Overview
The industry spoke and Microsoft listened.
Although the M365 price increase will remain in effect, after significant pushback from customers the M365 cancellation/correction period has been extended from 72 hours to seven days, giving MSPs significantly more breathing room to make post-purchase corrections on orders or auto-renewals.
The pricing increase that went into effect on March 1, 2022 saw rates for M365 Business and Enterprise plans increase between 9% and 25%. Initially, Microsoft had also reduced the M365 cancellation period to just 72 hours in total (i.e., not three business days), meaning, for instance, those who purchased a subscription on a Friday would have only until Monday to cancel or make changes. No doubt the newly extended seven-day period will be welcomed by most MSPs and M365 customers.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of the pricing increase, Augmentt shared that some MSP partners are using the opportunity to proactively re-bundle their services as a way to offer even greater value to cost-conscious M365 customers. For instance, small- and medium-sized businesses challenged by the new M365 pricing will get much better value from the plan if it’s combined with enhanced MSP services.
Augmentt shared strategies that MSPs could use to help customers free up budget in advance of the M365 price increase. These included leveraging Augmentt Discover to help customers identify redundant apps and unused licenses (given that more than 33% of IT spend is wasted on Shadow IT) and offering managed cloud services to improve a client’s security posture and consolidate their SaaS stack more cost-effectively.
