August 14, 2025
BlogMicrosoft Is Dropping EA Volume Discounts Starting in November 2025
Microsoft has been working to move more customers off Enterprise Agreement (EA) volume licenses for the past few years. But it is really stepping up the war on the volume discounts on which these customers counted starting in Nov. 2025. Starting then, Microsoft will be discontinuing existing discounts for online services provided across all of its EA tiers, as well as for products covered by the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA).
Volume-licensing customers of all sizes, especially larger customers earning larger discounts, could be hit with substantial price increases as a result. In practice, the biggest and most strategic Microsoft customers already are likely getting better deals than the built-in volume discounts by negotiating with Microsoft. But the change will likely mean that fewer customers will be able to count on guaranteed discounts, leading to more budget pressure.
Microsoft announced on August 12 plans to flatten these programmatic volume discounts across its online services — including Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Windows 365, and all security, compliance and identity management products. On-premises software products are not affected, and education and federal/state/local government customers are exempt.
Before this change, volume customers typically received discounts of anywhere from 6% to 12% on their online services purchased via EAs, with those purchasing more getting the biggest discounts. “Level D” customers which have 15,000+ users have received the automatic 12% discount on their EA services purchases. The coming Microsoft discount change – which we at Directions on Microsoft already are calling “Microsoft’s One Big Beautiful Licensing Announcement” — will affect Level B through D SKUs. Listed prices will be adjusted to match the Level A list price, which is the same as the Microsoft website price, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft’s official reason for the coming change in services discounts: “This update is part of Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to simplify licensing and improve pricing clarity for our customers.”
“With a standardized Online Services starting price for all customers across both Enterprise Agreement and Cloud Solution Provider, partners can invest time in pitching their value-added services instead of explaining the complexities of pricing structures,” explained Microsoft in an update to its volume-licensing hub on Microsoft Learn.
It’s All About the Money
But neither customers nor licensing experts buy that explanation. Instead, they say the move is part of Microsoft’s ongoing push to move all but the largest commercial customers from EAs to other types of channels like Microsoft Customer Agreements (MCAs) and MCAs for Enterprise (MCA-E).
Microsoft has been actively working to require smaller and mid-size customers to work with Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs), while grabbing the largest volume customers for itself. The thinking: By eliminating volume discounts and taking the biggest customers direct, Microsoft will be able to grow its services revenues faster.
For EA contracts which started on or before Oct. 1 2025, the no-programmatic discount rule kicks in only when, subsequent to Oct. 31 2025, customers add an online service that they had not previously purchased. For all EA contracts started on or after Nov. 1, the no-programmatic discount applies for all purchases.
In 2017, Microsoft dropped Azure price level discounts, and in 2018, it eliminated the volume discounts for its smaller volume-discount customers (known as Level A).
