More margin is coming. Are your deals ready?

From 1 October 2026, Microsoft is changing how partners earn on customer growth. It’s called CSP Growth Margins, and for many partners it means more money on deals you’re already working on.

The idea is simple. When you help customers grow into strategic Microsoft workloads, you earn extra upfront margin for doing it. The catch is that you only earn it if your deals are structured the right way. So it pays to understand the rules before your next quote goes out.

Here’s what you need to know, minus the fluff.

What are CSP Growth Margins?

Growth Margins reward partners for driving real customer growth across a set of strategic Microsoft workloads. Rather than a rebate you chase later, it’s additional margin tied to the growth moves you’re already making with customers.

The eligible workloads are:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Microsoft 365 E5 and E7
• Microsoft Defender Suite
• Microsoft Purview Suite
• Windows 365 Enterprise

Education, Government and Nonprofit licences are not included.

How you earn it

Extra margin comes from three types of growth:

• Winning a workload the customer hasn’t bought before
• Expanding seats on an existing subscription
• Moving customers up to premium SKUs

A few details decide whether a deal actually qualifies, so keep these in mind:

• Eligibility is assessed at the customer tenant level, across all their Microsoft licensing, not just what they buy through you.
• Past purchases through other Microsoft agreements can affect what counts as new.
• Microsoft applies a lookback period when deciding what qualifies as a new opportunity.
• Mid term seat growth usually needs to sit on a new subscription to qualify.

One important thing to know

Growth Margins apply to Direct Bill partners and Distributors. If you buy through a distributor as an indirect reseller, the value still reaches you, but how it flows matters. This is where working closely with your distributor pays off, because the right deal structure is what unlocks the margin. If you’re a Leader Cloud partner, our team can walk you through exactly how it applies to your customers.

Don’t forget the other change on 1 October

On the same date, standard partner margin on some legacy products is dropping by around 5%. This affects Exchange Online plans, Microsoft 365 Apps for Business and Enterprise, Office 365 E1 and E3, and OneDrive extra storage. Education and Nonprofit are not impacted.

It’s worth factoring this into any renewals landing near October, and it’s another good reason to look at moving customers toward the plans that carry better value.

What to do this week

You don’t need a big project to get ahead of this. Take ten minutes and scan your customer base for:

• Copilot conversations waiting to happen
• Microsoft 365 E5 and E7 upgrade candidates
• Defender and Purview projects
• Seat and licence expansion
• Renewals landing near October

Customers already planning growth or modernisation are exactly the ones who’ll unlock this new margin. Spot them early and you’ll be quoting smarter than the partner next door.

Want us to help you find the opportunities?

We’re breaking all of this down in our next monthly partner briefing, live on Microsoft Teams. Join Amish Pyakurel for a fast, no fluff session covering Growth Margins, the easiest Business Premium upgrade of the year, Copilot attach, and a new vendor spotlight with ViCyber joining live.

Date: Thursday 24 September 2026

Time: 2:00pm ACST (2:30pm AEST)

Where: Online via Microsoft Teams

Can’t make it live? Register anyway and we’ll send you the recording and slides.