Microsoft have announced several upcoming updates to the Microsoft CSP program which is aimed to help increase growth in the Small, Medium and enterprise customers and provide growth fund for partners that invest in Microsoft.
Four Key Investment Areas
Microsoft outlined four major investment areas they are planning for in FY26. Partner incentives, Promotions, New capabilities, and aligning incentives with Market Dynamics. They emphasised the importance of these investments in driving growth and success for CSP partners.
Partner Incentives: Alignment of partner incentives with Microsoft’s strategic priorities, emphasising the importance of fully utilising and maximising these incentives to drive growth.
Promotions: A series of promotions, including the new to M365 E5 offer, and encouraged partners to utilise these promotions to upsell and grow new customers into the Microsoft 365 suite.
New Capabilities: New capabilities have been launched that are designed to help partners run and maximise their business opportunities, including systems, tools, and reporting capabilities.
Market Dynamics: There has been an alignment of incentives with market dynamics to ensure partners can maximise the total addressable market and achieve shared success.
Release of Three-Year CSP SKUs
One of the biggest changes to land is the introduction of three-year Modern Workplace licence terms within the CSP model.
This is about locking in longer-term relationships, providing cost predictability to customers, and giving partners additional stability. Here’s how it works:
The available three-year CSP SKUs:
- Microsoft 365 E3 (with and without Teams)
- Microsoft 365 E5 (with and without Teams)
- Teams Enterprise standalone
- M365 E5 Security Add-on
- M365 E5 Compliance Add-on
Key Benefits for Partners
Same price as annual SKUs, but your customers’ pricing is protected for three years.
Annual or all-upfront billing options.
100 seat minimum, encouraging larger-scale conversations and more strategic engagement.
Exclusive Time-limited Promotion
To help you drive adoption, Microsoft is offering 10% off the below SKUs, but only for new-to-offer customers.
Promotional Windows:
- M365 E3/E5: 9 June 2025 – 31 December 2025 (100–2,400 seats)
- E5 Security/Compliance Add-ons: 1 July 2025 – 31 December 2025 (100–1,000,000 seats)
This is your chance to lock in customer value and demonstrate long-term commitment while capturing guaranteed revenue.
New Partner Center Experiences
Managing your Microsoft business should feel less like a maze and more like a control panel. That’s why Microsoft is enhancing Partner Center in meaningful ways:
EA Subscription Transitions: New capabilities are being added into Partner Center to enable more seamless transitions of EA subscriptions, providing visibility to see them within Partner Center as customers transition from EA to CSP.
AI-Assisted Upgrades: A new AI assistant in Partner Center to automate the process of upgrading from multiple subscriptions to a single higher-end suite, reducing support resolution times significantly.
Net Paid Adds Reporting: A new upcoming net paid adds reporting is being added into Partner Center, which will provide better visibility and more accurate reporting to help partners manage their business more effectively.
Changes to CSP Authorisation and Eligibility
Revenue Requirements: Microsoft have announced that the revenue requirement for direct bill partners would increase from $300,000 to $1 million per year, effective October 2025. Indirect resellers remain at $1,000 per year.
Security Score: All Microsoft partners from October 2025 will be required to pass a minimum-security score to maintain their Microsoft partner status.
Solution Partner Designations: All direct partners will need to attain one solution partner designation to maintain their direct status. Indirect resellers do not need to achieve a partner designation to keep their partner status.
Incentive Eligibility Requirements
Microsoft announced changes to incentive eligibility requirements, emphasising the need for relevant experience by solution area and streamlining minimum requirements to earn incentives.
Solution Partner Designations: All indirect resellers need to achieve a partner solution designation and/or a minimum of 25 partner capability score on their journey to achieving partner solutions designation to earn rebates and incentives for specific solution areas.
Revenue: Partners will need to earn over $25k in a trailing 12-month period at a partner location to earn incentives.
What’s Next
Fundamentally, Microsoft has made it easier for all partners to earn more money and serve more customers. At Infinigate, we’re ready to help you make the most of this next chapter in Microsoft CSP, mapping out what it means for your business, customers and incentives.
If you wish to speak to us about any of the announcements please call us on +345 249 3303 or email us on partners@infinigate.cloud.