Microsoft EA vs Open Value: Which Licensing Programme Is Right for Your Organisation?

What Is Microsoft Open Value?

Microsoft Open Value (OV) is a volume licensing programme designed for small and mid-sized organisations with 5 to 499 qualifying users. Like the EA, Open Value is a three-year agreement with costs divided into three annual instalments. It provides access to Microsoft's volume licensing pricing and includes Software Assurance options, but with lower minimum requirements and less rigid coverage obligations than the EA.

Open Value comes in two variants. Open Value (OV) is the perpetual licensing model — the organisation purchases licences outright over the three-year term, with SA included, and owns the software permanently at the end of the agreement. Open Value Subscription (OVS) is a subscription model where licences are rented over the three-year period at a lower annual cost, with the option to purchase out at a discount at term end or let the licences expire.

Both variants support organisation-wide deployment (covering all qualifying users) and non-organisation-wide deployment (covering only specific platforms or product lines rather than all users). This flexibility distinguishes Open Value from the EA's mandatory organisation-wide coverage requirement.

Enterprise Agreement: A Recap for Context

The EA is Microsoft's flagship large-enterprise programme, designed for organisations with 500 or more qualifying users or devices. It requires organisation-wide coverage for all included products, includes compulsory Software Assurance, and locks pricing for the three-year term. Current EA discounts range from 10 to 20 percent off list for M365 workloads spanning the E1, E3, E5, and E7 SKU tiers — with E7 representing the current top of the stack above E5, bundling AI, security, and compliance capabilities that were previously sold as E5 add-ons.

The EA is negotiated directly with Microsoft, with resellers handling the transaction. The negotiation process provides meaningful commercial leverage for large organisations — particularly during Microsoft's Q4 fiscal window from April to June, when field teams have maximum incentive to close and discount.

Key Differences Between EA and Open Value

Organisation Size and Qualification

The most fundamental difference is the target organisation size. EA requires 500 or more qualifying users or devices. Open Value starts at 5 users and is designed for organisations that would not qualify for or would not benefit commercially from an EA. Organisations approaching the 500-user threshold often face a decision: qualify for an EA and benefit from EA-level discounts and SA framework, or remain on Open Value with its lower coverage obligations.

For organisations between 250 and 500 users, the analysis is not automatic. A well-negotiated EA at the lower end of qualification does not always deliver better total cost of ownership than a well-structured OVS agreement, particularly if EA-level coverage commitment creates waste on products that are not universally deployed.

Coverage Obligation

EA requires organisation-wide coverage for all products included in the agreement. Every qualifying user and device must be licensed, creating a mandatory floor that covers the entire user population. Open Value does not have this requirement — it allows platform-specific coverage, where the organisation commits only to covering all users on specific product platforms (such as Office or Windows) without a global all-products commitment.

This difference matters most when the Microsoft product footprint is not uniform across the organisation. A company where 60 percent of users require full M365 and 40 percent require only basic email can structure an Open Value agreement around that split. Under an EA, all qualifying users must be covered by included products.

Software Assurance Treatment

EA makes Software Assurance compulsory for all licences. SA provides new version rights, deployment planning services, training vouchers, home use rights, and licence mobility rights. For organisations that actively use SA benefits, compulsory SA adds value. For those that do not, it adds cost without corresponding return.

Open Value includes SA as a standard feature of the OV model, though the specific SA benefit catalogue under OV is somewhat less comprehensive than under EA. OVS includes SA as part of the subscription model by design. For small and mid-sized organisations, the SA benefits most relevant to their scale — training vouchers, home use rights, and new version rights — are well-supported under both OV and OVS.

Pricing Level

EA pricing is negotiated, with achievable discounts of 10 to 20 percent off list for qualified organisations. Open Value pricing is set at Microsoft's published price book without the same negotiation framework. OV does not carry a structured discount mechanism equivalent to EA's volume negotiation. The price for OV is largely determined by the product list price, with the SA inclusion providing value rather than unit price reduction.

From November 2025, the volume tier pricing advantage that previously existed for online services under volume licensing programmes has been removed — all customers now pay Level A list price for M365 and similar cloud services. This change reduces the pricing differentiation between OV and EA for online services specifically, though EA's negotiated discount still applies for qualifying organisations.

Licence Ownership

OV (perpetual model) results in owned licences at the end of the three-year term. The organisation owns the software permanently, which has balance sheet and procurement implications. Under EA, licences are effectively use rights tied to the active agreement — at the end of the EA term without renewal, perpetual licence rights depend on whether perpetual rights were included in the specific EA purchase. OVS operates on a subscription basis with no permanent ownership unless a buyout is exercised at term end.

Which Programme Fits Which Organisation Profile?

Open Value is the right programme for organisations with 5 to 499 qualifying users where an EA is either unavailable or creates more coverage obligation than the deployment profile justifies. It suits organisations that want a structured three-year licensing framework with SA included and a clear ownership model at term end. It is also appropriate for organisations that want product-specific coverage rather than an all-users, all-products commitment.

The EA becomes the better option when the organisation consistently deploys Microsoft products across the majority of qualifying users — at which point the organisation-wide commitment creates no meaningful additional cost, and the EA's discount negotiation, structured SA benefit catalogue, and True-Up mechanism deliver net savings versus OV list pricing.

Organisations approaching the 500-user threshold should model both options carefully, factoring in the realistic deployment rates for each included Microsoft product, the SA benefit utilisation rate, and the three-year cost projection at EA negotiated discount versus OV list pricing. In many cases, the crossover point where EA becomes demonstrably more cost-effective falls between 300 and 400 users for organisations with high M365 deployment rates.

The Role of MCA-E for Both Segments

Microsoft's active migration toward MCA-E affects both EA and Open Value customers. Organisations renewing OV agreements in 2025 and 2026 may find Microsoft steering them toward MCA-E rather than continuing OV. OV and OVS remained available as of early 2026 with no official retirement announcement, but Microsoft's commercial incentives favour MCA-E, and the field team's renewal conversations increasingly include MCA-E as the suggested path.

For small and mid-sized organisations migrating from OV to MCA-E, the same negotiation principles apply as for EA-to-MCA-E migrations: push for price protection at renewal, negotiate SA-equivalent benefit value, and establish a defined discount floor before signing MCA-E terms. The default MCA-E terms provide none of these protections automatically.

Five Questions Before Choosing

• What is our current qualifying user count, and what do we project over three years? Growth from 300 users to 600 within the agreement term creates different economics than stable or declining user counts.
• How uniformly do we deploy Microsoft products? Organisations with universal M365 deployment benefit more from EA's coverage model than those with variable deployment by department or function.
• How much SA benefit value do we actually consume? Training vouchers, deployment planning services, and home use rights add genuine value if used. If your SA benefit consumption rate is low, the optional SA model of OV may save cost.
• Do we prefer ownership or subscription? OV provides perpetual licence rights at term end. OVS provides subscription access without permanent ownership. EA perpetual rights depend on the specific EA licence type purchased.
• Is Microsoft offering EA qualification? If you are below 500 users and Microsoft is not offering EA terms, Open Value remains a structured alternative with known cost and a three-year framework. But if Microsoft is steering you toward MCA-E instead of OV, the negotiation strategy described above applies.