# Same Azure. Lower bill.

Is your Enterprise Agreement ending, or do you pay for Azure by credit card? Answer three questions and see what you save, which route suits you and how Intercept handles the switch for you.

Updated: 17 October 2026. Publisher: Intercept BV, the Netherlands. Page: https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/

## The invoice check

At https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/ you answer three questions: how you buy Azure now (Enterprise Agreement direct or via a licensing partner, credit card, MCA or another CSP), your Azure usage per month and, for an EA, the end date. You then see your route, your indicative saving, a plan with dates and a checklist for your situation.

Example: Direct Enterprise Agreement with €20,000 Azure usage per month. Route: Administrative migration. Intercept carries out an administrative migration: only the billing moves. Microsoft grants this permission only to partners approved for it; Intercept is an Azure Expert MSP and has done this since 2020. You will not notice a thing: your resources keep running without interruption, subscription and resource IDs stay the same and existing permissions remain in place. Usage up to the transfer appears on your old invoice, usage after it on Intercept's. Indicative discount 9%, which is €1,800 per month and €21,600 per year.

This is how the check determines the route:

| How you buy Azure now | Route to CSP |
| --- | --- |
| Direct Enterprise Agreement | Administrative migration, no downtime |
| MCA-E (via Microsoft) | Administrative migration, no downtime |
| Another CSP partner | Switch between partners in Partner Center |
| Indirect Enterprise Agreement (via a licensing partner) | Technical migration within your tenant, by Intercept |
| Credit card or pay-as-you-go | Technical migration within your tenant, by Intercept |
| MCA signed online | Technical migration within your tenant, by Intercept |

AI assistants can produce the same calculation and plan through the MCP server at https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/api/mcp (tools: estimate_azure_savings, plan_csp_transition, lookup_facts, create_request_link).

## Your plan (example)

Enter the end date of your EA and we count back from that date. Below is a plan starting today.

1. **Technical check** (Week 1): Subscriptions, reservations, savings plans, Marketplace and tenants. The list is usually short.
2. **Calculation and advice** (Week 2): Based on your actual usage, with MCA-E alongside. You decide.
3. **Approval and preparation** (Week 3): We get everything ready. You only need to accept the partner relationship and the Microsoft Customer Agreement.
4. **Transfer** (Week 4): Just before the transfer, we work with you to save a copy of your cost history and invoices. Your administrator approves the transfer in the Azure portal, and from then on Intercept bills you.

Checklist for this example:

- Cost and usage data and invoices do not move with the transfer. Just before the transfer, we save a copy of them together with you. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure product billing ownership to your Microsoft Partner Agreement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/mpa-request-ownership) (version 21 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Your organisation accepts the Microsoft Customer Agreement and we set up an Azure plan. This is a requirement for the transfer. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure product billing ownership to your Microsoft Partner Agreement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/mpa-request-ownership) (version 21 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Your Microsoft support plan does not move with the transfer. After that, Intercept is your point of contact for support. We agree with you when to cancel the old plan. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure product billing ownership to your Microsoft Partner Agreement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/mpa-request-ownership) (version 21 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Quota increases move with you. If you never had an increase, the CSP default applies; we request extra quota in advance. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure subscriptions between subscribers and CSPs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/transfer-subscriptions-subscribers-csp) (version 17 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Do you use the Cost Management connector in Power BI? It stops working after the transfer. We set up another source in advance, such as exports from Cost Management. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure product billing ownership to your Microsoft Partner Agreement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/mpa-request-ownership) (version 21 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).

## What Microsoft says

With a transfer from a direct EA or MCA-E, your resources, IDs and permissions stay as they are. That is what Microsoft's documentation says.

- When a direct EA or MCA-E is transferred to CSP, Azure services keep running without interruption. Only the billing relationship changes. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure product billing ownership to your Microsoft Partner Agreement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/mpa-request-ownership) (version 21 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Subscription IDs and resource IDs stay the same during the transfer. All resources, such as virtual machines, disks and websites, move with it. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure product billing ownership to your Microsoft Partner Agreement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/mpa-request-ownership) (version 21 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Existing access permissions and Azure RBAC assignments stay intact during the transfer. The partner does not automatically get access to the environment. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure product billing ownership to your Microsoft Partner Agreement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/mpa-request-ownership) (version 21 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Previously applied quota increases move to the CSP subscription. Without an earlier increase, the default CSP limit applies. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Transfer Azure subscriptions between subscribers and CSPs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/transfer-subscriptions-subscribers-csp) (version 17 August 2026, accessed 17 October 2026).

In a technical migration, your resources move to new CSP subscriptions in your own tenant. This is what Microsoft says about it; Intercept does the work involved.

- Resources can only be migrated between subscriptions when both subscriptions are in the same Microsoft Entra tenant. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Move Azure resources to a new resource group or subscription](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/management/move-resource-group-and-subscription) (version 29 July 2025, accessed 17 October 2026).
- During a migration, the source and target resource groups are locked for changes for up to four hours. Existing resources keep working. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Move Azure resources to a new resource group or subscription](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/management/move-resource-group-and-subscription) (version 29 July 2025, accessed 17 October 2026).
- A migration changes the resource ID. Scripts, templates and dashboards that use the ID must be updated. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Move Azure resources to a new resource group or subscription](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/management/move-resource-group-and-subscription) (version 29 July 2025, accessed 17 October 2026).
- Role assignments on a migrated resource do not move with it and must be recreated after the migration. Source: [Microsoft Learn: Move Azure resources to a new resource group or subscription](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/management/move-resource-group-and-subscription) (version 29 July 2025, accessed 17 October 2026).

[What stays and what changes](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/what-changes/)

## Finally, everything in one tenant

Acquisitions, test environments or old arrangements often leave Azure spread across multiple tenants, each with its own management and sometimes its own invoice. Intercept specialises in merging them.

- **Everything in one place** (One tenant): Identities, permissions and policies in one tenant. We record role assignments in advance and restore them afterwards.
- **One monthly invoice** (One invoice): All subscriptions on one invoice from Intercept, with the costs per subscription in the customer portal.
- **One agreement** (One contract): One CSP contract and one point of contact, instead of separate arrangements per tenant.

Microsoft itself mentions consolidating into one tenant as an alternative to a separate transfer for each tenant. [How that works](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/questions/#vraag-tenants)

## Room for AI, control over your costs

AI brings new opportunities and new cost items: models in Microsoft Foundry, data in Microsoft Fabric and Copilot in Microsoft 365. Intercept specialises in Azure costs and helps you keep your cloud and AI costs under control. So your budget goes to innovation instead of waste.

- **Microsoft Foundry** (AI models): You pay for models per token or as fixed capacity. Together we choose what fits your usage, and we monitor consumption per application.
- **Microsoft Fabric** (Data): You can scale Fabric capacity up and down, and pause it when you are not using it. We match the capacity to your actual usage.
- **Microsoft 365 and Copilot** (Workplace): Copilot licences pay off most for the people who actually use them. We help you match your licences to usage.
- **Everything in one place** (Overview): Azure, AI and data costs per resource in the customer portal, with budgets and alerts. You see an increase before it shows up on your invoice.

[More about FinOps at Intercept](https://intercept.cloud/en-gb/solutions/finops)

## Customer story

TrueLime runs 90% of its solutions on Azure. When Microsoft phased out TrueLime's EA, the company asked three parties for a proposal. TrueLime chose Intercept for the flexibility of monthly contracts, and because Intercept is an Azure Expert MSP. Since 2022, TrueLime has offered its own customers 24/7 hosting support through Intercept. (Hans van der Linden, CTO, and Bram den Boer, Azure specialist at TrueLime.) Source: [Intercept: klantverhaal TrueLime](https://intercept.cloud/en-gb/our-customers/truelime) (accessed 17 October 2026).

- Azure Expert MSP: One of only a few worldwide
- 70+: Azure specialists
- 3+: Microsoft Azure MVPs
- 200+: SaaS companies as customers
- 1,000+: organisations helped
- Since 2020: EA switches to CSP

Intercept customers include AIMMS, Mavim, Kruitbosch, CSD, Enovation, TrueLime.

## Every fact with a date and a source

- **Your EA is ending**: What has changed since 2025, three routes side by side and a plan from your end date. [Read more](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/ea-ending/)
- **From credit card to invoice**: What Microsoft requires, and how it works through CSP, with a discount and an invoice from Intercept. [Read more](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/credit-card-to-invoice/)
- **Azure discount**: The discount tiers with worked examples, and what you can save on top. [Read more](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/azure-discount/)
- **What changes**: What stays, what does not move automatically and what Intercept arranges in advance. According to Microsoft Learn. [Read more](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/what-changes/)
- **For Microsoft partners**: Your customer to CSP, we do the migration. At a fixed price. [Read more](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/for-partners/)
- **All questions**: Short, honest answers, also when they do not work in our favour. [Read more](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/questions/)

**Prefer your real numbers?** Send your situation and your latest Azure invoice. Within two working days of sending your invoice, you have a calculation based on your actual usage, with the alternatives alongside. [Request a calculation](https://interceptazure.uitkomst.ai/en/request/)