Your Microsoft Enterprise Agreement is worth renegotiating before you commit to Google Workspace, open-source alternatives, or other platforms. EA cost drivers — M365 shelfware, Azure cost sprawl, forced Copilot bundling — are all negotiable. Our former Microsoft advisors help you optimise your EA, remove unnecessary licensing, and dramatically improve your Microsoft economics. Most organisations achieve 20–35% cost reduction without losing a single capability.
Microsoft's Enterprise Agreement (EA) structure is designed to lock customers into high-cost commitments and then escalate pricing annually. M365 product bundling forces customers to pay for features they don't use. Azure cost growth compounds year-over-year with limited visibility into optimisation opportunity. Copilot AI features are increasingly bundled into E5 tier, creating forced upsells for organisations that don't need generative AI capabilities.
The result: most enterprise customers are significantly overpaying and lack the insight to know it. But when you arrive at EA renewal with genuine commitment to alternatives — documented cloud migration strategy, Google Workspace pilot, or open-source commitment — Microsoft's negotiating position changes dramatically. Your EA is worth tens to hundreds of millions of dollars over its term, and Microsoft will invest significant commercial flexibility to retain it.
We help you structure that negotiation to make your switching threat material. The outcome is typically 20–35% EA cost reduction, M365 right-sizing that removes shelfware and unused modules, Azure cost governance agreements, and deferral of Copilot forced adoption.
Most enterprise customers have moved to M365 E5, which bundles collaboration, security, compliance, and increasingly AI features into a single tier. Organisations that don't use advanced security, compliance features, or don't want Copilot AI still pay the full E5 cost. Downgrading is administratively difficult.
Azure consumption grows annually at 20–40% for most enterprise customers due to workload migration, application scaling, and developer provisioning without governance. Cost visibility is poor. Microsoft's tools don't strongly incentivise cost optimisation (why would they?). EA commitment growth compounds.
Microsoft is aggressively bundling Copilot AI features into M365 E5 and pushing standalone Copilot Pro subscriptions. The pricing and commercial terms around Copilot remain uncertain and volatile. Organisations feel forced into AI adoption and budgeting for capabilities they're not ready to deploy.
We negotiate M365 tier restructuring that removes unused features and allows segment differentiation: E3 for standard users, E5 for high-value populations. Copilot adoption deferral or selective Copilot licensing keeps AI costs separate from core M365 subscriptions.
Azure commitment restructuring, cost governance agreements with accountability metrics, and reservation alignment reduce Azure escalation. We negotiate caps or guaranteed savings percentages that align Microsoft incentives with your cost control objectives.
We negotiate improved EA pricing (especially on M365 and Azure), multi-year flat-rate agreements that eliminate annual escalation, and credits for unused capacity. Microsoft will provide significant economic concessions when account retention is at risk.
For organisations evaluating Google Cloud, AWS, or open-source alternatives, we negotiate Microsoft commitment credits and hybrid-cloud programs that make the Microsoft economic case more competitive versus alternatives.
We analyse your Microsoft EA structure, M365 deployment, Azure consumption, and Copilot licensing to identify cost reduction and negotiation opportunity. We evaluate whether EA optimisation or platform alternatives deliver better economics. Response within 24 hours.
Identify M365 tier right-sizing and EA pricing improvement opportunity
Structure Azure consumption control and cost commitment alignment
Evaluate Google Workspace, open-source, or hybrid-cloud approaches against optimised Microsoft