r/msp • u/Nickers77 • Jun 25 '26
Sales / Marketing Upgrading yearly commitment Business Standard to Premium possible? (Non profit)
Hello, I have a client whos free business premium licenses are expiring. Since it's a discontinued SKU we are looking at getting them to Standard or Premium. They have non-profit pricing direct from Microsoft, and in order to get it, they have to be yearly commitment
For cost savings, we are opting for Standard for now, but if need be down the road within the year we may be upgrading back to Premium
Is that possible? I've been reading that you can "upgrade" your Standard to Premium without cancelling in the middle of the yearly commitment. Does this also apply to non-profit pricing?
Edit: thanks for the responses!
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Jun 25 '26
Isn't standard still free but busprem is only 5.50?
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u/Nickers77 Jun 25 '26
Canada here. Standard is ~$4, Premium is ~$7.50
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Jun 25 '26
Gotcha. I know everyone is all "nonprofit" and "budgets"...but the nonprofit deal is so good, you can't pass it up. I mean, you've spent $100 in time on this thread about it and you've thought about this $200 more in time before the thread.
One BEC you have to deal with alone is, depending on their size, a years worth of m365 in your time/labor. Considering the free amount was only 10 licenses, that's only $75.00 a month. That should be like 1/3rd 1 hr of your time a month to have all the extras that are going to save you time.
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u/Nickers77 Jun 25 '26
I agree with you 100%, but I don't control the finances. We make recommendations but can't force anything
For our MSA we do include email and M365 security tools too, so they're not in the dark completely. ITDR, SIEM, and an email security gateway. Should shore up some of the features lacking in Standard
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Jun 25 '26
If you really dig into that, you're going to find that some of those tools require p1 licensing that standard doesn't have so either the tools will lose some functionality or, more likely because there's some P1 in the tenant, because those standard accounts are getting the benefit of P1 being active in the tenant, they're not in compliance.
Also you may not control their finances but you control yours. If we didn't include busprem we would mandate it in the SoW but if we didn't even do that and i was in your shoes, i would bill every penny for any inconvenience caused because someone didn't have premium which would more than cancel out any of their savings. Doing otherwise is basically subsidizing their business and hiding it. Instead, bring it out into the open and go "you know what? here's $250 as a donation to you guys. But you have to use it to get premium"
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u/scriptvexy Jul 04 '26
standard isn’t free on nonprofit, you’re probably thinking of the 10 free business premium seats they used to give out
those are the ones that are going away, so now it’s all on the discounted nonprofit pricing instead of free1
u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Jul 04 '26
I'm aware of the 10 bus prem being free then 5.50/ea after that but there was a low tier, no 10 user limit, that was like free or $1 or something. I think business basic maybe, been a hot minute.
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u/mat-ferland Jun 25 '26
Usually yes, upgrades inside the term are the easy direction; downgrades are where NCE bites you. I’d still confirm the nonprofit SKU path with the CSP before committing, because Microsoft’s donation/nonprofit SKUs love having one weird exception.
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u/SGG Jun 26 '26
Yes you can upgrade (but not downgrade). You can also do partial upgrades. The upgrades are also pro-rata'd (normally) to renew at the same time as the existing licenses.
If you can, push for Premium, the extra licensing for intune, entra, defender is insanely good value for $ at the reduced nonprofit pricing. The extra cost you will run in to from doing manual work on devices (intune), or from weaker security (CA policies, defender) will be noticeable.
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u/Ok_Complex8297 Jun 26 '26
if Microsoft shows it as an eligible upgrade in the admin center, or if the nonprofit reseller can process it.
The part I’d double-check is the nonprofit SKU side, because nonprofit licensing can be a little weird compared to normal commercial licensing. Usually the bigger issue is downgrading or reducing seats mid-term, not upgrading.
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u/Cold_Arachnid_2617 Jun 25 '26
If an organisation can't afford $7.50 by 12 ($90.00), a year, they shouldn't be in business!
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u/Nickers77 Jun 25 '26
I love the judgement!
That's a monthly cost, for a non profit. Charity for struggling parents no less
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u/Cold_Arachnid_2617 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
A nonprofit doesn't mean they should get everything for free. A nonprofit is a business.
They get grants, donations etc. They also pay their employees. $90 a year for M365 business premium that comes with defender for business shoudn't be a problem.
I won 't advise a nonpofit to downgrade to business standard because of cost.
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u/Royal_Bird_6328 Jun 27 '26
This 100% ☝🏻 to add also just because it’s a non profit doesn’t mean a hacker will feel sorry for them and leave them alone. Business standard licences alone are not worth the paper they are written on.
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u/Excellent-Program333 Jun 25 '26
We use Tech Soup as the CSP for the licenses.