CSP renewals shifting to new commerce exclusively

Important update on the new commerce landing plan

In November 2019 Microsoft kicked off a multi-phase, multi-year transformational journey to deliver a simplified, consistent purchasing experience for both customers and partners. The new commerce experience in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program improves the customer experience, while providing you with the opportunity to expand your customer base.

Our most significant change to CSP this year has been the release of seat-based offers on the new commerce experience. In January we made seat-based offers for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Windows 365 available in new commerce in CSP. As of March, all new business has only been available in new commerce.

On June 28, 2022, we announced that the previously communicated plan of record to discontinue renewals of Legacy CSP subscriptions on July 11, 2022, has been changed. We will not remove the ability for partners to renew Legacy CSP subscriptions on July 11. Customers can continue to transact those offers but we continue to encourage partners to migrate subscriptions to new commerce.

It’s important to note that renewals of CSP deals will require partners to migrate customer subscriptions to new commerce from Legacy CSP. When a subscription in legacy reaches its renewal date, we encourage partners to migrate the subscription to the new commerce experience. The best practice is to proactively migrate all subscriptions prior to their renewal date from Legacy to new commerce now to ensure customers can leverage the benefits of the new commerce experience. As a reminder, Microsoft will not notify the partner or customer when a legacy subscription nears or reaches its expiration date. It will be the responsibility of the partner to monitor active legacy subscriptions to confirm when each one is due to expire.

Beginning July 11, to further simplify the transaction experience in CSP and align our policies, partners will have seven days after an order is placed to cancel new purchases or renewals for software subscriptions in CSP. Previously, a 30-day cancelation window was allowed for new purchases or renewals of software subscriptions for Windows Server, SQL Server, and Azure SQL Edge in CSP. This change does not apply to legacy CSP subscriptions during the transition to new commerce. Get the details here.

Upcoming milestones

As the new commerce experience continues to evolve through 2022 and beyond, we want to make sure you’re prepared for this upcoming milestone:

Legacy CSP seat-based offer incentives will be removed on December 31, 2022. We encourage you to start preparing for this transition now.

We appreciate the time and energy you’ve devoted to making sure you’re operationally ready to support all customers, new and renewing, exclusively on the new commerce experience. Partners play a critical role in helping guide customers through their digital transformation. We’re committed to helping you maximize the opportunities the new commerce experience provides to stay competitive in a cloud-first marketplace and grow your business.