We reduce M365, Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Copilot spend by 15–30% in year one — through right-sizing, True-Up defence, and independent EA renegotiation. No vendor relationships. No conflicts of interest. Just documented savings.
We have no commercial relationship with Microsoft. We do not resell licences, participate in the Microsoft Partner Network, or receive referral fees from Microsoft. Our only objective is reducing your Microsoft spend.
Book a Confidential Briefing →No commitment. No sales pitch. 30 minutes with an advisor who has managed 200+ Enterprise Agreements across EMEA and North America.
Microsoft is the most complex licensing environment in enterprise software. M365, Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Copilot generate subscriptions that accumulate year over year. Usage diverges from entitlement. The True-Up arrives with a bill nobody budgeted for. And Microsoft's field team — incentivised to upsell, not to optimise — rarely volunteers the information that would reduce what you pay.
The 2026 environment is materially more difficult than previous years. EA volume discounts that ran 15–25% off list price were eliminated in November 2025. Every renewal now starts from list. Microsoft's preferred commercial motion has shifted toward MCA, where buyer negotiating leverage is structurally lower. At the same time, Microsoft is actively pushing E5 customers to E7 at $99/user/month — a Frontier Suite bundling Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365, and the Entra Suite — creating upsell pressure that most procurement teams are not equipped to assess independently.
Your Microsoft account manager may also have changed. In 2025, Microsoft restructured its field sales organisation significantly, removing many dedicated enterprise AMs. If your primary Microsoft contact was changed or removed, you may be negotiating your next renewal with less institutional knowledge on the Microsoft side — and no independent guidance on yours.
The EA True-Up requires you to report every incremental user and workload added since the last anniversary date. Without independent position modelling, most organisations overpay — or under-report and carry unresolved compliance risk heading into the next renewal.
Microsoft's field team earns more when you move up the SKU ladder. The E7 pitch sounds compelling — Copilot included at $99/user/month versus paying $57 E5 plus $30 Copilot standalone — but only makes economic sense for organisations actively deploying Copilot across the licensed population.
Azure Reserved Instances reduce costs 35–50% versus pay-as-you-go. Azure Savings Plans deliver 30–45% on eligible compute. Most organisations have Reserved Instance coverage at 30–50% of qualifying workloads, leaving the majority of Azure spend at full list rates.
Microsoft 365 Copilot costs $30/user/month standalone. Organisations that deployed Copilot broadly during 2024–2025 pilots are now paying full price for seats with sub-20% active utilisation. The cost of inaction on Copilot right-sizing compounds every single month.
The core problem is information asymmetry. Microsoft knows exactly what you are paying, what your peers pay, and what the real discount ceiling is for your profile. You do not. Independent advisory closes that gap — and creates the conditions for a genuine negotiation rather than a managed upsell conversation.
Every engagement is different, but the pattern of outcomes is consistent. These are real results from recent engagements — fully anonymised per our standard confidentiality terms.
A 6,200-seat financial services firm had deployed E5 organisation-wide during a 2023 security consolidation initiative. Independent licence review identified 2,100 standard knowledge workers who required E3, not E5. True-Up challenge and mid-contract amendment delivered £1.8M in annualised savings, with E5 retained for privileged IT, finance, and compliance roles where the uplift was justified by actual capability usage.
A pan-European manufacturing group had $9.1M annual Azure consumption with Reserved Instance coverage at 31% of qualifying workloads. A three-year Reserved Instance restructure across compute, database, and storage workloads — combined with Azure Hybrid Benefit activation for Windows Server and SQL Server — delivered $2.4M in verified annual Azure cost reduction. The engagement completed in 11 weeks.
A 4,800-seat US technology company was approaching EA renewal with Microsoft's field team recommending an E7 upgrade for all users. Independent modelling showed E7 was justified for 900 executive, sales, and engineering users with active Copilot deployment — not for the remaining 3,900. A mixed-tier EA with targeted Copilot licensing delivered $3.1M in annual savings versus the Microsoft-recommended renewal path.
A telecommunications operator had accumulated Dynamics 365 licensing across seven business units without central governance. Licence rationalisation identified $890K in annual waste from duplicate qualification licences, over-provisioned Power Platform capacity, and Dynamics attach licences for qualifying users who had not been correctly classified under the attach rules. Full remediation completed within the current EA term with no operational disruption.
Every engagement follows a structured methodology built around your specific Microsoft estate, EA terms, and renewal timeline. We start delivering quick wins within weeks — not months.
We map your complete Microsoft licensing position: all EA product lines, Azure consumption patterns, Dynamics and Power Platform usage, CSP subscriptions, and any standalone add-ons including Copilot. We request your Microsoft tenant reports, EA schedule, and Azure cost management export — nothing more. You own all data throughout the engagement, and we operate under NDA from day one.
We benchmark your current spend against our database of 17,000+ Microsoft contracts across EMEA and North America. You receive a clear picture of how your EA pricing, Azure commitment, and per-user costs compare to organisations of equivalent size, industry, and spend profile. This benchmarking data is the foundation of every negotiation we run — it replaces the information asymmetry that currently sits entirely with Microsoft's field team.
We model your optimal licence configuration across every product line: M365 role-based SKU targeting (E3 vs E5 vs E7 by user role), Azure Reserved Instance and Savings Plan coverage, Copilot deployment rationalisation, and Dynamics and Power Platform right-sizing. Each model includes a three-year cost projection and projected ROI on advisory fees, giving your CFO and procurement leadership the business case they need for internal approval.
We develop your EA negotiation strategy using Microsoft's fiscal year calendar as a lever. Microsoft's Q4 — April 1 to June 30 — is the highest-leverage period, when Microsoft's field teams have maximum discount authority and quota pressure. We prepare your commercial position, model the discount achievable given your spend profile and competitive alternatives, and advise on the specific arguments that create real movement in Microsoft's account team. We participate directly in negotiations where permitted.
We work with your IT and procurement teams to implement agreed changes — licence amendments, Azure restructuring, True-Up submissions. All savings are documented against your original spend baseline in an auditable savings report. For contingency engagements, our fee is calculated only on verified, documented savings. You have a clear record of exactly what was achieved and how.
Our Microsoft practice is led by advisors who have negotiated Microsoft EAs from both sides of the table. We have managed True-Up processes, structured Azure Hybrid Benefit activations, and optimised M365 estates across 200+ enterprise engagements in EMEA and North America. We know exactly how Microsoft's field teams operate, what they can flex on, and where the real discount ceiling sits for your specific profile. We are not SAM generalists — we are former Microsoft EA negotiators who work exclusively for buyers.
We are not a Microsoft partner. We do not resell Microsoft software. We do not participate in any Microsoft programme that could create a conflict of interest with your commercial outcome. This is not a marketing statement — it is a structural feature of how we operate. Our revenue comes from documented savings we deliver for buyers, not from commissions paid by Microsoft. This structural independence is why enterprise buyers trust us in high-stakes situations where the cost of conflicted advice runs into millions.
Our benchmarking database covers 17,000+ Microsoft contracts across industries and geographies. When we tell you that your EA pricing is 12% above the market median for organisations with your spend profile, that is backed by real transaction data — not estimates or public list prices. This is the information advantage that changes negotiation outcomes. Microsoft's field team already has this data. Now you do too.
Redress Compliance is Gartner recognised for enterprise software licensing advisory. For CIOs and procurement directors who need to justify an independent advisory engagement to boards, risk committees, or procurement governance bodies, Gartner recognition provides the third-party validation that eliminates internal resistance. We have been recognised specifically for our Microsoft EA negotiation and licence optimisation practice.
Microsoft's portfolio spans dozens of product families. A thorough optimisation engagement covers every material cost driver — not just the obvious ones that Microsoft's field team might acknowledge.
The majority of organisations run blanket E5 licensing deployed during a security or compliance initiative when the full user population never required advanced capabilities. Role-based SKU targeting — deploying E5 Security and E5 Compliance add-ons only for user segments that genuinely require them — typically recovers 15–20% of M365 seats. With E3 at approximately $36/user/month and E5 at approximately $57/user/month, the per-user saving for correctly-classified users is $21/month — $252/user/year. For a 5,000-user organisation where 30% can move from E5 to E3, seat reclassification alone generates $378,000 in annual savings.
The E7 decision requires particular care in 2026. At $99/user/month — bundling E5, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365, and the Entra Suite (including Entra ID Governance, Entra Internet Access, and Entra Private Access) — E7 delivers genuine TCO savings for organisations already paying $57 E5 plus $30 Copilot plus $7 Entra ID Governance. For organisations that have not deployed Copilot, E7 represents up to $42/user premium above E3 for capabilities generating zero current value. We model the real five-year E7 economics before Microsoft's renewal conversation creates artificial urgency around a decision that locks your spend for three years.
Azure pay-as-you-go pricing is list price. Azure Reserved Instances — 1-year or 3-year compute commitments — deliver 35–50% savings versus pay-as-you-go on qualifying virtual machine families. Azure Savings Plans — a more flexible alternative — deliver 30–45% savings on eligible compute spend with cross-VM family and cross-subscription portability that Reserved Instances cannot provide. Most organisations have Reserved Instance coverage at 30–50% of qualifying workloads, leaving the majority of their compute spend at full pay-as-you-go rates. We identify the optimal RI and Savings Plan mix for your workload profile and commit timelines, then execute the restructure within your Azure commercial framework. See our independent Azure Reserved Instances vs Savings Plans comparison for the decision framework.
If your organisation has on-premises Windows Server or SQL Server licences with active Software Assurance, Azure Hybrid Benefit allows you to bring those licences to Azure and pay only the infrastructure cost — eliminating the Azure Windows Server or SQL Server licence charge for qualifying virtual machines. For organisations with significant SA coverage running equivalent workloads in Azure, Hybrid Benefit commonly delivers 15–40% Azure cost reduction on qualifying VMs. Many organisations eligible for Hybrid Benefit have never activated it, leaving material savings unclaimed across every billing period. Our engagement includes a full Hybrid Benefit eligibility assessment and activation plan.
Microsoft 365 Copilot costs $30/user/month as a standalone add-on, or is bundled into E7 at the $99/user/month tier. Organisations that ran broad Copilot pilots through 2024 and 2025 are frequently paying for 20–40% more Copilot seats than they have active users — defined as users who interact with Copilot features more than twice per week. At $30/user/month, 500 underutilised Copilot seats represent $180,000 in annual waste. We analyse your Microsoft 365 Copilot usage data, identify the optimal active deployment tier, and execute right-sizing through your EA or CSP agreement without disrupting users who are actively adopting the platform.
The EA True-Up — the annual reconciliation of licences ordered versus licences deployed since the last anniversary date — is a consistent source of overpayment for organisations without independent oversight. Microsoft's True-Up calculation relies on your self-reported figures, and errors in reporting methodology, incorrect mapping of qualifying products to licence pools, and failure to challenge decommissioned deployments all inflate True-Up bills. We review every True-Up submission before it is filed, identify disputable items, and reduce True-Up exposure through accurate position modelling and formal challenge processes where the evidence supports a lower figure. Our Microsoft EA True-Up guide covers the mechanics in detail.
Dynamics 365 licensing has become structurally complex — attach licences, qualifying user rules, Power Platform capacity, and Dataverse storage create overlapping cost layers that accumulate without governance. We map your Dynamics estate, identify over-provisioned capacity, and reclassify users under the correct qualifying licence tier. Power Platform capacity-based pricing — Power Apps per-app versus per-user plans, Power Automate per-user versus per-flow — is a frequent source of waste when initial deployments scaled without commercial review. See our Microsoft Power Platform Licensing Guide for the independent breakdown of cost model options.
Standard EA discounts in 2026 run 10–20% off list price — a reduction from the historical 15–25% that organisations received before Microsoft's commercial restructure in late 2025. NCE annual commit delivers up to 5% discount. NCE monthly commit carries no discount. Three-year commitments provide better discounts but reduce flexibility significantly. The discount available for your renewal depends on your Microsoft spend profile, renewal timing relative to Microsoft's fiscal year end (June 30), competitive alternatives in play, and how well your commercial position has been prepared. Our Q4 window — April through June 30 — is the highest-leverage period because Microsoft's field teams face maximum quota pressure and discount approval timelines compress as the fiscal year closes.
Organisations that have grown through acquisition or deployed M365 through multiple channels often carry CSP subscriptions, direct EA lines, and MPSA agreements concurrently. Consolidating to a single agreement structure eliminates duplicate management overhead, provides unified pricing leverage, and simplifies True-Up compliance. We model the consolidation economics and manage the transition without service disruption. For organisations evaluating whether to remain on EA or transition to MCA, our EA vs CSP vs MCA comparison provides the independent framework for a decision that has multiyear commercial consequences.
Our independent guide covers EA vs MCA vs CSP decision framework, M365 E3/E5/E7 SKU targeting strategy, Azure Reserved Instance optimisation, Copilot deployment and cost control, and True-Up defence — everything your team needs to enter a Microsoft renewal with the information advantage currently sitting exclusively with Microsoft's field team.
No commitment. No sales pitch. 30 minutes with a former Microsoft EA negotiator who has managed 500+ enterprise engagements across EMEA and North America. We will tell you honestly what we think is achievable for your estate — at no cost and with no obligation.
Book a Confidential Briefing →No commitment. No sales pitch. 30 minutes with a former Microsoft insider who has managed 500+ enterprise engagements. Completely confidential. We operate under NDA from day one and never share your details with Microsoft or any third party.