A Microsoft renewal or true-up is approaching, and the July 1, 2026 commercial price and packaging update lands at renewal rather than today.
Correct the Microsoft licences before the renewal locks in another year of waste.
Microsoft 365 Renewal & License Optimization
Licence assignments are corrected where authorized, the cancel, change and retain decision is made line by line, and finance receives a renewal cost model built from actual use.
Price
Fixed price confirmed before work begins
Delivery window
The fixed proposal contains the delivery calendar and the completion date.
The price is agreed in writing before any work begins and before any access is granted. Nothing is billed for the scoping conversation that sets it. What moves the number:
- · Number of licence lines and distinct subscriptions
- · Number of tenants
- · Whether assignment changes are executed by AZ or handed over as a target matrix
- · Whether the agreement is CSP, EA, or direct
- · How far ahead of the renewal date the work starts
No tenant access, credentials, or sensitive files are requested through this website.
What happened
Microsoft’s commercial price and packaging update took effect on July 1, 2026. Existing customers stay on prior pricing until they renew, which means the renewal date is the moment the change actually arrives. Most businesses reach that date with a licence count inherited from whoever set it up, paying for people who left, for plans a tier above what anyone uses, and for add-ons already bundled into something else they own.
Sources: Microsoft: commercial price and packaging update
The quantity the agreement is paying for and the number of licences actually assigned inside the tenant are two separate figures, and nobody has put them side by side. The sign-in activity that would show which assigned seats are being used sits in the tenant unread, the agreement carrying the renewal date and the terms for changing quantities is filed wherever it was filed, and no one has written down which corrections can be made in the tenant and which need a commercial action somebody has to place.
What happens if it is left as it is
- Releasing a licence inside the tenant frees the seat for somebody else but leaves the purchased quantity untouched, so the invoice only moves when a quantity change is placed against the order.
- The quantities on the order that gets signed are the quantities the coming term is billed against, and that order is placed against a renewal date the agreement already fixed.
- How long an unwanted seat stays on the bill after the order goes in is set by the agreement, and CSP, EA and direct carry different cancellation and reduction windows, so a leaver found afterwards is governed by terms nobody has read yet.
- Subscriptions can hold their own term dates, so the date that matters is a per-subscription one, and without that list in a single place a renewal passes on a line nobody was watching.
- Every keep, downgrade, consolidate or cancel call needs evidence pulled from the tenant behind it, meaning who holds the licence, who has signed in, and what an owned plan already covers, so the decision cannot be made in the meeting where the quote is opened.
What changes in production
Not findings. These are the things that are different afterwards.
- 1Assignments are reconciled against sign-in activity: who holds a licence, who has not signed in, and who is on a plan above what their work needs.
- 2Where authorized, tenant-side assignments are corrected — released, downgraded, or reassigned — rather than described in a document for someone else to action.
- 3Duplicate add-ons and capabilities already bundled in an owned plan are identified and the overlap is removed.
- 4The renewal cost model is built: current spend, corrected spend, and the delta each decision is worth.
- 5The commercial actions that only a buyer or reseller can take — CSP quantity changes, EA true-up positions — are written up and assigned by name.
Definition of done
The engagement ends when all of these are true and demonstrable.
- Every licence line carries a keep, downgrade, consolidate or cancel call with the reason recorded
- Authorized assignment changes are made in the tenant and verified
- The target assignment matrix is confirmed and signed off
- Finance has the current-versus-renewal cost model
- Every commercial action is assigned to a named person on the buyer or reseller side
What you provide
Named up front, because these are the things that stall an engagement when nobody owns them.
- Confirm which assignment changes are authorized before any are made
- Provide the current agreement, quantities and renewal date
- Name the person who will execute the commercial actions with the reseller or Microsoft
- Confirm leavers and role changes the tenant does not know about
What moves the price
The figure comes from what is actually in the environment. Headcount is one input among several, and rarely the one that matters most.
- Number of licence lines and distinct subscriptions
- Number of tenants
- Whether assignment changes are executed by AZ or handed over as a target matrix
- Whether the agreement is CSP, EA, or direct
- How far ahead of the renewal date the work starts
Not included
Stated so the scope means the same thing to both parties on the last day as it did on the first.
- Placing, cancelling or negotiating any order with Microsoft or a reseller
- Any guarantee of a specific saving, which depends on decisions that are not AZ’s to make
- Contract or legal review
- Third-party software licensing outside Microsoft 365 and Azure
How change is staged and reversed
Production work carries risk. This is the method, not a reassurance.
- Nothing is removed on the basis of a report alone: every assignment change is confirmed against sign-in evidence and authorized in writing first.
- Changes run in batches with a hold period, so a wrongly released licence is caught and restored within the retention window rather than after it.
Evidence and handover
Yours to keep whatever happens next, including handing it to your own team or another provider. The documents are what prove the work happened; they are not the thing being bought.
- The licence position, line by line, with the waste named in dollars
- The sign-in evidence behind every release or downgrade
- The target assignment matrix, as agreed
- The current-versus-renewal cost model
- The list of commercial actions, each with a named owner and a date
Is this another report, with the real work quoted afterwards?
It may sound like a consultant will inspect the environment, hand over a document, and then quote a second project. That is not the default here. Where the outcome can be scoped safely from a short working call, the implementation is sold directly, as this page does. Separate paid planning is used only where genuine complexity prevents a responsible fixed price, and where it is used the page says so plainly.
Fix the Renewal
Describe what is happening, what has to be working differently, and any deadline behind it. A reply comes within one business day with the most direct next step, or a clear answer that AZ Innovations is not the right fit.
Fix the Renewal →