If your organisation holds fewer than roughly 2,400 seats, this decision has largely been made for you: Microsoft stopped renewing Enterprise Agreements at that scale on 1 November 2025, and the realistic choice is now MCA-E versus CSP. If you still qualify for an EA, the decision rule is price protection — keep the EA while you can if a locked price list and an annual true-up matter to your estate, and move to MCA-E only once you have negotiated the price-protection and discount clauses that the EA gave you by default.
Published 3 December 2025 · Last reviewed 3 December 2025
The Enterprise Agreement has been Microsoft’s flagship volume-licensing vehicle for three decades: a three-year enrollment, sold through a licensing solution partner (LSP), with an organisation-wide platform commitment, a price list locked for the term, and an annual true-up. The Microsoft Customer Agreement for Enterprise (MCA-E) is its designated successor for direct customers: a digital contract signed with Microsoft itself, no reseller in the chain, monthly billing, and no true-up.
The migration stopped being theoretical in stages. From early 2025, Microsoft declined to sign new EAs for most commercial customers and steered them to MCA-E or to the partner-led CSP program. From 1 November 2025, organisations below roughly 2,400 seats lost the ability to renew an existing EA. In the same window, Microsoft removed the programmatic price levels (the old A–D volume tiers) from the EA price list for new and renewing agreements, aligning EA pricing with MCA-E, which has never had volume tiers. And from March 2026, Microsoft began moving EA customers holding Azure consumption commitments (MACC) onto MCA-E at renewal — the first wave of active migration rather than passive attrition.
What has not happened is a formal retirement. The EA remains a live commercial vehicle in mid-2026 for qualifying enterprise customers — in practice it is most commonly retained above 5,000 seats with stable estates — and Microsoft has announced no hard end date. That asymmetry is the strategic context for every renewal conversation this year: one side of the table knows the program is being wound down; the other side should price that knowledge into its asks.
This guide is general information about two Microsoft commercial programs, not legal or licensing advice for your situation. Microsoft’s terms change and your contract governs. It names no firms; the firm directory lists Microsoft-capable advisors with balanced pros and cons, listed, not ranked.
| DIMENSION | ENTERPRISE AGREEMENT | MCA-E |
|---|---|---|
| Contract & channel | Three-year enrollment under the volume-licensing framework, transacted through an LSP | Direct digital contract with Microsoft; an evergreen master agreement with negotiated multi-year pricing terms layered on top |
| Commitment shape | Organisation-wide platform commitment with minimum seat counts | No organisation-wide commitment by default; commitments are negotiated per product line and per term |
| Price protection | Price list locked for the three-year term as a program feature | No default price lock — protection exists only as a negotiated clause; Azure consumption rates can move with the market price list |
| Discounts | Historically programmatic volume levels plus negotiated concessions; the volume levels were removed in November 2025 | Entirely case-by-case; nothing carries over from a prior EA unless written into the pricing terms |
| Growth & reconciliation | Annual true-up: deploy now, reconcile and pay at anniversary | No true-up: monthly billing, seats added in real time; reductions generally at term anniversary |
| On-premises & SA | Mature Server/CAL and Software Assurance constructs, perpetual rights via L+SA | On-premises licensing available, but SA benefits, CAL constructs and mobility rights do not map one-to-one and need explicit treatment |
| Azure / MACC | MACC commitments historically sat under the EA; these customers are the first active migration wave | MACC sits natively under MCA-E; since March 2026 the default home for new consumption commitments |
| Who runs support & billing | LSP handles transaction and quoting; advocacy and margin sit in the channel | Microsoft directly; no reseller margin to trade, and no partner advocate unless you hire one separately |
Read the table with one theme in mind: the EA bundled protections into the program; MCA-E converts each protection into something you must ask for. Neither structure is inherently worse — a well-negotiated MCA-E can match EA economics — but the default outcomes differ, and defaults are what most buyers sign.
The EA is a strong fit while you can keep it if you are above the renewal threshold, your estate is stable and predictable, you value a locked price list across a three-year horizon, and your on-premises footprint leans on Software Assurance constructs. The annual true-up also suits organisations that grow unevenly during the year and prefer to settle once, at anniversary, rather than meter every addition monthly.
MCA-E fits organisations that are cloud-first or consumption-heavy, that want a direct relationship with Microsoft without an LSP in the middle, and that have the commercial discipline to negotiate price protection and discounts explicitly rather than inherit them. It also fits buyers who found the EA’s organisation-wide commitment forced them to standardise more broadly than they wanted — MCA-E lets you commit per product line.
The third option matters: below the threshold, the real comparison is MCA-E versus CSP — direct versus partner-led — and many mid-market estates land on CSP for the partner support layer alone. Above the threshold, the question is sequencing: how many more EA terms can you realistically secure, and what must be in place before the last one ends.
The single most consequential shift is that price protection becomes a drafted clause, not a program feature. Under an EA you got a locked price list because that is what the program was; under MCA-E you get exactly the protection your pricing terms describe, for exactly the products and the period they describe. The first negotiation objective in any migration is therefore a written price hold — scope, duration, and what happens at the end of it.
The second objective is discount parity. Establish your effective discount under the outgoing EA — not the headline level, the real blended position across workloads — and table it as the baseline for the MCA-E pricing terms. Microsoft’s removal of the volume tiers means there is no programmatic floor to fall back on; whatever is not negotiated does not exist. Organisations that treated the migration as paperwork have discovered the gap only at the first monthly invoice.
Third, the channel changes shape. Under MCA-E there is no LSP margin in the transaction — which removes a cost layer, but also removes the partner who historically did your quoting, benchmarking and escalation. Decide deliberately who plays that role now: an internal licensing function, an independent advisor, or a partner retained in a pure services capacity.
Finally, timing is leverage. An EA customer negotiating an MCA-E migration twelve months before expiry, with a credible option to take one more EA term or to move workloads to CSP, negotiates from a fundamentally different position than one starting after the renewal notice arrives. The mechanics of running that calendar are covered in the Microsoft renewal negotiation page, and the wider Microsoft picture on the Microsoft vendor hub.
The end of the true-up is not the end of compliance — it is a change in its rhythm. Under an EA, a deployment that ran ahead of entitlements had a grace structure: the annual true-up existed precisely to reconcile it. Under MCA-E, billing is monthly and license assignment is continuous, so a misassigned or over-deployed position surfaces immediately rather than at anniversary. Estates that managed compliance as an annual event need a continuous license position instead — which is ordinary SAM discipline, but it must exist before the first monthly cycle, not after.
Second, export everything before the EA lapses. Your entitlement history — perpetual licenses acquired through L+SA, Software Assurance benefits in flight, CAL positions, license mobility rights — is the evidence base for both the migration negotiation and any future compliance review. Perpetual rights you have fully paid for survive the agreement, but proving them years later is far easier with a complete record taken at migration.
Third, get the treatment of SA-dependent constructs confirmed in writing. Benefits like upgrade rights, hybrid-use entitlements and mobility rights behave differently outside the EA, and assumptions imported from the old program are a common source of findings later. None of this is unique to Microsoft — any program migration creates a discontinuity in the entitlement record — but the scale of the EA installed base makes this the largest such discontinuity in enterprise software today.
Assuming discounts carry. They do not. Every concession must be re-established in the MCA-E pricing terms, and the burden of raising it is on you.
Signing the MACC migration as an administrative step. The March 2026 wave moves Azure-committed customers onto MCA-E paper. The commitment may roll over; the surrounding protections — price holds, discount schedules, renewal mechanics — are new terms, and they deserve a full negotiation, not a signature.
Letting the EA expire before the alternative is negotiated. Once the EA lapses, the credible-alternative leverage is gone and the clock works for the other side.
Treating the price lock as implied. MCA-E pricing can move unless the contract says otherwise; budget owners who assumed EA-style stability have absorbed mid-term increases that were entirely lawful under the terms signed.
Ignoring the CSP route. For sub-threshold estates, partner-led CSP with multi-year terms is often a genuine competitor to MCA-E — the EA vs CSP comparison sets out that side of the triangle.
Losing the entitlement record. The migration is the last clean moment to snapshot two decades of EA history. Skipping it converts every future audit question into archaeology.
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Not formally, but its scope has narrowed sharply. Since early 2025 Microsoft has declined new EAs for most commercial customers, and since 1 November 2025 organisations below roughly 2,400 seats have been unable to renew. The EA continues to be sold at qualifying enterprise scale through licensing solution partners, while Microsoft’s stated direction of travel is the MCA-E direct contract and partner-led CSP.
It depends on scale and on Microsoft’s posture at your renewal. Customers above roughly 2,400 seats can generally still renew, and the EA is most commonly retained above 5,000 seats. Customers below the threshold are offered MCA-E or CSP instead. Separately, since March 2026 Microsoft has been moving EA customers holding Azure consumption commitments (MACC) onto MCA-E at renewal, so even large customers should confirm eligibility early rather than assume it.
No. Nothing carries automatically. The programmatic price levels that once gave larger EAs built-in discounts were removed from the EA price list in November 2025, and MCA-E has never had them: every discount under MCA-E is negotiated case by case and recorded in the agreement’s pricing terms. Benchmarking your effective EA discount and asking for it explicitly is the core of the migration negotiation.
No. The EA’s once-a-year reconciliation is replaced by monthly billing and real-time license management. Seats added mid-term are billed as they are added, and reductions generally wait for a term anniversary. The practical consequence is that license position management becomes continuous rather than annual.
Perpetual licenses you have fully paid for under an EA remain yours, but the constructs around them — Software Assurance benefits, Server and CAL licensing, license mobility rights — do not map one-to-one onto MCA-E. Export a complete entitlement record before the EA lapses and get the treatment of perpetual rights and SA benefits confirmed in writing as part of the new agreement.
If you are below the EA renewal threshold, yes — that is the live choice. CSP is partner-led with flexible terms; MCA-E is a direct contract with Microsoft. The MCA-E vs CSP comparison covers that decision, and the EA vs CSP comparison covers the case where you still hold an EA today.
Deciding between an EA term, MCA-E and CSP — and then extracting EA-grade protections from the successor contract — is exactly what a Microsoft licensing advisor is for. The directory lists the firms that do this work, with balanced pros and cons, listed, not ranked.
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