Microsoft 365 renewal and license cleanup
Stop paying for licenses nobody uses.
License assignments are corrected where you authorize it. Every line gets a cancel, change or keep decision. Finance receives a renewal cost model built from what people actually use.
- What you get
- An approved license plan and cost model, with authorized assignment changes applied.
- How it starts
- A free scope call. The price is fixed in writing before anyone is given access.
- When it is done
- Each renewal line has a keep, change or cancel decision; the target assignments and remaining commercial actions have named owners.
Illustrative sample · constructed example
Low usage is a question before it is a cancellation.
License decision · sample role
Selected check
Does the proposed change retain the features this role needs?
| Record | Evidence or responsibility | Sample review |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Identify the license and current entitlement source. | Assignment recorded |
| Evidence period | Understand the age and coverage of observed usage. | Low activity observed |
| Required feature | Ask the role owner which features must be retained. | Requirement unconfirmed |
| Renewal action | Keep or change the line against the owner’s decision. | Do not cancel yet |
Low activity alone is not a cancellation decision. No saving is invented.
- Evidence
- Sample user has little observed activity; required features are unconfirmed.
- Decision
- Do not cancel yet
- Next action
- Validate the role, required features and evidence period with its owner.
Illustrative sample. No savings are claimed; agreement terms and current feature entitlements must be checked.
Why now
The work starts here.
A Microsoft renewal or true-up is coming. Microsoft’s July 1, 2026 price and packaging change lands when you renew, not today.
Related source documentation
Microsoft: commercial price and packaging updateScope at a glance
- Tenant-side changes only
- Commercial actions stay with you or your reseller
- Timed to land before the renewal date
If nobody acts
What waiting costs
Releasing a license inside the tenant frees the seat for someone else. It does not change the quantity you bought. The invoice only moves when a quantity change is placed against the order.
The quantities on the order you sign are what the coming term is billed against. That order goes in against a renewal date your agreement already fixed.
How long an unwanted seat stays on the bill is set by your agreement. CSP, EA and direct each carry different cancellation windows. A leaver found afterwards is governed by terms nobody has read yet.
Subscriptions can hold their own separate end dates. So the date that matters is per subscription. Without that list in one place, a renewal passes on a line nobody was watching.
Every keep, downgrade, consolidate or cancel decision needs evidence from the tenant behind it: who holds the license, who has signed in, and what a plan you already own covers. That cannot be assembled in the meeting where the quote is opened.
Check your own environment
Sounds like you?
- You cannot say how many Microsoft licenses you pay for without asking someone
- People who left the business still appear in the list of who holds a license
- The renewal date is a surprise every year rather than a date in a calendar
- Nobody has compared what you are billed for against who is actually signing in
Save yourself the call
Not for you if
- The renewal was just signed and the quantities were corrected before it went in
- A reseller already gives you a list of who holds what and who has stopped using it
- You have a handful of licenses and everyone uses theirs
The work
What is different when we hand over
Licenses are checked against who actually signs in: who holds one, who has not used it, and who is on a bigger plan than their work needs.
Where authorized, tenant-side assignments are corrected (released, downgraded, or reassigned) rather than described in a document for someone else to action.
Duplicate add-ons and capabilities already bundled in an owned plan are identified and the overlap is removed.
The renewal cost model is built: current spend, corrected spend, and the delta each decision is worth.
The commercial actions that only a buyer or reseller can take, such as CSP quantity changes and EA true-up positions, are written up and assigned by name.
Acceptance
Checks before handover
Every license 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
A fair question
Will this save us more than it costs?
Often, but nobody can promise it before looking, and any figure quoted up front would be invented. What is committed is the position: every license line with a keep, downgrade, consolidate or cancel call and the evidence behind it, plus the cost model finance can approve from. If the answer turns out to be that your licensing is already tight, you get that in writing, which is worth having before you sign another term.
Price and calendar
Scope, price and project calendar
Engagement price
Price fixed after a short scope call.
The price is agreed in writing before any work starts and before anyone is given access. The call itself costs nothing. What moves the number:
What determines the scope
- Number of license lines and distinct subscriptions
- Number of tenants
- Whether the cost model is handed over as a document or built as a refreshing dashboard in your own workspace
- 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
Delivery calendar
Your Microsoft agreement sets the renewal date. The project calendar is agreed separately before work starts.
How engagements workScope & responsibilities
What is and is not included
The exclusions, what we need from you, how change is staged and reversed, and what is handed over at the end.
Exclusions
- 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
What we need from you
- 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
Change and rollback method
- 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 license is caught and restored within the retention window rather than after it.
What you keep at handover
- A System guide: the configuration as delivered, the checks that were run and the unresolved list
- The license 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
Access, acceptance and support arrangements
How you know the work is good
Judge it by what you can inspect.
The method is written down, the sample records open and the demo can be broken on purpose. Read it the way your technical owner would.
- 01How a project runs
A first conversation, free. An agreed scope with a named technical lead in the proposal. The price fixed in writing before we are given access. Checks before handover.
How we work- 02What is checked
Release checks, access test matrices and ownership maps. Constructed inspection records on the service pages show the standard before you buy.
See sample deliverables- 03What you keep
A System guide: what was agreed, what changed, what was tested and what remains open. With it, the scripts and check results behind the work.
Next step
Start with a free scope call.
Tell us what needs to change, what must keep working and the deadline. The call is free, and the price is fixed in writing before anyone is given access.
Price the renewal cleanupOr write to [email protected]