Microsoft just published the numbers. Effective July 1, 2026, these are the M365 price increases hitting globally:

  • M365 Business Basic: 16%
  • M365 Business Standard: 12%
  • M365 Business Premium: 0% (unchanged)
  • M365 E3: 8%
  • M365 E5: 5%
  • M365 F1: 33%
  • M365 F3: 25%

Read that list again. F1 — the frontline worker SKU that half your retail and manufacturing clients run — goes up a third. Business Basic, the entry-level license your SMBs default to, jumps 16%.

Microsoft is also launching M365 E7: “The Frontier Suite” on May 1 at $99/user/month. That bundles E5, Copilot, and a new Agent 365 platform for managing AI agents. It’s a premium play targeting organizations moving from AI experiments to AI at scale.

Here’s what you should be doing right now.

Move 1: Lock Promo Pricing Before June 30

Microsoft is running aggressive promos through June 30 that won’t exist in July’s pricing world. Pax8’s March update lays them out:

  • Copilot Business: 15% off (1-300 seats)
  • Business Standard + Copilot Business bundle: 35% off for new Copilot customers (10-300 seats)
  • Business Premium + Copilot Business: 25% off (10-300 seats)
  • M365 Copilot Enterprise: 15% off for new customers (10-2,400 seats)
  • M365 E5: 15% off for net-new E5 customers
  • E3 and E5 three-year commitments: 10% off (100+ seats)

Microsoft also removed the “one-time only” restriction on Copilot Business promos. If your clients held off because they didn’t want to burn the promo before renewal, that constraint is gone. They can buy now and renew at the same discounted rate through June.

The play is obvious: every client renewing between now and June should get moved before the hikes hit. Every client who’s been “thinking about Copilot” needs a conversation this week, not next quarter.

Move 2: Have the Frontline Worker Conversation

The F1 and F3 increases are the biggest percentage jumps in the lineup, and they affect clients who often treat those licenses as afterthoughts. Retail chains, hospitality, logistics companies, healthcare systems with large clinical staff. Anyone running frontline worker licenses at scale is about to feel it.

A company with 500 F1 seats is looking at a 33% cost increase on those licenses. That’s real money, and if you’re their MSP, they’re going to call you about it. Get ahead of the call.

The pitch: Business Premium didn’t go up. For clients where the per-user math works, consolidating some frontline users into Premium — which includes the full Defender and Intune suites — might actually save money while improving security posture. Run the numbers for your top 10 accounts this week.

Move 3: Claim the Expanded Partner Benefits

If you hold a Modern Work Solutions Partner designation, your benefits package just got better:

  • $4,000 in Azure credits (up from previous levels)
  • 20 Copilot seats (up from 5)
  • 25,000 monthly Copilot Studio credits
  • 25 Teams Premium licenses (up from 10)
  • 50 Entra and Intune Suite licenses
  • 25 Defender Suite licenses

More workloads now count toward the designation too: M365 Copilot, Entra ID P1, Viva Goals, Teams for Frontline Workers, Teams Premium, and Teams Rooms. If you were close to qualifying but couldn’t get over the line, check your score again. The math might have changed in your favor.

Microsoft also fixed the SMB path reclassification bug. Previously, if your SMB customer grew large enough to get reclassified as Enterprise, you lost all the designation points from that account. That’s been corrected automatically. No action needed.

Move 4: Watch the EST Deadline

Starting May 4, 2026, Microsoft is killing the free 30-day grace period for CSP subscription renewals. If auto-renew is off and a subscription expires, there’s no free extension anymore. Microsoft’s replacement is Extended Service Terms, which aren’t free.

If you use Pax8, auto-renew is on by default, so this mostly affects partners who manually manage renewals. But check your accounts. Any client with auto-renew disabled is at risk of a lapse that used to be harmless and now costs money.

The Bottom Line

Microsoft gave you a 90-day window. The promos are live. The prices go up July 1. The expanded benefits are available now. The clients who don’t hear about this from you will hear about it from their bill.

This isn’t strategy. This is execution. Open your client list, sort by renewal date, and start calling. Every deal you close before June 30 at current pricing is a win for your client and a retention lock for you.

The clock is running.