Difference between Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) & the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

This article focuses on the distinction between a Microsoft Enterprise Deal (EA), and a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) Agreement. What are the additional distinctions between an EA and a CSP, and which is ideal for your business? Find out here.

Microsoft EA in a nutshell

The Enterprise Agreement is for organizations with a minimum of 500 devices or users who want to license software and cloud services for a minimum period of three years.

This hire-purchase contract offers built-in savings of up to 45 percent. Payments spread over 3 years. This helps reduce initial costs and helps you forecast annual software budget needs up to three years ahead.

The Enterprise Agreement also has a subscription variant, the Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EAS), which lowers the initial licensing cost because you subscribe to the rights to use Microsoft products and services instead of owning them.

You can house almost all Microsoft products and services in both an EA and EAS.

Want to know everything about Microsoft EA? Read here.

Microsoft CSP in a nutshell

The Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program offers Microsoft partners the opportunity to offer their own services and Microsoft licenses and cloud services. A Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) signed between the customer, Microsoft and the partner, is the contract to provision licenses and services from Microsoft in the CSP Program. This program offers Microsoft cloud licenses. And that’s the bulk of the licenses. In addition to user-based licenses like Office 365 or Azure AD Premium, the program offers other licenses and services.

Read all about Microsoft CSP here.

Comparison

To help you decide whether you should make the switch to EA or CSP, we have created this handy EA vs CSP comparison chart, which highlights the key differences between these two Agreements.

So, Microsoft EA or Microsoft CSP?

In general, Microsoft EA is a good option for large organizations that want to license Microsoft products for a large number of users or devices, and that want access to technical support and software updates. Microsoft CSP, on the other hand, is a good option for organizations of any size that want to purchase Microsoft cloud services through a partner, and that want the flexibility to manage their own billing and technical support.