The Westcoast Cloud Team
January 30, 2023

Missing your legacy CSP rebates? We got this!

The end of legacy CSP rebates is here and it will probably have implications for your business. But it doesn’t mean the end of rebates altogether. Here, we’ll explain some of the key things you need to know – plus the action you need to take. 

While most of us were looking forward to celebrating the New Year, on 31 December, Microsoft shut the door on rebates from commercial licence agreements on legacy CSP contracts. There are some important details to beware of that might soften the impact of this change, and maybe even help you to see it in a positive light. 

Let’s start with what might be the single most important fact that you need to know. If you have customers on CSP and there’s a like-for-like equivalent under new commerce experience (NCE), you won’t be getting rebates for them. 

That means you need to move your customers over to NCE. Naturally, you want to look at making that change at the earliest opportunity. And here’s why: 

Incentives Basic Standard Premium
Staying on Legacy loss 4% 4% 4% core
5% accelerator
Moving to NCE gain 4% 4% 4% core
5% accelerator
Please be aware that whilst Office 365, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform do earn incentives the % amounts differ.

So you’ll be losing 4% rebate from anything still on legacy CSP agreements. Switch to NCE and ta-da… it comes back.

Now, let’s take half a step backwards and look again at some of the important wording relating to the change from CSP to NCE that you need to consider before you make the leap. First there is the reference to ‘commercial licences’ and then there is the ‘like-for-like’ equivalent. These are both significant pieces of information because customers in the public sector, charities or education are not affected. There are no NCE equivalents, and you won’t lose your rebates by keeping them on CSP.

The key takeaway here is that if you have any hopes of continuing to earn rebates, you must be enrolled in the Microsoft Commerce Incentives (MCI) programme, and you must start transacting via NCE.

You might be wondering whether your customers are covered by NCE or are still under legacy CSP. That’s ok. If you’re unsure, the last thing you should be doing right now is hesitating. Get on to your Westcoast Cloud partner engagement manager, and they’ll be happy to support you.

Helping you make sense of the cloud so that you can grow a heathy business is just one of the things we’re here for. But it might be the one we enjoy most.

Recapping what you need to do next, perhaps the most important first step is making absolutely certain that you don’t have any customers left languishing on legacy CSP that ought to be on NCE. So, get in touch and we’ll help you verify that.

After that, we can help you migrate any eligible customers so you can retain your rebates. If you don’t need to migrate anyone, we’ll be delighted to have cleared that up for you.

Don’t hang about though. You might be losing money.

For more information on this topic check out our NCE hub: Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience (NCE) – Westcoast Cloud