The Microsoft 365 E7 promotional pricing offer was originally expected to run until 31 December 2026. Microsoft has now brought that date forward. The promotion retires on **30 September 2026**, three months earlier than originally communicated, and it’s tied to a much bigger change in how Microsoft pays its partners, not just a routine promo expiry.
Here’s what’s changing, why we think it’s happening now, and why we’re not telling everyone to rush out and buy before the deadline.
## What’s Changing
Microsoft’s official guidance is direct: *”Eligible Microsoft 365 E7 promotional purchases remain available through September 30, 2026. If you have active Microsoft 365 E7 opportunities in your pipeline, prioritise those transactions before these promotions retire.”*
The M365 E7 offers retiring:
- 10% discount on a 1-year commit, minimum 10 seats
- 15% discount on a 1-year commit, minimum 100 seats
- 15% discount on a 3-year commit, minimum 300 seats
A few points worth flagging:
- **New promotional transactions won’t be available from 1 October 2026.** After that date, E7 is purchased at standard list pricing.
- **Existing subscriptions are unaffected** Anything purchased before the retirement date continues under its contracted terms for the life of that term.
- **The 3-year term still carries a minimum commitment of 300 licences**, so this isn’t a decision to make purely on the promotion’s timing, it’s a multi-year, volume-based commitment either way.
## Why Has Microsoft Moved the Date Forward?
This is the part that makes it different from a normal promo expiry. Microsoft’s own announcement links the retirement directly to a new partner incentive model called **Growth Margins**, which launches on 1 October 2026. In Microsoft’s words, the E7 promotion is retiring “as Microsoft evolves partner investments toward growth margin, expanding beyond promotional transactions to sustain customer growth over time.”
Growth Margins is not a customer discount. It’s **partner-earned margin**, extra margin a reseller earns on top of standard margin when a deal meets specific criteria: a customer new to the product (“new-to-offer”), a genuine seat expansion, or adoption of strategic product bundles (E5, E7 and Copilot sit at the top of this structure). Growth Margins provide additional partner economics on qualifying transactions beyond standard pricing arrangements. The exact economic treatment varies by partner model and transaction type.
This sits inside a wider overhaul of how Microsoft pays its CSP partners for FY27: the flat rebate partners used to earn on every Modern Work seat regardless of growth is being retired, replaced by growth-linked accelerators, and Microsoft has also announced reduced partner economics on certain legacy and standalone products from October 2026. Put simply, Microsoft is shifting the incentive away from ‘discount the customer to win the deal’ and toward ‘reward the partner for driving genuine growth.’
## Will Microsoft Extend It, Like It Did With E5?
This is the big question; Microsoft has a track record of rolling promotional deadlines forward. The Microsoft 365 E5 promotion alone has been extended repeatedly:
- Deadline of 30 June 2025: Extended to 30 September 2025
- Then extended to 31 December 2025
- Extended again to 30 June 2026
So, there’s real precedent for Microsoft quietly pushing a Modern Work promo out by three months at a time when partner pipeline pressure builds.
Our read, and we could be wrong, is that E7 is a different situation, and here’s why: every one of those E5 extensions was a straightforward continuation of the same customer discount, with nothing else changing underneath it. The E7 retirement is explicitly bundled with the launch of a new, structural partner economics model on the same date. Extending the E7 promotion would work against the transition Microsoft says it’s making. We’d treat a full extension of the customer discount as unlikely.
That said, there’s a genuine execution risk worth watching as of the most recent Partner Center update, Growth Margins was still only available in a sandbox environment, with production availability still pending. If the tooling isn’t fully live for partners by 1 October, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a short technical extension to bridge the gap, but that would be about giving the new mechanism time to work properly, not about reviving the old promotion.
## What’s Behind the Mixed Messages You May Be Hearing
We’ve seen some Microsoft account teams encouraging organisations to evaluate E7 before the promotion ends, while some resellers have taken a more cautious approach. Both are rational, and it comes down to whose economics are affected:
- A **Microsoft Account Manager** encouraging customers to consider E7 before 30 September may naturally focus on the fact that an existing customer discount is coming to an end.
- A **reseller** being more cautious isn’t necessarily bearish on E7 itself. Growth Margins is still bedding in, and because it’s partner-earned rather than customer-facing, a reseller weighing up a large step-up may reasonably want to see the new margin mechanics working in production, and confirm exactly which deals qualify, before recommending a long-term commitment purely to catch a discount that’s about to expire.
## A Margin Point Worth Knowing Before You Step Up
There’s a second, quieter effect of this change that’s worth flagging directly to our clients considering a step-up, from E5 to E7, or from any lower tier onto a strategic bundle.
Under Growth Margins, a step-up like E5 to E7 is exactly the kind of transaction designed to earn a reseller more: it may qualify as ‘new-to-offer’ for E7 itself, subject to Microsoft’s eligibility criteria and the customer’s licensing history, and potentially as strategic product adoption on top of that. That’s additional margin earned by the reseller, on top of their standard margin, and it’s **partner-side economics, not a customer-facing discount**. It doesn’t automatically show up as a lower price on your invoice, and there’s no requirement for a reseller to pass any of it on.
That doesn’t make it improper, resellers are entitled to be paid for the work of managing a licensing step-up. But it does mean two organisations stepping up to E7 with two different resellers could receive different commercial proposals from different resellers depending on how those partners choose to structure and share available margins for the same licence, purely because one reseller is passing through more of that additional margin than the other. Before now, with a flat customer promotion doing most of the work, the pricing gap between resellers on a like-for-like deal was often smaller.
**Our advice: when you’re considering a step-up like this, get a comparative quote from at least one alternative reseller before committing** It costs nothing, and knowing the underlying margin economics have shifted in the reseller’s favour on exactly this type of transaction is a good reason to check you’re getting a fair share of it. As an independent advisor, this is something we can help benchmark for you.
## Should You Rush to Buy Before 30 September?
We’re not advising every organisation considering E7 to rush to purchase before the deadline, and we’d caution against treating the date as the main decision driver. A few things to weigh up first:
- The 3-year term requires a minimum of 300 licences, a significant, multi-year commitment that should be assessed on its own merits, not fast-tracked to catch a discount.
- If you’re not yet ready to commit at that scale, standard E7 pricing from 1 October isn’t a cliff edge, it’s simply the removal of a time-limited discount.
- If you are already considering the E7 and the numbers work for your organisation regardless of the promotion, there’s a genuine case for prioritising that transaction before the window closes.
## Recommended Next Steps
- Don’t let the deadline alone drive a 3-year, 300+ seat commitment, get the business case and licensing fit checked independently first.
- Get a comparative quote from at least one alternative reseller before agreeing a step-up price, the margin a reseller earns on a step-up like E5 to E7 has increased, and that’s not always reflected in what’s offered to you. We have seen significant variation in reseller pricing during previous Microsoft step-up campaigns, which reinforces the value of obtaining comparative quotes.
- If you’ve already purchased under the promotion, no action is needed, your terms are protected for the life of the subscription.
**Need help working out whether E7 is the right fit, and whether it’s worth acting before the deadline?** As an independent licensing advisor, The SAM Club isn’t tied to Microsoft’s sales targets or any reseller, we’re here to make sure any decision is right for your organisation, not just timed to a promotion. Contact us if you would like to discuss this further.
*This article reflects Microsoft Partner Center announcements as of August and September 2026. Details of the Growth Margins program may continue to evolve ahead of its 1 October 2026 launch; we’ll update clients as more becomes clear.*