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Microsoft Action Pack is no longer available for purchase or renewal. Microsoft ended sales and renewals of Microsoft Action Pack and Learning Action Pack on January 22, 2025. Partners with active subscriptions could continue using their benefits until the subscription’s expiration date, but they could not renew afterward.
Microsoft has shifted partners toward Partner Launch, Partner Success Core, Partner Success Expanded, Solutions Partner designations, and ISV Success. The right choice now depends on the licenses, Azure credits, support, and software-development benefits a business actually uses—not on the name of the old package.
What happened to Microsoft Action Pack?
The final day to buy or renew Microsoft Action Pack or Learning Action Pack was January 21, 2025. From January 22, 2025, Microsoft stopped selling or renewing those offers, along with legacy Silver and Gold benefits. Microsoft’s benefits FAQ and renewal guidance describe the transition.
This did not necessarily switch off every active Action Pack immediately. A subscription purchased by the deadline generally remained usable through its existing term. Once it expired, however, the partner could not renew it and needed to choose another package or buy commercial licenses directly.
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What Action Pack used to provide
Action Pack was an entry-level bundle intended to help partners learn, test, demonstrate, and develop Microsoft solutions. Depending on the historical edition and region, benefits could include internal-use rights for Microsoft 365, Azure credits, Dynamics, Visual Studio, Windows Server, SQL Server, and related products.
Those old product lists should not be treated as current entitlements. Microsoft has changed product editions, quantities, versions, and licensing terms. Partners should use the benefits displayed in Partner Center rather than relying on archived Action Pack screenshots or tables. See Microsoft’s membership overview and current benefits guide.
The transition timeline
- January 21, 2025: Last day to purchase or renew Action Pack and Learning Action Pack.
- January 22, 2025: Action Pack, Learning Action Pack, and legacy Silver and Gold benefits stopped being sold or renewed.
- September 30, 2025: The cited FY25 CSP incentive term for eligible legacy Silver and Gold partners ended.
- February 13, 2026: Microsoft’s FY26 benefits refresh took effect.
- July 2026: Microsoft expected most countries and regions to have moved to its modernized cloud-benefit redemption experience.
The 2026 refresh added or increased benefits in areas including Azure, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Defender, Entra, Intune, Teams Premium, Teams Rooms Pro, and Dragon Copilot. Microsoft also said program prices increased by approximately 1% to 3.5%, depending on the program. Details are in the February 2026 announcement.
What replaces Action Pack?
There is no single, identical replacement. Microsoft has created a tiered structure with different audiences, prices, license counts, and eligibility rules.
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| Offer | Best suited to | Current U.S. price signal | Examples of benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner Launch | New or very small partners | About $345–$350 annually | Five Microsoft 365 Business Premium users without Teams in applicable regions, five Teams Enterprise users, $700 in annual Azure Bulk Credits, one Visual Studio Enterprise IDE, and selected identity, security, Dynamics, Power Platform, Project, and Visio benefits. |
| Partner Success Core | Small and midsize cloud, AI, or security practices | About $895–$925 annually | Fifteen Microsoft 365 Business Premium users without Teams, 15 Teams Enterprise users, $2,400 in annual Azure Bulk Credits, eight Visual Studio Enterprise IDE users, 15 Entra ID P2 users, 15 Defender Suite users, support incidents, presales help, and advisory resources. |
| Partner Success Expanded | Established MSPs, consultancies, and larger services partners | $4,125 annually | Thirty-five Microsoft 365 Business Premium users without Teams, 35 Teams Enterprise users, 10 Microsoft 365 Copilot users, 15 Dragon Copilot users, Teams Premium, Teams Rooms Pro, Entra Suite, Intune Suite, Defender Suite, Azure credits, and broader support and advisory benefits. |
These are published U.S.-dollar signals, not universal prices. Microsoft pages show discrepancies for Launch and Core, and actual pricing can vary by country, currency, taxes, account, and page revision. The amount shown in the organization’s Partner Center account should control before purchase. See the individual Launch, Core, and Expanded pages.
Which package makes financial sense?
Partner Launch
Launch is the closest fit for a new partner that needs a modest set of internal-use licenses, basic Azure credits, and an entry point into Microsoft’s partner ecosystem. It is not an Action Pack replacement in the sense of preserving the old license volume or product catalogue.
It is likely a poor fit if the business needs many users, substantial technical support, server software, or extensive Copilot and security entitlements.
Partner Success Core
Core is the practical middle tier for a functioning cloud or AI practice that has outgrown a small starter package. The additional seats, Azure credits, presales and deployment assistance, support incidents, and advisory resources can justify the higher price when the business actively uses them.
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The financial risk is paying for capacity that remains unused. Compare the seats and services your team will consume with the cost of ordinary commercial subscriptions.
Partner Success Expanded
Expanded is aimed at larger services partners that can use dozens of licenses and benefit from Copilot, Teams Premium, identity, endpoint, security, Azure, and advisory resources. Its $4,125 U.S. annual price is materially higher than the historical Action Pack price of $475.
The package can be valuable for a sizeable internal team, but a solo consultant or very small firm may be better off with Launch, Core, or direct licensing. A high nominal retail value does not create savings if the included licenses and credits go unused.
Solutions Partner designations
Designations and specializations are for partners seeking Microsoft-recognized capability differentiation and designation-linked benefits. They are not paid substitutes for Action Pack: organizations must meet relevant performance, skilling, and customer-success requirements. Review Microsoft’s Solutions Partner FAQs separately.
ISV Success
Software companies building and commercializing applications should assess ISV Success rather than automatically choosing a services-partner package. Benefits may include Azure credits, GitHub Enterprise, Visual Studio Enterprise, developer subscriptions, technical consultations, and Marketplace-related support. Some advanced benefits require nomination, invitation, or a certified-software designation.
Is this simply a more expensive Action Pack?
Not exactly. Microsoft describes the change as a modernization of partner benefits around cloud, AI, security, and go-to-market capabilities. The commercial effect is a more segmented model: smaller partners receive fewer resources at a lower price, while larger packages provide more capacity at substantially higher prices.
That means the correct comparison is not “old Action Pack versus new Action Pack.” Compare:
- Annual price in your country and billing account.
- Exact product edition, including whether Teams is included.
- Number of seats and whether desktop applications are included.
- Azure credit amount and expiration rules.
- Copilot, security, identity, endpoint, and collaboration benefits.
- Technical support, advisory, marketing, and go-to-market resources.
- Eligibility requirements and whether the package contributes to any separate designation or incentive program.
Benefits packages do not automatically qualify a partner for Microsoft incentives. Solutions Partner designations, CSP participation, Commerce Incentives, and partner benefits have separate requirements.
Important licensing and redemption changes
A replacement offer may not preserve the same Microsoft 365 edition, seat count, server products, or software versions. Current tables distinguish, for example, Microsoft 365 Business Premium without Teams in applicable regions. Confirm geography, Teams inclusion, user limits, and permitted internal-use or development scenarios before assigning licenses.
Microsoft is also moving cloud-benefit activation away from older key-based workflows. Where the new process is available, the partner starts redemption in Partner Center, completes a $0 purchase flow in the Microsoft 365 administration or commerce experience, and associates the benefits with the Microsoft Customer Agreement billing account used for the partner-program purchase.
Benefits generally can be redeemed only for tenants under that billing account, not arbitrary customer or third-party tenants, and their expiration is aligned with the partner-package membership end date. Rollout is geography- and account-dependent, so interfaces may differ. Microsoft’s cloud-services guidance and March 2026 announcement provide the operational details.
Partner Center also does not provide a conventional prorated upgrade path. Plan for verification, provisioning time, possible overlap, and license reassignment rather than assuming an automatic upgrade.
Migration checklist for an expiring Action Pack
- Confirm the subscription expiration date in Partner Center.
- Export or document current license assignments, Azure credit usage, and business-critical workloads.
- Identify products that the new package may not include, including older server or developer entitlements.
- Compare the current Launch, Core, and Expanded benefits tables for your region.
- Check legal-entity verification, billing-account, tenant, and Partner Global account limitations.
- Check the actual price offered in Partner Center rather than relying only on a public overview page.
- Purchase early enough to allow account verification and provisioning.
- Redeem cloud benefits through the current Partner Center and $0 purchase flow where available.
- Reassign users and test Microsoft 365, Azure, security, collaboration, and developer workloads.
- Review designation and incentive eligibility separately; do not assume the package provides either automatically.
Should a company buy a partner package at all?
If a business needs only a few Microsoft 365 seats, direct subscriptions or CSP purchasing may be simpler and cheaper than buying a partner package. That route generally does not provide the same internal-use structure, Azure credits, advisory services, or partner go-to-market resources.
A Microsoft-focused consultancy, MSP, or software company should calculate total annual cost against actual usage. Include the value of licenses the team will genuinely assign, Azure credits it will consume before expiration, and support or advisory resources it will use. The cheapest package is not necessarily the best value, and the largest package is not automatically the most economical.
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