Microsoft is shaking up its partner program, and major changes are coming this fall. The company is raising the bar for resellers and distributors who want to maintain their status, while giving enterprise customers more wiggle room with their subscriptions. Starting in October 2025, these adjustments are part of Microsoft’s bigger push to leverage its partner network for small and mid-sized business market growth.
“As the market opportunity for small and medium enterprise customer segments grows, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners play a key role in capturing this opportunity, offering value-added services and trusted guidance that accelerate AI transformation,” states Microsoft. “To further our investment in partners who are delivering transformational impact for customers, we introduce updates designed to help you drive renewals and upgrades, retain customers, upsell, and scale your business.”
The enforcements and potential hurdles
Microsoft is tightening the screws on this one – notably more than tripling the revenue thresholds that direct bill partners need to hit, while also beginning to enforce actual revenue requirements for indirect resellers for the first time.
Starting on October 1, direct bill partners will see their revenue requirement shoot up from $300,000 to a hefty $1 million, while indirect resellers will face a new $1,000 revenue threshold that will be actively enforced. Distributors aren’t escaping the changes either, as they’ll need to hit $30 million per authorized region.
Beyond the money, direct bill partners face several new hurdles. They’ll need to maintain at least one “solutions partner” designation in areas like security or modern work, pass an annual operational assessment, and keep an active Advanced Support ($16,500/year minimum) or Premier Support plan. By 2027, they’ll also need a new “support services” designation.
There are, of course, new security updates and requirements as well.
Security requirements
The new guidelines also enforce standardized security requirements that all partners must address, including:
- All partners must maintain Partner Center security scores above 80 points
- MFA for admin roles (20 points)
- Designated security contact (20 points)
- MFA for customer tenant admin roles (20 points)
- Azure subscription spending budgets (10 points)
- 24-hour response to security alerts (10 points)
These changes will likely force some partners to reevaluate their relationship with Microsoft. It’s possible that not everyone will clear these new hurdles, potentially pushing some direct bill partners into the indirect reseller model instead.
Check out Microsoft’s May 2025 announcements to read more about the updates.
Read our interview with Samuel Ra, the senior solutions marketing manager at Microsoft-oriented solutions provider Trusted Tech, to learn more about the state of the channel for Microsoft partners and how AI adoption is fueling demand in other sectors.