Announcing Neon Serverless Postgres as an Azure Native Integration (Preview)
Note: This service is now retired but you can browse similar database service in Azure. We are excited to announce that Neon Serverless Postgres is now available as an Azure Native Integration (in preview) within the Azure Cloud ecosystem. This integration enhances developer experience by combining the power and flexibility of Neon’s serverless Postgres database service with Azure's robust cloud infrastructure. We’re excited to bring Neon to all Azure developers, especially AI platforms. Neon Serverless Postgres scales automatically to match your workload and can branch instantly for an incredible developer experience. And for AI developers concerned about scale, cost efficiency, and data privacy, Neon enables them to easily adopt database-per-customer architectures, ensuring real-time provisioning and data isolation for their customers. - Nikita Shamgunov, CEO, Neon. What is Neon Serverless Postgres? Neon offers a serverless Postgres solution that leverages the principles of serverless computing to provide scalable and flexible database services. By abstracting away infrastructure complexities, Neon allows businesses to focus on application development rather than database administration. The key features of Neon’s Postgres service include: Instant Provisioning: Neon's architecture allows the creation of new databases in under a second, thanks to its custom-built storage engine. Efficient Scaling: Neon automatically scales resources based on load, ensuring optimal performance during traffic spikes without the need for overprovisioning. Integrated Developer Workflows: With features like database branching, Neon enables shorter software development lifecycles and cost-effective integration into CI/CD pipelines. What is Neon Serverless Postgres as an Azure Native Integration? The Azure Native integration of Neon Serverless Postgres enables users to create a Neon organization from Azure portal. Users can find the Neon Serverless Postgres offering on Azure portal and Azure Marketplace. This integration paves a way forward to effectively use Neon Postgres along with other Azure services. At Microsoft, we are committed to providing seamless and innovative solutions for our Azure developers. The introduction of Neon Postgres as an Azure Native Integration is a significant milestone in this journey. This integration not only simplifies the provisioning and management of Neon organizations directly from Azure but also enhances the overall developer experience. We are excited to see how this collaboration will empower developers to build intelligent and scalable applications on Azure with ease. - Shireesh Thota, CVP, Azure Databases. Benefits of the native integration: This Azure Native Integration brings many benefits to developers and businesses: Seamless Provisioning from Azure: Developers can create and manage Neon organizations directly within the Azure portal, without switching platforms. Single Sign-On (SSO): Users can access Neon via SSO using their Microsoft credentials, streamlining the login process and enhancing security. Enhanced Developer Experience: The integration allows developers to use Azure CLI and SDKs of their choice from .NET, Java, Python, Go, and JavaScript, to manage Neon organizations alongside other Azure resources, keeping development workflows consistent. Unified Billing: Neon usage can be included on existing Azure invoices, simplifying billing and financial management for businesses. By Purchasing Neon through Azure, customers can decrement their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), if any with Microsoft. How to create a Neon organization from Azure You can find the details of how to create a Neon organization from Azure in the Microsoft docs. The section below summarizes the key steps which will aid you in resource creation. Step 1: Discover and Subscribe to Neon from Azure You can start your journey either from Azure portal or Azure Marketplace. Search for Neon Serverless Postgres in the search bar and select the offering. This will take you to the Marketplace landing page of Neon Serverless Postgres. Choose a plan out of the 3 available public plans. If you are new and exploring, you can start with a free plan. Click on Subscribe to move forward to the resource configuration stage. Step 2: Complete your Neon resource configuration on Azure You are now creating a Neon resource on Azure. The process is similar to creating other Azure resources and requires basic details like Azure subscription, resource group and resource details. The resource can be created in the East US 2, Germany West Central and West US 3 after public preview. Please check the region dropdown to view the available regions. The creation flow also simultaneously creates a Neon organization. For that, mention the name of your Neon organization. Once all details have been filled in, you can review the information by going to Review + Create. This will trigger the deployment process and result in resource creation. Congratulations! You just created a Neon organization from Azure. Let us now visit the Neon organization we just created. Step 3: Transition to Neon from Azure portal Go to the resource created and you will land onto the overview blade where you will find the resource details. We support single-sign-on from Azure portal to Neon. Click on the SSO link to transition to Neon portal, where you can continue with creating projects and databases, inviting users and much more. Step 4: Create Projects, Branches and Databases on Neon On the Neon portal, you will land on the project creation view. Proceed to create your first Neon project. When this project is created, a default branch and database is created as well. Visit the project dashboard to view project details. You can copy the connection URL of the newly created database and use it in your Azure application stack to connect to the database. Go ahead and create more projects in the Azure regions of your choice and explore interesting features like branches and AI based query generation. Now, you are ready to use Neon Serverless Postgres in your real-world applications. Real-World Applications Neon’s Serverless Postgres service is ideal for a variety of use cases, including: AI and Machine Learning: With the ability to generate vector embeddings and integrate with Azure AI services, Neon is well-suited for AI and machine learning applications. Neon’s Autoscaling ensures that even resource-intensive AI models operate seamlessly during periods of high demand without manual intervention. SaaS Applications: The scalability and flexibility of Neon’s Postgres service make it perfect for SaaS applications that need to handle varying levels of traffic. Its serverless architecture eliminates the need for infrastructure management, allowing developers to focus on building features while ensuring cost-effective scaling to meet demand. For more use-cases and success stories, visit Case Studies - Neon to understand how Neon, now on Azure, can create value in your organization. Ready to try out Neon Serverless Postgres as an Azure Native Integration? Check out the next steps and share your feedback with us. This is just the beginning of Neon Serverless Postgres on Azure and stay tuned as we make this integration seamless with more features. Next Steps Subscribe to Neon Serverless Postgres on Azure portal or Azure Marketplace Learn more about Neon Serverless Postgres at Microsoft docs Read the launch blogpost by Neon Discover more about Neon Submit feature suggestions and questions in the Neon discord community or contact feedback@neon.tech. Please mention that you are using Neon Serverless Postgres on Azure in your messages. Learn about Microsoft’s investment in Neon Thank you for reading this blog! Please follow for more updates on Neon Serverless Postgres as an Azure Native Integration.Land Your Offer - Anatomy of Revenue Generating Partner Offer - Part 3 - Copilot Deployment
In Part 1 we looked at Copilot in 30, a $0 trial for SMB customers. In Part 2 we looked at Envisioning & POC, a funded pre-sales engagement. Part 3 moves to post-sales. The customer has bought Copilot seats. The job now is to get people using them. That job has a new reward. From 1 October 2026, the Frontier Accelerate for Copilot: M365 Copilot Deployment Accelerator pays in two milestones: one when you deliver the deployment, and one when the customer's active users grow. It also lands just after Microsoft introduced the new Copilot with Home, Code and Autopilot, usage-based billing and FinOps for AI. Deployment now covers more ground, and customers need a partner to cover it. Package this engagement as a Microsoft Marketplace offer and you have a repeatable way to turn paid seats into active users across your whole customer base. Start Here: Why Publishing on Microsoft Marketplace Matters Microsoft Marketplace is Microsoft's partner-focused business platform. It helps you reach more customers and makes buying from you simpler. A published offer gives your practice a permanent storefront where customers and Microsoft sellers already look for Copilot help. An offer also makes your work repeatable. You define the phases, activities, deliverables and sizes once. Then you run the same engagement for every qualified customer instead of scoping each one from scratch. Partner Center supports both professional service and managed service offers, so one listing can carry the deployment and the ongoing services that follow. The Opportunity: Seats Bought, Value Waiting Many organisations have bought Copilot ahead of their people adopting it. The gap between paid seats and monthly active users is value still waiting to be realised. Take a customer with 3,000 paid Copilot seats and 1,000 monthly active users. That leaves 2,000 seats, about $720K a year of Copilot investment at $30 per user per month, not yet part of anyone's working day. Closing that gap is what this engagement is designed to do. Customer eligibility for each size is set by two numbers: purchased Copilot seats, and unused seats (purchased seats minus active users). Both are in Partner Center's growth insights reporting in the AI Business Solutions & Security Insights (ASPX) dashboard. Use the dashboard's filters to find customers to land this offer with, and you will know which size each one qualifies for before the first conversation. Why Deployment Is Where Copilot Value Is Won Copilot delivers its value through daily use. The more people build it into how they work, the more value the business sees, and the stronger the case to extend it to more teams. The new Copilot widens what a good deployment covers. Home is the new starting point, with the full power of Word, Excel and PowerPoint built in through Office in Copilot. Code lets people build apps, dashboards and automations in plain language. Autopilot is a persistent agent that keeps work moving without a prompt. Advanced capabilities run on usage-based billing, governed through FinOps for AI. So deployment now goes beyond assigning licences. It means securing data, governing Code apps and Autopilot agents, training people on Chat, Office in Copilot and Code, and putting spend controls in place before usage scales. Each of these takes skills many customers do not yet have in-house. Each one is a service you can deliver. Meet the Offer: M365 Copilot Deployment Accelerator, Paid in Two Milestones The M365 Copilot Deployment Accelerator is a post-sales, partner-led engagement. It covers technical deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, security and governance controls, user training, and adoption and change management. The essentials: Who qualifies: Customers with a minimum number of purchased Copilot seats and unused seats for each size: XXS 50+ and 25+, XS 300+ and 250+, S 500+ and 500+, M 1,500+ and 1,500+, L 3,000+ and 3,000+. Strategic 500 customers are not eligible. EDU and non-profit customers are not eligible for XXS and XS. How it is sized: Five sizes: XXS (10 hours), XS (20 hours), S (40 hours), M (100 hours) and L (200 hours). How it pays: Milestone 1 (Solution Deployment) is paid once your proof of execution (POE) is approved. It is guaranteed and does not depend on any outcome. Milestone 2 (Consumption Growth) is paid if the customer's incremental paid Copilot monthly active users reach the nominated band within a six-month window. Going above the band does not increase the payment. Falling below it means no Milestone 2 payment. How it runs: Nominate the customer into a size band (the band is locked once submitted). Get customer consent within 30 days. Deliver the work and submit POE (partner survey, customer attestation and invoice) within 90 days of consent. Each customer tenant can have up to two approved claims, one at a time. Who can deliver: Partners at Copilot JumpStart Ready or higher until 31 December 2026. From 1 January 2027, the Microsoft 365 Copilot specialization is required. Term: 1 October 2026 to 30 June 2027, or until the program cap is reached. Microsoft funds the deployment and rewards the growth. You own the delivery, the relationship and everything that follows. Your Role: From Deployer to Adoption Partner A deployment is not finished when licences are assigned. It is finished when people use Copilot every week and the sponsor can see the value. Your job is to get the customer there, phase by phase. Plan: Confirm the first business functions to adopt. Validate priority scenarios across Chat, Office in Copilot and the Microsoft 365 apps. Set KPIs and Responsible AI guardrails. Build a measurable business case that includes usage-based billing. Assess the environment and sequence remediation before deployment. Implement: Prepare the environment and assign licences. Configure data controls, fix oversharing, and govern Code apps and Autopilot agents. Enable admin tools. Set up the Copilot Dashboard, reporting and FinOps for AI spend controls. Launch a champions programme and community. Train users on Chat, Office in Copilot and Code. Adopt: Run prompt-a-thons on real scenarios. Survey users on their experience. Track incremental paid active users every month against the Milestone 2 band. Review audit logs and Copilot reports. Monitor service health, demand, cost and AI spend. Manage and Improve: Extend analytics with custom impact reports. Refine the business case with real data. Align policies to Home, Code and Autopilot on a set schedule. Optimise operations and AI spend. Mine help desk tickets for new agentic use cases. Keep training going as adoption spreads. Close out: Deliver an executive summary with recommendations, risks, owners and dates. Submit POE. Agree the plan to reach the nominated active user band within the six-month Milestone 2 window. Every phase moves one number: active users. It is the number the customer's sponsor watches most closely, and the one both milestones are built around. Inside the Offer: Activities and Hours by Engagement Size Below is the full activity plan behind the offer, with hours for each of the five sizes. Use it to size your own offer plans and statements of work. ID Phase Activity XXS XS S M L Pre-req Eligibility Minimum Copilot seats / unused seats (unused = seats minus active users) 50+ / 25+ 300+ / 250+ 500+ / 500+ 1,500+ / 1,500+ 3,000+ / 3,000+ P1 Plan Identify priority business functions 0.25 0.5 1 2.25 4.5 P2 Plan Determine high-value scenarios 0.5 1.25 2.25 5.75 11.5 P3 Plan Define success metrics and guardrails 0.5 0.75 1.5 3.75 7.5 P4 Plan Develop the business case, incl. usage-based billing (UBB) 0.5 1.25 2.25 5.75 11.5 P5 Plan Plan readiness and remediation 0.5 1 1.75 4.5 9 I1 Implement Prepare environment and assign licenses 0.75 1.5 3 7.75 15.25 I2 Implement Configure security and data controls 0.75 1.5 3 7.75 15.25 I3 Implement Enable administrative tools 0.5 0.75 1.5 3.75 7.5 I4 Implement Deploy analytics and reporting, incl. FinOps for AI 0.5 0.75 1.5 3.75 7.5 I5 Implement Activate champions and communities 0.25 0.75 1.25 3 6 I6 Implement Conduct training and communications 0.75 1.5 2.75 6.75 13.75 A1 Adopt Drive cross-organizational adoption 0.5 1.25 2.5 6 12.25 A2 Adopt Gather user feedback and sentiment 0.25 0.5 1.25 3 6 A3 Adopt Measure business impact and usage 0.5 1 2 5.25 10.75 A4 Adopt Monitor security and audit reports 0.25 0.5 1 2.75 5.25 A5 Adopt Monitor and evaluate operations, cost and AI spend 0.25 0.5 1.25 3 6 M1 Manage and Improve Extend analytics 0.25 0.5 1.25 3 6 M2 Manage and Improve Evolve the business case, incl. UBB 0.25 0.5 1.25 3 6 M3 Manage and Improve Policy review and refinement 0.25 0.5 1.25 3 6 M4 Manage and Improve Optimize operations and AI spend 0.5 0.75 1.5 3.75 7.5 M5 Manage and Improve Continuous process improvement 0.25 0.5 1.25 3 6 M6 Manage and Improve Continuous training and adoption 0.5 0.75 1.5 3.75 7.5 C1 Close-out Executive summary, POE and Milestone 2 growth plan 0.5 1.25 2.25 5.75 11.5 TOTAL Hours 10 20 40 100 200 Land Your Offer: What One Customer Is Worth The table below is the revenue anatomy of one Deployment Accelerator engagement at each of the five sizes. Four revenue streams stack on top of each other: Milestone 1, Solution Deployment: Microsoft funds the deployment work, from $1,625 for an XXS engagement to $32,500 for an L engagement. It is paid once POE is approved and is guaranteed. Milestone 2, Consumption Growth: a further $875 to $17,500, paid when the customer's incremental paid active users reach the nominated band within six months. This is where adoption work earns its own reward. CSP incentive on Copilot revenue: earned on the Copilot seats you transact. Customers who see their people using Copilot every day tend to renew and extend, so adoption work supports this stream too. Managed services: the recurring engagement described in After Close-out, which is where the largest and most durable share of revenue lives. Item XXS XS S M L Minimum Copilot seats / unused seats 50+ / 25+ 300+ / 250+ 500+ / 500+ 1,500+ / 1,500+ 3,000+ / 3,000+ Engagement hours 10 20 40 100 200 Milestone 2 target: incremental paid Copilot active users in six months 25+ 250+ 500+ 1,500+ 3,000+ Milestone 1, Solution Deployment (K) $1.63K $3.25K $6.5K $16.25K $32.5K Milestone 2, Consumption Growth (K) $0.88K $1.75K $3.5K $8.75K $17.5K Frontier Accelerate total (K) $2.5K $5K $10K $25K $50K CSP incentive on Copilot revenue (K)† $3.51K $21.06K $35.1K $105.3K $210.6K † Milestone payments shown at Market A rates for claims nominated from 1 October 2026. CSP incentive shown at a blended 19.5% (direct bill 2.5 + 7 + 10; indirect reseller 7 + 12.5) on the minimum Copilot seats for each size at $30 per user per month for 12 months. Illustrative estimates from the offer plan. Confirm current rates, market rates, eligibility and geographic restrictions (which apply to the L size) in the latest Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide. Now multiply. Everything above is the anatomy of a single customer. Landing the offer means running it across every qualifying customer in your base. The same ASPX view you use to check eligibility is your target list: sort the customers you manage by the gap between paid Copilot seats and active users, and check MCI eligibility and potential earnings for each. Do not forget your Part 2 customers: every Envisioning & POC engagement that converted to paid seats is a natural next candidate. How the Offer Fits Together: From Sizing to Proof of Execution The offer runs left to right in three layers: Sizing and value: five sizes from XXS (10 hours) to L (200 hours). Milestone 1 is paid on POE approval. Milestone 2 is paid when the active user band is met. Bands are locked at nomination. Five phases: Plan (P1 to P5), Implement (I1 to I6), Adopt (A1 to A5), Manage and Improve (M1 to M6) and Close-out (C1, T1, T2, X1). Each phase produces something the sponsor can see. Proof of execution: prioritised scenarios and a business case that includes usage-based billing; a secure, licensed Copilot environment; analytics, reporting and admin controls; active champions and trained users; incremental paid active users, impact and ROI measured; an executive summary, roadmap and POE. Plus a named wave 2 expansion beyond the first teams. The highlighted activities are champions and communities (I5), training and communications (I6), cross-organizational adoption (A1), business impact and usage (A3), extended analytics (M1), policy review (M3), operations and AI spend (M4), continuous training (M6), trial to paid licence conversion (T1), commercial proposal and signature (T2) and the wave 2 expansion plan (X1). These are where the engagement stops being a project and becomes an ongoing relationship: managed services, ongoing optimisation and follow-on professional services after the engagement closes. The managed services below are built from exactly these activities. After Close-out: Managed Services That Keep Delivering Close-out is the start of the real engagement. Package these six recurring services in your offer. Each one carries forward a highlighted activity from the deployment, is sized in partner days so you can price it, and drives a business outcome the sponsor can put a number on. Managed service Partner activity: what you deliver and measure Customer business outcome: what it drives (illustrative targets, M-size customer) Champions and community management • Effort: 1 to 2 days a month • Activity: Run the champions network and a Viva Engage or Teams community, host monthly prompt-a-thons on real work, and carry adoption into every business function (I5, A1) • Reported as: Active champions per function; community questions answered; functions above the utilisation target • One active champion for every 50 users (60 champions across 3,000 seats) • Adoption spreads from the first 2 business functions to 6+ within six months • Copilot how-to tickets to the help desk down 30 to 50% as peers answer questions first Continuous learning and enablement • Effort: 2 days a month • Activity: Deliver role-based training and launch communications for each new group, onboard new joiners within their first 30 days, and refresh training as new Copilot capabilities arrive (I6, M6) • Reported as: People trained by role; new joiners onboarded within 30 days; trained users active within 30 days • 2 to 4 hours saved per active user a week (≈5,000 to 10,000 hours across 2,500 active users) • 90%+ of trained users active within 30 days of training • New joiners productive with Copilot in their first month, not their first quarter Usage and impact analytics • Effort: 1 to 2 days a month • Activity: Track incremental paid active users against the Milestone 2 band every month, extend the Copilot Dashboard with third-party data, and build custom impact reports by function (A3, M1) • Reported as: Incremental active users against the band; utilisation (active users ÷ paid seats); impact by function • Utilisation lifted from 33% to 83% (1,000 to 2,500 active users) within six months, meeting the M band floor • ≈$540K a year of Copilot investment moved from unused to in use • Return shown in the customer's own numbers: ≈$1.08M a year of seats against $9.6M+ of staff time released at $40 per hour Policy lifecycle management • Effort: 1 day a month • Activity: Review and refine security and governance policies on a set schedule, and align them to Home, Code and Autopilot before each capability reaches users (M3) • Reported as: Policy reviews completed on schedule; new capabilities assessed before rollout; open policy exceptions • New Copilot capabilities switched on in weeks, not quarters, because policies are ready • Zero Copilot-related oversharing incidents as usage grows • Audit evidence for every policy decision available on request Service and AI spend optimisation • Effort: 1 to 2 days a month • Activity: Review KPIs, user feedback and AI spend each month, update the service management plan, and focus usage-based capabilities on the users and scenarios that justify them (M4) • Reported as: KPI trend; AI spend against budget; feedback themes closed • AI spend held within ±10% of budget, with no unplanned overage • Cost per active user down 10 to 20% a year as usage matures • Top user feedback themes acted on within 30 days Licence growth and wave planning • Effort: 1 day a month, plus 2 to 3 days per expansion wave • Activity: Convert trial licences to paid, prepare commercial proposals for named teams, and plan and date the next expansion wave (T1, T2, X1) • Reported as: Trials converted; proposals signed; next wave dated with named teams • New seats added only where a named team and use case are ready • Each new wave at 80%+ utilisation within 60 days • Wave 2 adds 250 to 500 seats, each backed by usage data from wave 1 Outcomes are illustrative targets for an M-size customer with 3,000 paid Copilot seats and 1,000 active users at nomination, at $30 per user per month, a blended $40 per hour staff cost and 48 working weeks a year. Validate them with each customer when you define success metrics (P3) and build the business case (P4), then report against them from A3 onwards. Effort scales with seats in scope, as the engagement hours do. Add the recurring rows together and one M-size customer sustains roughly 8 to 9 partner days a month after close-out, before expansion waves are counted. Every row pairs a number you can invoice against with a number the sponsor can take to the board. That is what turns a recurring service into a renewable one. Ready to Build Your Copilot Deployment Accelerator Offer? Read the engagement terms and mechanics in the Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide, and download the delivery guide and pre-engagement planning resources. Check your eligibility: Copilot JumpStart Ready or higher until 31 December 2026, then the Microsoft 365 Copilot specialization from 1 January 2027. Publish your offer in Partner Center as a professional service (the deployment accelerator) with a managed service follow-on (community, learning, analytics, policy, spend optimisation and licence growth). Build your first cohort: in ASPX, filter the customers you manage for paid Copilot seats with low Copilot utilisation and an adoption status of starting or struggling, then check MCI eligibility and potential earnings for each. Start with customers from your Envisioning & POC engagements that converted to paid. Nominate the right band: the band is locked at nomination and Milestone 2 pays only if incremental paid active users reach its floor. Use ASPX to set it: take today's Copilot MAU as your baseline, look at the recent trend and adoption status, and pick the band whose floor you can realistically add in six months. A customer with 3,000 paid seats and 1,000 active users qualifies for M, and reaching the M floor means adding 1,500 active users. If your plan adds 600, S is the safer choice. Book the close-out before Plan begins, so the Milestone 2 plan and the wave 2 conversation are already on the calendar. Your customers have already chosen Copilot. Help every one of their people make it part of how they work. Resources Engagement mechanics for Copilot Deployment Accelerators | Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide M365 Copilot Deployment Accelerator: Delivery Guide M365 Copilot Deployment Accelerator: Pre-Engagement Planning Partner investments: October 2026 updates Archived incentive terms for claims nominated before 1 October 2026 The new Copilot is here: the opportunity for Microsoft partners Introducing the new Copilot with Home, Code and AutopilotLand Your Offer - Anatomy of Revenue Generating Partner Offer - Part 1 - Copilot in 30
Copilot in 30: A Ready-Made Marketplace Offer to Grow Your SMB Practice Thirty days. Twenty-five users. One repeatable offer that turns AI curiosity into a long-term customer relationship. Small and medium businesses know AI matters. What they lack is a trusted guide and a low-risk way to start. Copilot in 30 gives you both: a $0, 25-user, 30-day Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trial from Microsoft, wrapped in a structured journey that only a partner can deliver. Package it as a Microsoft Marketplace offer and you have a scalable on-ramp to every SMB customer in your base — and to the managed services that follow. Start Here: Why Publishing on Microsoft Marketplace Matters Microsoft Marketplace is Microsoft's partner-focused business platform, designed to help you reach more customers and simplify how you sell. A published offer gives your practice a permanent, discoverable storefront in the place customers already look for Copilot help. More importantly, an offer turns your expertise into something repeatable. Instead of scoping every engagement from scratch, you define the journey once — activities, timeline, deliverables — and run it across dozens of customers. Professional service and managed service offer types are available in Partner Center, so the same offer can carry both the 30-day journey and what comes after it. The SMB Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight SMB customer segment is still early in their AI journey. These are organisations with 300 or fewer users on Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium — typically without an in-house AI team. That combination is exactly where partners win: high demand, limited internal capacity, and a customer base large enough that a well-designed, repeatable offer scales far beyond what bespoke projects can. Why Copilot Is the Right First AI Step for SMBs Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is the cost-effective Copilot add-on built for SMB customers, delivering the same capabilities as Microsoft 365 Copilot inside the apps their people already use — Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. No platform overhaul, minimal training, immediate relevance. Copilot is also the on-ramp. Once a team works confidently with Copilot, the natural next steps are agents, automated workflows and Copilot Cowork — each one deepening the customer's dependence on the partner who guided them there. Meet Copilot in 30: 25 Users, 30 Days, $0 Copilot in 30 is a limited-time, CSP partner-led Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trial for SMB customers with fewer than 300 employees. The essentials: What the customer gets: 25 Microsoft 365 Copilot Business seats for 30 days at $0, transacted through CSP New Commerce (Product ID CFQ7TTC0MM8R · SKU 006Z) Who qualifies: Customers on Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium with no paid Microsoft 365 Copilot today — one trial per customer How long it runs: Available to transact until 31 December 2026 What happens at Day 30: The trial auto-converts to a paid subscription unless renewal settings are changed, with a 7-day cancellation window What Microsoft provides: A launch kit, campaign materials, setup guidance, the Copilot Success Planner and conversion guidance Microsoft supplies the licences and the assets. The offer — and the customer relationship — is yours. Your Role: The Guide Who Turns a Trial Into a Habit A trial alone rarely changes behaviour. A guided trial does. Your job across the 30 days is to make sure 25 people experience real value in real work, and that the sponsor can see it. Before Day 0 — pick the right customers, become "Customer Zero" by using Copilot in your own business, secure a named sponsor and Copilot admin, and build a 30-day success plan with agreed measures. Day 0 — transact the trial, set the paid renewal quantity and term, complete admin setup, assign all 25 licences and run the kick-off with starter prompts. Days 1–28 — lead a weekly scenario (Outlook, Teams, Apps, Agents), review Copilot Analytics, re-engage low-activity users and capture proof points in the customer's own words. Days 29–30 — run the outcome and ROI review, confirm the paid offer and open the expansion and consumption conversation. Every touchpoint is partner expertise the customer cannot get from a licence alone — and every one moves the decision at Day 30 from "should we?" to "how much more?" Inside the Offer: Activities, Timeline and Deliverables Below is the full activity plan behind the offer, ready to drop into your own offer description or statement of work. ID Stage Activity Trial day (of 30) Key deliverables — Pre-req Customer eligibility (Copilot Business trial) Before Day 0 Active M365 Business base licence; no paid M365 Copilot; one $0 trial per customer; CSP New Commerce transactable; offer open to 31 Dec 2026 I1 Identify Build the prioritised target list Pre-trial Tier A/B target list from ASPX and Cloud Ascent; 50–300 eligible seats I2 Identify Confirm eligibility and trial fit Pre-trial Eligibility check: M365 Business base licence, no paid Copilot, one trial I3 Identify Launch the acquisition campaign Pre-trial Campaign email sent; briefing delivered; responses triaged into pipeline I4 Identify Be Customer Zero: complete microskilling Pre-trial Microskilling complete; internal Copilot experience; team briefed P1 Plan Confirm sponsor and success measures Pre-trial Named sponsor and admin; 25 trial users; agreed success measures P2 Plan Build the 30-day success plan Pre-trial Personalised Success Planner output; weekly scenarios; admin and user views P3 Plan Confirm technical and compliance readiness Pre-trial Minimum requirements verified; data and compliance review; blocker log A1 Activate Transact the trial in CSP New Commerce Day 0 25-seat, 30-day, $0 trial ordered (CFQ7TTC0MM8R · SKU 006Z) A2 Activate Configure the paid renewal settings Day 0 Renewal quantity, term and billing set; Cowork usage-based billing if in scope A3 Activate Complete admin setup and assign licences Day 0 Recommended settings on; 25 licences assigned (starts the clock) A4 Activate Run the kick-off and share starter prompts Day 0 Kick-off email; starter prompts; four-week prompt series scheduled X1 Experience Week 1 · Outlook — catch up and communicate Days 1–7 Week 1 prompts landed; first-week activation rate reviewed X2 Experience Week 2 · Teams — meetings that run themselves Days 8–14 Copilot Analytics checkpoint; recaps adopted; low-activity users re-engaged X3 Experience Week 3 · Apps — create in minutes Days 15–21 App scenarios and proof points; week 3 training gate before day 30 X4 Experience Week 4 · Agents — unlock the next level Days 22–28 Role-built agents trialled; 30-day usage trends from the admin centre C1 Convert Outcome review, paid offer and expansion plan Days 29–30 ROI review; 50-seat offer confirmed in 7 days; wave 2 plan; consumption conversation opened Land Your Offer: What One Customer Is Worth The table below is the revenue anatomy of one Copilot in 30 engagement — and it shows that the money is not in the trial, but in what the trial sets up. Item Value Detail Offer duration 30 days Trial clock runs Days 1–30; identify, plan and Day 0 setup precede it Trial offer 25 seats M365 Copilot Business · 30 days · $0 · one per customer · to 31 Dec 2026 CSP incentive — 25 seats (K) $0.32K 5.0% direct bill (2.5% M365 CSP Core + 2.5% Strategic Product Accelerator Tier 1) on 25 M365 Copilot Business seats x $21/mo† ≈ $6.3K/yr; indirect reseller 2.5% ≈ $0.16K Conversion target 50 seats Lead with 50 paid seats at conversion; sets up the wave 2 expansion plan CSP incentive — 50 seats (K) $0.63K 5.0% direct bill (Core + SPA Tier 1) on 50 M365 Copilot Business seats x $21/mo† ≈ $12.6K/yr; indirect reseller 2.5% ≈ $0.32K Frontier Accelerate deployment funding (K) $2.5K Microsoft Commercial Incentives funding for the Copilot deployment engagement when the conversion lands with 50 paid seats†; funds the deployment and adoption work that leads into managed services † Illustrative estimates from the offer plan. Confirm current incentive rates, funding and eligibility in Partner Center. Three streams stack on top of each other: CSP incentive — earned on every paid Copilot Business seat from the moment the trial converts, and growing again when the customer expands from 25 to 50 seats. Frontier Accelerate deployment funding — $2,500 available when you lead the conversion with 50 paid seats, paying for the deployment work that makes the expansion stick. Managed services — the recurring engagement described in Day 31 and Beyond, which is where the largest and most durable share of revenue lives. Now multiply. Everything above is the anatomy of a single customer. Landing the offer means running it across every eligible customer in your base — and you don't need to guess who they are. Partner Center's growth insights reporting, available through the AI Business Solutions & Security Insights (ASPX) dashboard, gives you account-level Copilot eligibility, seat whitespace, free Copilot Chat usage and adoption signals for the customers you already manage. To turn that export into a ranked target list, my colleague Brian O'Shea has built a Copilot for 30 Power BI dashboard that sits over your ASPX data and scores each customer on a 0–100 priority scale from eligible seats, whitespace, free-to-paid potential and opportunity signals — so your first cohort is the ten customers most likely to convert, not the first ten who reply. How the Offer Fits Together: From Trial Inputs to Proof of Value The offer runs left to right in three layers: Trial inputs — 25 users, 30 days, $0 CSP trial SKU; an SMB with 50–300 eligible Microsoft 365 seats; no paid Copilot today; a Business Basic, Standard or Premium base; one trial per customer to 31 Dec 2026; a named sponsor and Copilot admin; auto-conversion to paid unless changed. Five stages — Identify (I1–I4), Plan (P1–P3), Activate (A1–A4), Experience (X1–X4) and Convert (C1, T1, T2, W2). Each stage produces a concrete output the sponsor can see. Proof of value — a prioritised list and campaign responses; agreed use cases and success measures; a provisioned trial with 25 licences assigned; weekly usage from the Microsoft 365 admin centre; adoption proof points in the customer's words; paid conversion confirmed in Partner Center — and a named wave 2 expansion beyond the first 25. The highlighted activities — admin setup (A3), Week 4 agents (X4), 25→50 paid seats (T1), Frontier Accelerate funding (T2) and the wave 2 expansion plan (W2) — are where the engagement stops being a project and starts becoming an ongoing relationship: managed services, agent build-out, Copilot Studio and Copilot Cowork follow-on once the trial converts. Day 31 and Beyond: Managed Services That Keep Delivering The end of the trial is the start of the real engagement. Package these as standing services in your offer: Copilot adoption management — monthly Copilot Analytics business reviews, prompt and scenario refreshes, champion programme and onboarding for each new wave of users Licence and expansion management — take the customer from 25 to 50 paid seats and on to wave 2, aligning renewals, terms and billing as the footprint grows Agent build-out — design, build and maintain role-based agents with Copilot Studio for sales, service, finance and operations scenarios surfaced in Week 4 Copilot Cowork enablement and governance — introduce consumption-based Cowork scenarios, set budgets and cost controls, and report on usage each month Security, compliance and readiness — keep data protection, permissions and governance in step with expanding AI use, including a path to Microsoft 365 Business Premium Quarterly value reviews — refresh success measures, capture new proof points and agree the next expansion plan with the sponsor Each of these is a recurring, outcome-based service rather than a one-off project — and each keeps you positioned as the customer's AI partner as their needs grow. Ready to Build Your Copilot in 30 Offer? Download the Copilot in 30 launch kit and Microsoft 365 Copilot Partner FAQ from the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Be Customer Zero — run Copilot and the microskilling series inside your own business first. Publish your offer in Partner Center as a professional service (the 30-day journey) with a managed service follow-on (Day 31 and beyond). Pick your first cohort — customers with 50–300 seats on a Microsoft 365 Business plan and no paid Copilot today. Transact your first trial through CSP New Commerce (Product ID CFQ7TTC0MM8R · SKU 006Z) and set the paid renewal on Day 0. Book the Day 30 review before Day 1 — so the conversion and expansion conversation is already on the calendar. The window closes on 31 December 2026. The customers are already in your base. Publish the offer and start the clock. Resources From AI curiosity to Copilot adoption in 30 days — Microsoft Partner Blog Copilot in 30 Launch Kit — partner GTM playbook, customer trial guide, invitation and weekly prompt emails, admin setup guidance Build Your 30-Day Copilot Success Plan Copilot Success Planner Walkthrough video Partner Skilling Hub | Microskilling for Copilot in 30 Power BI Dashboard that integrates with your ASPXi Partner Data · By Brian O'Shea Create compelling customer business casesKeep pace with the latest in AI!
Check out our fresh new video series, where leaders from Microsoft show their creative side as they share the latest updates in AI, in a manner that's both educative and fun! Watch the videos, share them with your teams, and bookmark aka.ms/AIOnTheGo to stay updated!Land Your Offer - Anatomy of Revenue Generating Partner Offer - Part 4 - Cowork
So far this series has followed Copilot from a first trial (Part 1), through funded envisioning (Part 2), to a full rollout (Part 3). Part 4 turns to the newest step on that path: getting people to hand real, multi-step work to Copilot Cowork. This motion is different from the first three. There are no engagement hours to log and no T-shirt sizes to choose. Everything rides on one number: how many more people are using Cowork after three months. Grow that number and the rest follows. Microsoft has also announced that usage-based billing will be on by default for new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licences bought through CSP from 1 December 2026, which removes a setup step between a customer and their first Cowork task. When what counts is the outcome rather than the effort, the winning approach is a fixed sequence you can run the same way for every customer. Where Cowork Fits Among the Copilot Experiences Every activation begins with the same conversation. Customers now have four ways to work with Copilot, and the first step is knowing which one suits which job. Chat Cowork Code Autopilot What it does Secure, fast AI for everyday questions, drafts and ideas Plans and carries out multi-step work across apps, files and systems Turns ideas into dashboards, trackers and apps An always-on personal agent with a name, a role and a goal Best for Quick, focused tasks in one conversation Complex jobs that pull several sources together into a finished result Reusable working solutions people return to Work that unfolds over days, such as chasing decisions and commitments How long it runs Seconds to minutes Minutes to hours, on its own Depends on what is being built Continuously, in the background Typical uses Daily briefing, project summary, content drafts Board preparation, financial close, contract review, campaign launch Team dashboards, recurring-task tools Flagging stalled decisions, resolving calendar clashes Cowork is the right home for work that takes multiple steps, spans two or more apps, and ends in an action such as an update, an approval or a routed request. Purely informational tasks stay in Chat. Built to Repeat: Why This Motion Scales Helping customers move that kind of work into Cowork looks much the same from one tenant to the next, and that is what makes this motion worth building. Design it once, and every new tenant reuses the same steps: The same lead-in. Readiness, licensing and billing checks take about four weeks and follow one checklist. The same assessment. Every pilot user runs one prompt that reads their recent work and tells you whether Cowork fits. The same sixty scenarios. Ten proven scenarios in each of six business functions, landed in the same order over three weeks. The same milestones. 50 active users and $2,500 of monthly Cowork usage in Month 1, held through Month 3. Reuse that compounds. Scenarios that work become shared Cowork skills, so each new tenant starts further ahead than the last. That consistency is what makes the motion predictable. The twelve-week activation does not need to carry a customer fee: Microsoft's partner programs reward the growth it creates, and what you realise rises as the customer brings more users on board. The monthly service that follows adds a further layer on top of that, one that keeps building long after the activation window closes. Package and sell it through whichever route your customers already use, whether directly, through your distributor, as a private offer, or as a listing in Microsoft Marketplace. The packaging is the easy part once the activities are the same every time. Sixty Scenarios Across Six Functions The most reusable of those activities is the scenario library: ten scenarios per function across all six, landed during Month 1. Each one is real delegated work, not a single prompt. Function Ten scenarios to land Executives Executive command centre; inbox triage at scale; board pre-reads; cross-org leadership briefs; weekly meeting synthesis; decision briefings; delegated memo and deck; performance analytics; relationship briefings; out-of-office handoffs Sales Meeting prep and follow-up; RFP responses; branded pitch and proposal; account research briefs; pipeline gap analysis; pipeline risk reviews; renewal and QBR prep; expansion identification; customer onboarding; ROI value stories Marketing Branded asset sets; launch activation kits; messaging and positioning docs; performance readouts; content drift audits; campaign kickoff; event command centre; customer-signal synthesis; competitive response; post-launch optimisation Customer Service Case-intake briefs; root-cause diagnosis; knowledge-cited replies; SLA-risk triage; stalled-case outreach; manager interventions; escalation handoffs; voice-of-customer synthesis; service operations review; coaching and training Finance and Operations Close and variance packages; weekly business review; reconciliation reviews; audit evidence packages; RFQ response builder; procurement bid-to-award; regulatory response; master-data automation; expense itemisation; market intelligence reports Legal Playbook contract review; draft from precedent; portfolio key terms extraction; playbook from precedents; map how contracts fit together; tracked-change editing; obligations and deadlines tracker; final draft check; case chronology; regulatory gaps Add Each User's Own Workflows with the Cowork Investment Advisor The sixty scenarios are a proven starting list. The Cowork Investment Advisor, the agent behind the Cowork Investment Assessment used throughout this playbook, finds the work that is specific to each person. It reads their Work IQ signals (emails, meetings, documents, chats and collaboration patterns) and returns: Persona: the role their work patterns point to, so you know which of the six functions to draw scenarios from. Top three workflows: the user's own tasks that qualify for Cowork, each rated Light, Medium or Heavy. Cost and return: estimated credits, pay-as-you-go and pre-purchase cost, and the return on that spend. Verdict: Yes (two or more qualifying workflows across two or more teams), Yes with a pilot (one workflow) or Not yet (none). A workflow only qualifies when it runs multiple steps, moves data between two or more apps, ends in a business action, includes decision points and tracks its own progress. Purely informational work is pointed to Copilot Chat, Copilot Pages or scheduled prompts instead. Choose the format that fits who is running it: a prompt any Copilot user can paste into Copilot Chat, an Agent Builder version a team lead can share, or a pre-built agent IT can deploy across the organisation. Run it alongside the scenario rollout, not ahead of it, and feed its results into the Customer Cowork Estimator to size credit spend. The Rules of the Window, Made Simple Scenarios and the assessment build the usage. A short set of rules decides when that usage counts. Which customers fit: at the August 2026 baseline, the customer has Microsoft 365 Copilot with Cowork enabled, fewer than 50 Cowork monthly active users and less than $2,500 of monthly Cowork consumption. At least half of their Copilot licences and Cowork consumption must come through CSP. Strategic 500 customers are excluded. What starts the clock: the first month the customer reaches at least 50 Cowork monthly active users and at least $2,500 of monthly Cowork consumption becomes Month 1 of a three-month window. What decides the payment: both thresholds must still be met in Month 3. Month 2 does not count towards qualifying, but it builds the usage Month 3 is measured on. How much: $50 for each qualified new user. Qualified new users are the lower of two numbers: Month 3 users minus August users, or extra monthly consumption divided by $50. The payment is at least $200 and at most $12,500 per tenant, which is 250 new users. When: 45 days after the window closes, paid as a rebate. It comes on top of your CSP consumption earnings. How often: once per customer tenant for the life of the incentive. If Month 3 falls short, the window lapses and a new one can start the next month both thresholds are met. June 2027 is the last month a window can start. Who can claim: partners with a Solutions Partner designation in Modern Work, Business Applications, Infrastructure, Data & AI or Digital & App Innovation, plus $1M (direct bill) or $25K (indirect reseller) of trailing 12-month revenue. Indirect resellers can qualify with 25 capability points instead of a designation. No Copilot specialization is needed. Attribution: the same partner must be transacting partner of record for both the Copilot licences and the Azure subscription that carries the Cowork consumption. Term: 1 September 2026 to 30 June 2027. What You Do in Each Stage Those rules shape a motion with four stages: Qualify, Activate, Sustain and Reward. Qualify (four weeks before Month 1): confirm you meet the partner requirements and finish your Partner Center setup. Find customers who meet the August baseline. Set yourself as transacting partner of record for licences and consumption. Move Cowork billing onto a CSP Azure plan with Owner or Contributor access, so Partner Earned Credit applies, and switch on the default spending policy. Activate (Month 1): two independent tracks run side by side; the assessment can start in the lead-in, and neither waits for the other. Assess the work: ask each pilot user to run the Cowork Investment Assessment, either as an agent or by pasting its prompt into Copilot Chat. It reviews three to six months of their work and answers Yes, Yes with a pilot, or Not yet, showing where Cowork adds the most value. Land the scenarios: roll out the six functions on a weekly rhythm: Executives and Sales in week 1, Marketing and Customer Service in week 2, then Finance and Operations and Legal in week 3. Keep usage unblocked: budget about $50 per user a month (roughly 5,000 credits) and set a Cowork spending limit of 250,000 credits or more a month, with alerts, so usage can reach the week 4 milestone without hitting a cap. Sustain (Months 2 and 3): save the scenarios that work as shared Cowork skills any team can reuse, and add pilot users to keep active users above 50. Check users, credits and attribution every week in Cost management in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Approve credit requests quickly and recover any dip before Month 3. Reward (after Month 3): calculate qualified new users, expect payment about six weeks after the window closes, and move the customer onto the monthly managed services. The tenant can only be paid once, so the next activation payment comes from the next tenant. Every Step, Week by Week Each stage breaks down into the steps below, and the same plan works for any eligible tenant. Timing is recommended pacing, not a program rule. Wk 1 is the first week of Month 1, and negative weeks are the lead-in before it. ID Stage Activity Timing (week) Exit Criteria Pre-req Customer fit Customer meets the August 2026 baseline Aug 2026 Copilot with Cowork enabled; under 50 Cowork users and under $2,500 monthly consumption; at least half bought through CSP; not Strategic 500 Q1 Qualify Confirm partner eligibility Wk -4 Solutions Partner designation and $1M (direct bill) or $25K (indirect reseller) trailing 12-month revenue Q2 Qualify Enrol and finish Partner Center setup Wk -4 to -3 Partner program agreement, incentive enrolment and CSP authorization in place; identity, tax and banking details accepted Q3 Qualify Find eligible customers Wk -3 Customer meets the August 2026 baseline Q4 Qualify Set attribution Wk -2 One partner is transacting partner of record for the Copilot licences and the Azure subscription carrying Cowork consumption Q5 Qualify Set up Partner Earned Credit and cost management billing Wk -2 to -1 CSP Azure plan with Owner or Contributor access (or Azure Lighthouse); default spending policy on, billed pay as you go A1 Activate Run the Cowork Investment Assessment Wk -2 to -1 Each pilot user rated Yes (2+ workflows across 2+ teams), Yes with a pilot (1 workflow) or Not yet A2 Activate Land Executives scenarios Wk 1 For example: command centre, board pre-reads A3 Activate Land Sales scenarios Wk 1 For example: pipeline risk reviews, RFP responses A4 Activate Land Marketing scenarios Wk 2 For example: launch activation kits, campaign kickoff A5 Activate Land Customer Service scenarios Wk 2 For example: SLA-risk triage, stalled-case outreach A6 Activate Land Finance and Operations scenarios Wk 3 For example: close and variance packages, audit evidence A7 Activate Land Legal scenarios Wk 3 For example: playbook contract review, obligations tracker A8 Activate Reach both thresholds Wk 4 50+ Cowork users and $2,500+ monthly consumption; attribution confirmed; spending limit of at least 250,000 credits a month S1 Sustain Turn proven scenarios into shared Cowork skills Wk 5 to 8 (Month 2) Skills reusable across teams; pilot users added to stay above 50 S2 Sustain Watch usage every week Wk 1 to 12 Users, credits and attribution checked weekly; limits tuned; dips fixed before Month 3 S3 Sustain Hold or grow usage Wk 9 to 12 (Month 3) Both thresholds still met and attribution unchanged; Month 3 results set the payment S4 Sustain Start a new window if needed Wk 13+ A new window opens the next month both thresholds are met; June 2027 is the last start R1 Reward Work out qualified new users End of Wk 12 Lower of (Month 3 users minus August users) and (extra monthly consumption ÷ $50), rounded down R2 Reward Apply the rate and limits End of Wk 12 $50 per qualified user as a full rebate; $200 minimum, $12,500 maximum per tenant R3 Reward Receive payment ~Wk 18 Paid 45 days after the window closes R4 Reward Keep growing through managed services Wk 19+ The activation payment does not repeat for this tenant; from here, managed services carry the growth: Cowork adoption and support and AI FinOps and governance every month, plus Cowork scale-out to new teams, and to new tenants that can start their own window Layer by Layer: What One Tenant Returns Run those steps on one tenant and three returns stack up during the window. Here is how they add up for a customer that starts from zero Cowork usage. Earning How it is worked out 50 new users At the cap: 250 new users Cowork CSP Activation Incentive $50 for each qualified new user, paid 45 days after Month 3 $2.5K $12.5K CSP incentive on Copilot Credits† 13% of monthly Cowork consumption (3% core plus 10% growth), over the three months ~$0.98K ~$4.88K Partner Earned Credit† 13% of monthly pay-as-you-go Cowork consumption on the customer's CSP Azure plan, while you hold eligible admin access, over the same three months ~$0.98K ~$4.88K Total per tenant, per window ~$4.5K ~$22.3K † Illustrative. Assumes $50 of monthly Cowork consumption per new user, so $2,500 a month at 50 users and $12,500 a month at 250. The CSP incentive is paid 60% as rebate and 40% as co-op. The 13% Partner Earned Credit rate is a planning figure; the rate that applies is the one in the Partner Center price list. Check every figure against the latest Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide. When Partner Earned Credit applies. All of the following must be true: You hold an active Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program agreement and bill the customer's Azure plan through CSP. The Cowork consumption runs pay-as-you-go on that Azure plan. Reservations, savings plans, Spot virtual machines, and Marketplace or third-party products are excluded. You have admin access to the subscription through an eligible Azure role: the default admin on behalf of (AOBO) access, Azure Lighthouse, or user or service-principal accounts linked with Partner Admin Link. The role must sit at subscription, resource group or management group level, because root scope alone does not count. As an indirect reseller, your indirect provider grants you that role on the customer's subscription. The access stays in place. If the customer removes it, or the subscription moves to a new partner who does not set it up again, the credit stops. The credit is worked out daily and shows as a lower price on your invoice, not as a separate line. See Partner Earned Credit for managed services for the full rules. Those returns grow in two ways. First, the CSP incentive and Partner Earned Credit do not stop after Month 3. They continue every month the customer keeps using Cowork. Second, the activation payment is once per tenant, so the real scale comes from running the same twelve weeks across many tenants. To find them, filter the AI Business Solutions & Security Insights (ASPX) dashboard for customers you manage that have Copilot, Cowork usage below 50 users and a CSP relationship. Then line up a new cohort each month. The last window can start in June 2027, so every month you wait is one fewer cohort. How the Offer Fits Together: A Twelve-Week Run Plan The picture below puts one tenant's journey on a single page: the twelve weeks across the top and the returns underneath. Read it from left to right: Lead-in (four weeks before Month 1): eligibility, attribution, Partner Earned Credit and Default Spending policy are settled, and pilot users are rated by the assessment. Month 1 (weeks 1 to 4): two functions land each week, Executives with Sales, then Marketing with Customer Service, then Finance and Operations with Legal. Week 4 is the milestone: 50 users and $2,500 of consumption. Months 2 and 3 (weeks 5 to 12): champions, role-based training and new users run throughout. Proven scenarios become reusable skills in Month 2. Weekly monitoring keeps both numbers above the line until the final Month 3 check. Payout (about week 18): qualified users are calculated and the ~$2.5K activation payment arrives. The ~$0.98K CSP incentive and ~$0.98K Partner Earned Credit build up month by month along the way, bringing the window to about $4.5K per tenant before any managed services. Beyond the Payout: Services That Grow With Every New User The payout closes the activation, not the relationship. Keeping Cowork useful takes work every month, so group the services into three families: run adoption, support and FinOps as one subscription after Month 3, and add security and scale-out as the customer needs them. Service family What you run Cadence What the customer gets Cowork adoption and support Usage health monitoring: track active use by team and follow up on drop-offs 4 hours a month Drop-offs caught within the month. Each lapsed user means about $5.2K a year of time savings lost Cowork adoption and support Change management and enablement: champion network and role-based training 5 hours a month Each extra active user adds about $5.2K a year of time saved for about $600 of Cowork spend Cowork adoption and support Continual improvement: add new scenarios and build shared Cowork skills 1 day a month Time saved rises from 2 to 2.5 hours per user a week: about $65K more a year across 50 users Cowork adoption and support Service desk (first and second line): access issues, errors and how-to questions 8 hours a month Fixes by the next working day. Each stuck user loses about $100 a week of time savings AI FinOps and governance Copilot Credit optimisation: review credits by user, group and agent; tune the costliest tasks 1.5 hours a month 5 to 10% of waste removed: about $1.5K to $3K a year back on about $30K of Cowork spend AI FinOps and governance Spending policies: limits, alerts, credit requests, billing method and departmental chargeback 2 days to set up, then monthly tuning Monthly spend stays within 10% of the $2,500 plan, and invoices hold no surprises AI FinOps and governance Monthly business review with the sponsor: value against cost, next priorities 3 hours a month One scorecard: hours saved at $50 an hour against about $48K a year of Cowork and Copilot licences AI FinOps and governance Skill and automation lifecycle: test, update and retire shared skills and scheduled tasks 4 hours a month At $0.70 to $15 a run, each daily task nobody uses wastes about $250 to $5,500 a year until retired AI FinOps and governance Security and compliance monitoring: alerts on risky Cowork actions, oversharing and data loss events 24x7, as an add-on to an existing security operations service Risky actions triaged within an agreed time, for example one hour, at low extra cost Cowork scale-out Re-run the Investment Assessment for new teams or roles in the same tenant 1 week per group Spend goes only to Yes users: about $600 a year of Cowork each, returning about $5.2K of time saved Cowork scale-out Land and expand: discovery for new business units or tenants 2-week sprint Next three units sized. For example, 50 users save about $260K a year for about $48K of Cowork and Copilot Cowork scale-out Repeatable rollout: run the proven twelve weeks for each new unit or tenant About 3 months per rollout 50+ active users each time, reusing proven skills. New tenants can earn their own activation payment Total About 4.5 partner days a month / about 55 a year About $260K a year of time saved against about $103K of total cost: a return of about 2.5 times, rising towards 3 times at 100+ users The total row tells the story. Around $55K a year of service revenue from one tenant sits on top of the ~$4.5K earned in the activation window, and it repeats every year the customer keeps using Cowork. On the customer side, the $103K of total cost breaks down as $30K of Cowork, $18K of Copilot licences and $55K of services. As usage grows to 100 or more users in the year, Cowork spend rises to about $60K and the return climbs towards three times. Value figures are illustrative. They assume 2 hours saved per user a week at $50 an hour, Copilot at about $30 per user a month and a partner day rate of $1,000. Replace them with each customer's Investment Assessment results. Start Your First Tenant This Quarter Putting the playbook to work starts with one tenant. Six moves get you there: Check you qualify: confirm your Solutions Partner designation and revenue threshold, then enrol in the incentive and complete your Partner Center details. Find your tenants: in ASPX, filter for customers with Copilot, Cowork usage below 50 users and a CSP relationship. Confirm each one against the August 2026 baseline. Get the plumbing right first: attribution, the CSP Azure plan and the default spending policy all need to be in place before Month 1. A missed setup step cannot be fixed later in the window. Run the assessment in parallel: pilot users can take the Cowork Investment Assessment at any point. It never holds up the scenario rollout, and its results show where Cowork should grow next. Package it once: treat the twelve-week activation as an investment that pays back as users grow, then layer a monthly adoption, FinOps and scale-out service on top, sold through the routes your customers already buy from you. Put the Month 3 review in the diary on day one, together with the sponsor's first monthly business review. Cowork is where Copilot moves from answering questions to finishing work. Help every customer reach that point, one tenant at a time. Further Reading and Tools These resources cover the rules, the tools and the wider Copilot picture behind this playbook. Copilot Cowork CSP Activation Incentive Copilot Cowork Investment Assessment Copilot Credit Estimator Cowork Nifty-Sixty The new Copilot and the partner opportunityRegister now: The FY26 Partner Power Hour webinar series starts this July
Get ready to elevate your FY26 go-to-market strategies with the Microsoft Partner Power Hour—a three-part, interactive webinar series launching this July. Tailored for sales and marketing leaders, each session delivers actionable insights from Microsoft experts, industry analysts, and successful partners. You’ll explore how to harness AI, activate ready-to-use campaigns, and sharpen your go-to-market approach with proven tools like our campaigns in a box. Whether you're looking to deepen customer engagement or accelerate pipeline growth, this series is designed to help you succeed. Here are some benefits of attending these webinars: Explore the power of AI to help transform your marketing and sales strategies. Maximize the impact of partner-ready campaigns. Engage with customers more effectively with insights from top-performing partners. Each session is intended to deliver real-world strategies you can immediately apply to drive results. Webinar 1—The winning formula: partner go-to-market strategies in the AI era Americas: July 22, 2025 | 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT APAC: July 23, 2025 | 6:30 AM – 7:30 AM IST Webinar 2—Unleashing AI: transform your marketing campaigns Americas: July 29, 2025 | 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT APAC: July 30, 2025 | 6:30 AM – 7:30 AM IST Webinar 3—Marketing mastery: lessons from leading Microsoft partners Americas: August 12, 2025 | 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT APAC: August 13, 2025 | 6:30 AM – 7:30 AM IST Whether you’re looking to enhance your marketing approach, strengthen customer relationships, or simply stay ahead of the competition, this series is designed to support your goals. Register to reserve your spot and unlock new ways to power your go-to-market efforts.Register for the Business Applications and Modern Work FY26 GTM Kickoff Event
Join us on July 22, 2025, at 8:00 AM Pacific Time—or watch on demand after 12:00 PM Pacific Time—to learn about the exciting go-to-market (GTM) priorities and initiatives planned for FY26 across the Business Applications and Modern Work solution areas. This year’s event will cover the investments we’re making to help you grow your business and deliver customer engagements that bring the value of AI to life. The event will be more accessible than ever before, with closed captions available in 32 languages. Plus, you’ll be able to: Engage with Business Applications and Modern Work leadership to understand the strategic initiatives planned for FY26. Align your business strategies with Microsoft to maximize your potential for success in FY26. Stay informed about the latest developments and resources available to support your business growth. Register early to reserve your spot—and get the agenda, session details, and updates sent directly to your inbox. Can’t attend the live event? Register anyway to get notified when the event content is available on demand. Register here!
