HBSFUNDING INCENTIVES
Microsoft Funding FY 2026
Through Microsoft-funded programs, HBS helps clients accelerate projects with expert-led engagements—often at little to no cost.
Migrate & Modernize Presales (Assessment and POV)
Category: Azure
Description: In this engagement, partners will provide an end-to-end analysis and mapping of Customer’s IT infrastructure (both physical and virtual), taking into consideration customer plans, current deployment, usage, processes, and data. As part of this Assessment and proof of value (POV), partners will use Azure Migrate or Dr. Migrate to create an assessment report. Partners should use the following Microsoft guidance/tools in delivering the services: Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), Well-Architected Framework (WAF) and Azure Migrate.
Payout: $15,000 – $20,000
Customer Eligibility: Minimum $15k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Azure Migrate & Modernize
Category: Azure
Description: In this engagement, partners will provide expert guidance to execute a Core Migrate and/or Modernization project. It can include migrating any of the following workloads to Azure: Windows Server, Linux, SQL Server and open-source databases (Azure SQL, Azure PostgreSQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure MySQL and/ or modernization of existing applications to Azure. The partners are required to perform specific milestones in the project which should include the following activities: 1. Infrastructure/ Application Compatibility Assessment/Review 2. Landing Zone Setup or Review 3. Deployment of Migration/ Modernization activities including securing the Azure workloads.
Payout: $2,000 – $75,000
Customer Eligibility: Minimum $5k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Migrate & Modernize with Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Category: Azure
Description: In this engagement, partners will provide expert guidance to execute a Core Migrate and/or Modernization project. It can include migrating any of the following workloads to Azure: Windows Server, Linux, SQL Server and open-source databases (Azure SQL, Azure PostgreSQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure MySQL modernization of existing applications to Azure. It must include Defender for Cloud consumption as part of a secure migration/ modernization project. The additional incentive (15% extra funding when compared to standard Infra/DB engagements) is specifically for Core Migrate and Modernize engagement that includes Defender for Cloud Consumption.
Payout: $2,300 – $86,250
Customer Eligibility: Minimum $5k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption with $200+/year in MDC. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Data Platform PreSales (Assessment & POV)
Category: Azure
Description: In this engagement, partners will conduct an assessment & provide a proof of value (POV) for a customer’s Analytics project, demonstrating that Azure offers the right tools to integrate Azure Analytics. As part of this Assessment and POV engagement, partners will use Microsoft Fabric (incl. Power BI) and/or Azure Databricks to build and deploy the customer POV project. Partners will use Azure Migrate or Dr. Migrate to create an assessment report. Partners should use the following Microsoft guidance/tools in delivering the services: Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), Well-Architected Framework (WAF) and Azure Migrate.
Payout: $15,000 – $20,000
Customer Eligibility: $15k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Data Platform
Category: Azure
Description: In this engagement, partners will provide expert guidance to help with migrations and modernization of a customer’s data estate. The following post-sales patterns are supported: (i) migration and deployment services of on-premise or cloud data warehouse platforms (ii) new analytics use cases. Project should be deploying key analytics services inclusive of Microsoft Fabric (incl. Power BI) & Azure Databricks. The partners are required to perform specific milestones in the project through the following activities: 1. Landing zone setup or review 2. Deployment of Microsoft Fabric and/or Azure Databricks services.
Payout: $2,000 – $75,000
Customer Eligibility: $5k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
AI Apps, Agents & Developer Presales (Assessment & POV)
Category: Azure
Description: In this engagement, partners will deliver an Assessment and Proof of Value to build new AI-powered apps or modernize customer’s existing apps using Azure Application Platform, Managed Database and/or Azure AI services. Partners are required to perform specific milestones in the project through the following activities: 1. Identify one or few customer applications and define business needs for innovation for that app using Azure app, data, agents and AI services 2. Perform POV and assessment deployment of application(s) on Azure. 3. Based on the outcome of POV develop a comprehensive deployment plan and assessment. Partners will use Azure Migrate or Dr. Migrate to create an assessment report. Partners should use the following Microsoft guidance/tools in delivering the services: Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), Well-Architected Framework (WAF) and Azure Migrate.
Payout: $15,000 – $25,000
Customer Eligibility: $15k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
AI Apps, Agents and Developer
Category: Azure
Description: Azure offerings provides guidance, resources, and funding to drive consistent execution and customer experience, accelerating the demand, pipeline, and consumption of Azure AI and Developer services. The following workloads or their combinations are supported: Azure AI Foundry & Platform (Agents & Models), Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure App Service, Azure Open AI, Azure AI Services, Developer (GitHub Enterprise, GitHub Advanced Security, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Actions, GitHub Codespaces etc. The partners are required to perform specific milestones in the project through the following activities: 1. Landing zone setup or review 2. Deployment of new workloads listed above
Payout: $2,000 – $75,000
Customer Eligibility: $5k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Migrate and Modernize VMWare
Category: Azure
Description: Azure offerings help accelerate and simplify customer migration and modernization projects. In this engagement, partners will provide expert guidance to execute a migration of a customer’s VMware environment to Azure VMware Solution. Microsoft strongly recommends that the new Azure workloads should be setup in a secure manner. Secure Migrations can include any/all the following: Microsoft Defender for Cloud (or equivalent 3rd party security product), Azure networking security (including network security groups, secure VNet configurations, Azure Front Door with WAF policies, Azure Bastion and DDoS protection) & Azure Firewall Premium and configure firewall manager policies & alerts. The partners are required to perform specific milestones in the project which should include the following activities: 1. Application Compatibility Assessment/Review 2. Landing Zone Setup or Review 3. Deployment/Migration activities including securing the Azure workloads. Important: To maintain post-sales governance, partners must meet the t-shirt size target and ensure that at least 70% of the project’s planned ACR is specific to the AVS workload. For example, for an XXS engagement, $3.5K of ACR must come from AVS.
Payout: $3,000 – $175,000
Customer Eligibility: $5k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption with $3.5K+/year in AVS. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Migration
Category: Azure
Description: Azure offerings help accelerate and simplify customer migration and modernization projects. In this engagement, partners will provide expert guidance to migrate a customer’s Windows desktops and apps to Azure Virtual Desktop. Microsoft strongly recommends that the new Azure workloads should be setup in a secure manner. Secure Migrations can include any/all the following: Microsoft Defender for Cloud (or equivalent 3rd party security product), Azure networking security (including network security groups, secure VNet configurations, Azure Front Door with WAF policies, Azure Bastion and DDoS protection) & Azure Firewall Premium and configure firewall manager policies & alerts. The partners are required to perform specific milestones in the project which should include the following activities: 1. Application Compatibility Assessment/Review 2. Landing Zone Setup or Review 3. Deployment activities including securing the Azure workloads.
Payout: $2,000 – $75,000
Customer Eligibility: $5k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
SAP Migration
Category: Azure
Description: Azure offerings help accelerate and simplify customer migration and modernization projects. In this engagement, partners will provide expert guidance for Migrating a customer’s estate to any of the following: 1. SAP on Azure (Native), 2. SAP RISE or 3. SAP Grow. Partners are required to perform specific milestones in the project which may include any of the following activities: 1. Assessment/ Compatibility review 2. Migration or greenfield implementation of SAP RISE production environments (including ECC to RISE migration & Data migration) 3. Migration/ Code remediation & Integration/ Simplification of functions (where relevant) 4. Validation & testing and final production go-live
Payout: $3,000 – $175,000
Customer Eligibility: $5k+/year planned incremental Azure consumption or $15k+/year SAP RISE annual contract. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
ERP Envisioning Workshop
Category: Business Applications
Description: The ERP Envisioning Workshop is designed to assist customers with modernizing their on-premises ERP systems to Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management or Dynamics 365 Business Central. The goal of this workshop is to drive customer intent for modernizing to AI-powered ERP through an assessment phase and well-crafted vision of the customer’s future state with clear business outcomes and success metrics. You can deliver this workshop and be paid up to the approved value of the workshop. The funding provided by Microsoft is intended to be a coinvestment to help customers modernize and is not expected to cover the cost of all work required. This workshop is designed for customers that have an existing on premises ERP solution.
Payout: Lower of two calculations: 7.5% of D365 opportunity size or hours x $163/hour
Customer Eligibility: Minimum $50k/year in new, eligible Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain, or Business Central
CRM Envisioning Workshop
Category: Business Applications
Description: The CRM Envisioning Workshop helps customers transition to Dynamics 365, driving innovation, scalability, and growth beyond automation. The goal of this workshop is to build customer confidence and intent for migrating to Dynamics 365 through the creation of a well-crafted vision and strategy for AI-powered sales transformation. This workshop will enable partners to deliver on competitive CRM migrations. You can deliver this activity and be paid up to the approved value of the workshop. The funding provided by Microsoft is intended to be a co-investment to help customers migrate their CRM and is not expected to cover the cost of all the work required. This workshop is designed for customers that have a competitive CRM solution to Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Contact Center and/or Marketing.
Payout: Lower of two calculations: 7.5% of D365 opportunity size or hours x $163/hour
Customer Eligibility: Minimum $50k/year in new, eligible Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Contact Center, Marketing
Business Central Immersion Briefing
Category: Business Applications
Description: A 90-minute demand-generation customer event, led by the partner, and subsidized by Microsoft Incentives. The event is designed to drive customer interest and acquisition in Business Central and can be virtual or in-person. In this briefing, partners will introduce Business Central and showcase its unique value proposition to new prospective customers, making the product come to life with sizzle videos and click-through demos. Additionally, in the 90-minute session, the partner will take customers through an online, high-level business requirements questionnaire which provides customers with a quick product fit assessment and cost transparency – accelerating the qualification process for both customer and the partner
Payout: $2000 per event to HBS
Customer Eligibility: Customers with no Business Central licenses. Minimum 10 attendees per event with 1 attendee per customer tenant
Cloud Endpoints Envisioning & POC
Category: Modern Work
Description: The Cloud Endpoints Envisioning & PoC is designed for partners to demonstrate value, build customer intent, and accelerate opportunities with customers interested in migrating endpoints to the cloud with Windows 365 and Intune Suite. Approved activities include assessments to identify user personas and guide solution design decision making, solution overview presentations, consultative services, Windows 365 proofs of concept and pilots including environmental preparation, Microsoft Intune Suite proofs of concept and pilots including environmental preparation, business case creation for Windows 365 and Intune Suite, and solution adoption training for IT admins and end-users ahead of purchases.
Payout: $10,000 – $20,000
Customer Eligibility: 1000+ seats of Windows 11 Enterprise and Intune AND 40%+ Intune Usage. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Secure Productivity Envisioning & POC
Category: Modern Work
Description: The Secure Productivity Envisioning & PoC is designed for partners to demonstrate value, build customer intent, and accelerate opportunities with customers interested upgrading their current Office 365 users. Approved activities include security and compliance assessments, solution overview presentations, consultative services, proofs of concept and pilots focused on Microsoft 365 solutions including Entra ID, Intune, Defender for Endpoint, Windows 11 Enterprise, Purview etc. including environmental preparation, business case creation, and solution adoption training for IT admins and end-users ahead of purchases.
Payout: $7,500 – $30,000
Customer Eligibility: 500+ seats of Office 365 E1+E3 or 500+ seats of M365 Apps standalone AND [Intune seats / (Office 365 + Microsoft 365 seats)] < 50%. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
CSP Deployment Accelerator for M365 E3/E5
Category: Modern Work
Description: The CSP Deployment Accelerator for Microsoft 365 ME3/ME5 is a post-sale engagement that has been designed to partners partially offset costs they incur delivering services to deploy and drive adoption of new Microsoft 365 E3 and/or E5 seats purchased on CSP on annual term subscriptions. The engagement is modular, and partners can deliver services related to any of the eligible deployment and adoption activities based on the customer’s needs and be paid up to the approved value of the engagement. The funding provided by Microsoft is intended to be a co-investment to help customers to create a secure productivity foundation, so they are AI ready. This engagement is not expected to cover the cost of all deployment and adoption work required. Partners can also leverage this co-investment early on with eligible customers to help accelerate the sales process.
Payout: $8,000 – $38,000
Customer Eligibility: 300+ new M365 E3 or E5 through CSP. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Copilot + Power Platform Envisioning & POC
Category: Modern Work
Description: The Copilot+Power Envisioning & PoC engagement is designed for partners to deliver pre-sales activities that will progress Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, Agent, and/or Power Platform opportunities. Examples include: conducting a needs analysis, assessing the customer’s environment, developing a strategic roadmap for AI transformation, designing a solution blueprint, building a business case, and delivering a Proof of Concept. This engagement can be used by partners to achieve multiple outcomes: (1) purchase of new Microsoft 365 Copilot Seats, (2) increased usage of Copilot Chat (free & paid), (3) agent consumption, (4) purchase of new Power Platform licenses.
Payout: $5,000 – $25,000
Customer Eligibility: 500+ seats of Office 365 or Microsoft 365 including E3/E5/A3/A5/G3/G5. Criteria scale up for higher payouts.
Copilot + Power Platform Deployment Accelerator
Category: Modern Work
Description: The Copilot+Power Deployment Accelerator is designed for partners to deliver post-sales activities that progress deployment and adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, Agents, and/or Power Platform solutions. Examples include: technical deployment, implementing security and governance policies and controls, developing agent and/or Power Platform solutions, training users, and driving adoption and change management initiatives. This engagement can be used by partners to achieve multiple outcomes: (1) purchase of new Microsoft 365 Copilot Seats, (2) increased usage of Copilot Chat (free & paid), (3) agent consumption, (4) purchase of new Power Platform licenses.
Payout: $5,000 – $25,000
Customer Eligibility: 500+ seats of Office 365 or Microsoft 365 including E3/E5/A3/A5/G3/G5. Criteria scale up for higher payouts.
Copilot + Agents Immersion Briefing
Category: Modern Work
Description: The Copilot+Agents Immersion Briefing is designed for partners to demonstrate value, build customer intent, and accelerate opportunities. This immersion briefing allows partners to deliver a 1:Many event using a lab-based immersive experience to demonstrate the business value that customers can achieve by using Copilot, Copilot Chat, and Copilot Agents. Approved partners can access this lab at no added cost. At the end of this 90-minute briefing, customers will have tried a real-time demo of these tools.
Payout: $2000 per event to HBS
Customer Eligibility: Minimum of 100+ seats per customer Eligible SKUs: Microsoft 365 A1/A3/A5 (including MA3/MA5 for students, MA3/MA5 for faculty, and MA3/MA5 student-use benefit), Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Business Standard/Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3/E5, Microsoft 365 F1/F3, Microsoft Teams/Teams Enterprise/Teams Essentials/Teams Rooms, Office 365 A1/A1 Plus/A3/A5, Office 365 E1/E1 Plus/E3/E5, Office 365 F3 Minimum 10 customer tenants per event, maximum of 25 customer attendees. Non-profit and Public Sector will not count towards minimum customer requirement but may attend.
Threat Protection Immersion Briefing
Category: Security
Description: The Threat Protection Immersion Briefing is designed for partners to demonstrate value, build customer intent, and accelerate opportunities. This immersion briefing allows partners to deliver a 1:Many event using an immersive experience to demonstrate the business value that customers can achieve by using Microsoft E5 Security. At the end of this 90-minute briefing, customers will foundationally understand how these unified products works seamlessly to detect, prevent, and respond to threats in real time.
Payout: $2000 per event to HBS
Customer Eligibility: Minimum of 100+ seats per customer of Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3, and/or Office 365 E3+EMS E3. Minimum attendance by 5 unique customer organizations. EDU and non-profit eligible to attend but not counted toward minimum.
Data Security Immersion Briefing
Category: Security
Description: The Data Security Immersion Briefing is designed for partners to demonstrate value, build customer intent, and accelerate opportunities. This immersion briefing allows partners to deliver a 1:Many event using an immersive experience to demonstrate the business value that customers can achieve by using Microsoft E5 Compliance. At the end of this 90-minute briefing, customers will foundationally understand how these unified products works seamlessly to secure AI, reduce compliance risk, streamline investigations, and safeguard sensitive information across the entire organization.
Payout: $2000 per event to HBS
Customer Eligibility: Minimum of 100+ seats per customer of Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3, and/or Office 365 E3+EMS E3. Minimum attendance by 5 unique customer organizations. EDU and non-profit eligible to attend but not counted toward minimum.
Threat Protection Envisioning Workshop
Category: Security
Description: The Threat Protection Envisioning Workshop is designed to build customer intent for purchasing advanced Microsoft Security products, including but not limited to Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel. The engagement is expected to require about a three-day partner effort. The Threat Protection Envisioning Workshop is delivered in a customer’s production environment by discovering real security threats and vulnerabilities.
Payout: 8000
Customer Eligibility: 300-5,000 paid Entra ID Plan 1 AND 250+ monthly active users for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, or Teams Meetings
Modern SecOps Envisioning Workshop
Category: Security
Description: The Modern Security Operations Engagement is designed to build customer intent to purchase the Microsoft Sentinel and Unified SecOps Platform. The engagement is expected to require about a three to four-day partner effort. To complete the Modern Security Operations Engagement, partners must identify key security objectives, translate them into scoped modules, demonstrate the capabilities of Microsoft’s cloud-native security platform using Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender XDR, and Microsoft Entra ID, showcase integration and features, and provide recommendations for next steps.
Payout: 8000
Customer Eligibility: 300-5,000 paid Entra ID Plan 1 AND 250+ monthly active users for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, or Teams Meetings
Data Security Envisioning Workshop
Category: Security
Description: The Data Security Envisioning Workshop is designed to build customer intent to purchase Microsoft Purview solutions. By providing real data driven examples of data security and regulatory risks in their own environments combined with collaborative workshop sessions, the workshop helps partners create compelling ways for customers to remediate and prevent data security risks using Microsoft Purview (E5 Compliance) technologies.
Payout: 8000
Customer Eligibility: 300-5,000 paid Entra ID Plan 1 AND 250+ monthly active users for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, or Teams Meetings
CSP Deployment Accelerator for Mini Suites
Category: Security
Description: The CSP Deployment Accelerator for Microsoft ME5 Security and Compliance mini-suites is a post-sale program designed to support partners in deploying and driving adoption of these new mini-suite seats, which customers purchase on annual term subscriptions via CSP. This enables partners to select and deliver the specific deployment and adoption services that best meet their customer’s needs, with reimbursement available up to an approved value. Microsoft’s contribution acts as a co-investment, helping customers build a secure productivity foundation. While this funding is designed to offset a portion of the deployment and adoption efforts, it is not intended to cover the entire scope of work. Partners can also leverage this early-stage investment to accelerate the sales process with eligible customers.
Payout: $1,750 – $10,000
Customer Eligibility: 300+ new seats of M365 E5 Security and/or Compliance in a single transaction in same month through CSP; includes increasing seat count of existing subscription if not expiring within 6 months. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
Microsoft Sentinel Migrate and Modernize
Category: Security
Description: The Microsoft Sentinel Migration and Modernization helps accelerate and simplify customer migration and modernization projects to Microsoft Sentinel workload. In this engagement, partners will provide expert guidance to execute a Microsoft Sentinel migration project. It can include migrating from any competitors or on-prem solutions to Microsoft Sentinel or driving incremental Microsoft Sentinel consumption through existing or net new customers. The goal of the engagement is to generate Azure Consumption Revenue (ACR) related to Microsoft Sentinel. The engagement may also include the modernization of an existing Microsoft Sentinel deployment, in which case the goal is to increase existing ACR related to Microsoft Sentinel. Partner needs to deliver and deploy Microsoft Sentinel Migration and Modernization activities.
Payout: $35,000 – $50,000
Customer Eligibility: $125k+/year planned incremental Sentinel consumption. Criteria scale up for higher payout.
