, four rows. That page is your answer when the bundle arrives in the proposal, and it turns a yes or no question into a mix you control. Next session: Copilot itself, and how to prove it is worth the seat before you commit to thousands of them.
See you there.
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