A senior team of independent Microsoft licensing experts — many of them former Microsoft licensing and account specialists — who now represent enterprise buyers exclusively. No partner status, no resale margin, no Microsoft-side incentives. Just buyer-side counsel across EA, MCA-E, CSP, Azure, Microsoft 365, Copilot, Unified Support, and SPLA. 500+ engagements, $2.1B in spend under advisory, and a 32% average reduction in three-year Microsoft cost.
Est. 2016 · 500+ engagements · $2.1B managed · 32% avg cost reduction · 100% independent · 100% buyer-side
If you are comparing firms, the question that matters is not how many certifications a team holds — it is whose side they are on. We are independent Microsoft licensing experts: a senior bench that includes former Microsoft licensing executives, ex-LSP commercial leads, and enterprise sourcing veterans who have collectively sat on both sides of thousands of agreements and now sit only on yours.
Every member of the team is senior. There is no junior-analyst layer running a playbook they don't understand, and no offshore tier reconciling spreadsheets. When a global manufacturer needs to know whether a four-year MACC commitment is being engineered to lock out a competing cloud, or whether the Copilot pilot pricing on the table will survive the next renewal, the person answering has negotiated that exact scenario before — repeatedly, and recently. That depth is what the word "expert" is supposed to mean, and it is the reason buyers choose us over resellers, generalist procurement consultancies, and audit-aligned software asset management shops.
We built the firm in 2016 around a single structural commitment: we take no money from Microsoft, no money from any reseller, and no transaction-linked compensation from anyone in the channel. The buyer pays a fixed fee, and the buyer is the only party we answer to. Everything below follows from that. If you want the broader engagement model in detail, our Microsoft negotiation services page lays out the fifteen tracks, and our Microsoft negotiation advisors page introduces the people who run them.
Microsoft licensing is not one discipline — it is a dozen interlocking commercial instruments, each with its own pricing mechanics, renewal triggers, and audit exposure. Genuine expertise means fluency across all of them, because the leverage in one program almost always depends on a decision made in another. These are the areas our experts work in every week.
Renewal and new-purchase strategy, discount-level benchmarking (A/B/C/D pricing), co-term sequencing, ramp and true-up mechanics, and the 2026 volume-tier collapse that is reshaping renewal math for mid-sized estates.
The migration from EA into MCA-E or CSP under NCE, modelled term by term for commercial parity. We expose where the move erodes price protection or off-ramp optionality before you sign away leverage you can't recover.
MACC sizing against realistic consumption, reserved instances and savings-plan layering, Azure Hybrid Benefit and BYOL application, and growth-discount modelling so the commitment matches the workload, not the account team's quota.
E3 vs E5 vs E7 (Frontier Suite) rationalisation, Frontline F1/F3/F5 mapping, security add-on bundling, dormant-license recovery, and the July 2026 price increase exposure across the seat base.
Copilot for M365, Copilot Studio (CCCU/ACU consumption), Agent 365, and GitHub Copilot. Per-agent economics, deployment phasing, and ROI defensibility that survives the move from incentive-priced pilot to full renewal.
The support line item priced as a percentage of license spend that quietly compounds every time the estate grows. We treat Unified Support tiers as negotiable, benchmark them, and model alternatives rather than accepting the default.
Service Provider License Agreement advisory for hosters and MSPs — monthly true-up reporting discipline, dual-use rights, and defense when a Big-4 auditor arrives. See our audit defense support for live engagements.
SAM engagements, Microsoft license verification, and formal audit response. Scope-limit negotiation, evidence framing, and settlement structuring that keeps a compliance review from becoming a renewal-pressure lever.
Product use rights, price-protection clauses, audit-scope limitations, payment-timing structures, and the contract language that determines whether your negotiated discount actually holds across the full agreement term.
A North American healthcare network came to us nine months out from an EA co-term carrying roughly $14M in three-year Microsoft commitment. The account team had framed an E5 uplift across the full seat base plus a four-year Azure MACC as the "renewal package." Our experts ran a deployment-versus-licensed reconciliation that found 16% of the M365 estate was tier-too-high — E5 assigned to users exercising only E3 functionality — and that the MACC was sized roughly 40% above the trailing-twelve-month consumption trend.
The benchmark-anchored counter-proposal collapsed the surplus seats, right-sized the MACC to a three-year commitment with growth-discount protection, and held Copilot to a measured pilot rather than the proposed organisation-wide rollout. Documented outcome: a 29% reduction against the opening renewal position, preserved for the full term through a post-signature true-up governance plan. No user lost a capability they were actually using. Full method, sample size, and limitations are on our savings methodology page, and more outcomes sit in client results.
Most firms that call themselves Microsoft licensing experts have a second revenue source pointing the other way. We don't, and the difference shows up in what we are able to recommend.
No Microsoft partner status. We are not an LSP, not a CSP, not a co-sell partner. We hold no Microsoft competencies that depend on selling Microsoft product, and we receive no incentive rebates. There is no internal quota that a smaller commitment would jeopardise.
No resale, ever. We do not transact licenses. We have no margin riding on the size or mix of your purchase, which means recommending that you buy less, downgrade a tier, defer a commitment, or displace a Microsoft product with a competitor costs us nothing. For most channel firms, each of those recommendations cuts directly into their own revenue.
Buyer-side fees only. Our entire income is the fixed advisory fee the buyer pays. That is the whole conflict-of-interest disclosure, because there is nothing else to disclose — no fund relationships, no vendor sponsorships, no referral kickbacks. The independence case is documented engagement by engagement on our why an independent advisor page.
The structural test: ask any firm advising you on Microsoft whether they receive any compensation — margin, rebate, incentive, or referral — from Microsoft or a reseller. If the answer is yes, their advice and their revenue are pulling in different directions on every recommendation that would shrink your spend.
Engagements are sized to the problem, not to your total Microsoft spend. We never take a percentage of what you pay Microsoft, because that would reward a bigger deal — the opposite of what you hired an expert to deliver.
Fixed-fee advisory is the default. You get a defined scope, a defined deliverable, and a fee that doesn't move with the size of the agreement. A focused review — a single-SKU question, a true-up dispute, a Copilot framing — typically runs $35,000 and closes in four to eight weeks. A full multi-quarter EA renewal program at Fortune 500 scale runs to $250,000-plus and is structured against the nine-to-twelve-month renewal timeline.
Success-based structures are available where the savings target is measurable and contractually anchored — useful when a board wants the advisory fee tied to a documented outcome rather than committed up front. Either way, the first conversation is a no-obligation scoping call: we pressure-test whether the engagement economics work before any retainer is discussed. The fastest entry point is a Microsoft EA negotiation review or a direct conversation with the team.
Enterprises usually weigh four kinds of help on a Microsoft agreement. They are not interchangeable, and the difference is structural rather than a matter of talent.
| Dimension | Reseller / LSP | Big Four / SI | Independent licensing experts (us) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whose side? | Microsoft-aligned — paid on the transaction | Mixed — large Microsoft services revenue | Buyer-side only |
| Revenue source | Channel margin & Microsoft incentives | Implementation & advisory fees, often Microsoft-funded | Fixed buyer fee, nothing else |
| Can recommend buying less? | Against its own margin | Possible but constrained by the relationship | Routinely — it costs us nothing |
| Microsoft licensing depth | High on transaction mechanics | Broad but Microsoft is one of many vendors | Deep and exclusive to Microsoft |
| Best use | Executing the transaction post-negotiation | Large-scale technical implementation | The negotiation and commercial strategy |
None of this means firing your LSP. Most clients keep the LSP for transaction execution and bring our experts in for the commercial strategy and the negotiation itself — the two functions sit comfortably side by side, and the LSP often welcomes the cleaner buyer-side counter-proposal that results.
We translate Microsoft's commercial machinery into buyer-side leverage: modelling EA, MCA-E, and CSP options side by side; rationalising the M365 E3/E5 and Frontline F-SKU mix against actual usage; sizing Azure MACC commitments and reservations; framing Copilot and Copilot Studio economics; defending true-up and audit exposure; and benchmarking every line against what comparable customers actually pay. The expertise is narrow and deep — Microsoft licensing specifically — and applied entirely on your behalf.
No. We hold no Microsoft partner status, take no reseller or LSP margin, and earn no transaction-linked incentives from Microsoft or its channel. Our compensation comes entirely from the enterprise buyer through a fixed advisory fee. That structural independence is what separates a licensing expert who works for you from a channel partner whose margin depends on the size and mix Microsoft prefers.
An LSP (Licensing Solution Provider) is paid by Microsoft on the transaction, so its incentive is aligned with volume and the SKU mix Microsoft favours. Independent experts have no Microsoft-side revenue, so the counsel can recommend smaller commitments, longer payment terms, tier downgrades, or competitive displacement without conflicting with the advisor's own income. Most clients keep their LSP for execution and bring in independent experts for the strategy and negotiation.
Engagements are scoped on a fixed-fee basis against a defined deliverable, with a success-based structure available where the savings target is measurable and contractually anchored. Fees typically range from $35,000 for a focused review to $250,000-plus for a full multi-quarter EA renewal program at Fortune 500 scale. We never take a percentage of Microsoft spend, and we never accept compensation from Microsoft or a reseller.
The highest-leverage window is nine to twelve months before an EA co-term, which leaves time for benchmarking, deployment forensics, and counter-proposal preparation before the account team sets the renewal frame. But there are mid-term triggers too: a true-up larger than expected, a SAM engagement or audit letter, a Copilot or Azure MACC commitment being pushed, or a proposed move from EA to MCA-E or CSP. Any of those is the right moment to engage.
Yes. SPLA (the Services Provider License Agreement used by hosters and MSPs) and Unified Support are two of the most opaque, audit-prone areas of the Microsoft estate, and both sit squarely within our coverage. SPLA carries monthly true-up reporting and Big-4 auditor exposure; Unified Support pricing is tied to a percentage of license spend that quietly compounds. We model both as negotiable line items rather than fixed costs.
Twenty-minute scoping call. A pricing benchmark on your current agreement. No retainer commitment until both sides agree the engagement economics work.
Get a Free Licensing Review →Microsoft Negotiations is an independent Microsoft licensing advisory firm. Not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation. We hold no Microsoft partner status, transact no licenses, and accept no compensation from Microsoft or any reseller. Our only compensation is the fixed advisory fee paid by the enterprise buyer we represent.