The Microsoft Partner Incentives program offers significant opportunities for partners to earn rewards by driving customer adoption and usage of Microsoft solutions. This guide will walk you through the essential aspects of the program, from understanding eligibility criteria to enrolling and maximizing your earnings. By carefully following the guidelines and maintaining accurate documentation, partners can strengthen their relationship with Microsoft while achieving their business goals.
Key Takeaways
Eligibility is Key: Each incentive program has unique requirements, including signed agreements, earned competencies, and revenue forecasts. Always refer to the specific program guide or the Partner Center's Incentives workspace to confirm your eligibility. To meet the requirements, all the unchecked areas should be completed.
Program Guides are Essential: Each program has a detailed guide that outlines eligibility, enrollment requirements, and earning opportunities. Be sure to read the program guide for each incentive you want to pursue.
Proper Enrollment is Crucial: Only the Incentive administrator can enroll in incentive programs. Invitations to enroll are sent to the Incentive administrator, and you can also enroll in the Partner Center. Complete your payout and tax profiles accurately to avoid delays. Enrollment is not complete until Microsoft validates the payout and tax profile.
Proof of Execution (POE) is Necessary: POE documentation provides evidence of partners' efforts to drive customer adoption and usage of Microsoft solutions. Ensure your POE includes active engagement, detailed activity descriptions, engagement timelines, user counts, and customer-specific solutions.
Understand Incentive Structures: Incentive amounts vary based on geographical markets (Markets A, B, and C) and may have maximum earning limits. Incentives are offered for various activities such as Microsoft Copilot adoption, Microsoft Sentinel migration, and Biz Apps Presales. CSP incentives are tied to billed revenue.
User Roles and Permissions: Understand the different roles within the incentives program to ensure your team is set up properly. Assign an incentive administrator to the Partner Center, as they are the only ones who can enroll in incentive programs.
Stay Informed: Regularly check the Incentives FAQ and Partner Center Online Help for updates and guidance. Use the Incentives workspace to track your enrollment status.
Maximize Earning Potential: Strategically align your activities with program objectives to optimize your earning potential.
Table of Contents
Microsoft Partner Center Incentives Eligibility
Each incentive program has its own unique eligibility criteria. To ensure you're eligible for Microsoft partner center incentives, you need to have the appropriate agreements signed, competencies earned, revenue forecasts, and other prerequisites completed.
You can find specific eligibility requirements in the program guide for each program.
You can also find eligibility requirements for certain programs on the Overview page of the Incentives workspace in Partner Center.
To view eligibility requirements, sign in to Partner Center and select Incentives. Then, choose the specific program, and in the Status field, select Eligibility requirements.
To meet eligibility, you will need to complete all the unchecked areas.
If you see an Inactive / Ineligible status for an incentive program, it may not be open for enrollment, or your partner status may not meet the requirements. If the status is Ineligible, you can select the See eligibility requirements link to understand what you need to do to meet them.
Steps to Enroll for Incentive Program
User Management
The first step is to assign an Incentive administrator to the Partner Center. The Global administrator or Account administrator needs to set up the company's users as Incentive administrators. The Global administrator can also set up users through the Microsoft Entra ID. Only the Incentive administrator can enroll in incentive programs.
Invitation
Once your organization is eligible, Microsoft sends an invitation to the Incentive administrator of the eligible LocationID. This email will have the subject Partner Incentive Enrollment Invitation. You can also find an invitation message on the Partner Center home page.
Enrollment
To begin the process, open the email invitation and select Get Started. You can also sign in to Partner Center, select Incentives, and then Enroll.
Payout and Tax Profile
Complete the payout and tax profile for the program. If you have a default bank profile set up for the same location, it will appear when you select Enroll. You will be shown any available tax profiles as well. If all details are complete, you can select Submit. If additional details are needed, you will be directed to the Payment and Tax profile page.
Completion
Enrollment is considered complete once Microsoft validates the payout and tax profile. This validation process may take up to 48 hours.
Enrollment Status
You can check the status of your enrollment on the Incentives workspace. The Status column shows the status of the enrollment, and the Action column will show any action required.
Enrollment Statuses
Possible statuses include Discontinued, Enrolled, Enrolling, Inactive / Ineligible, Invited, and Validating enrollment. If the status is Enrolling, this means the user isn't an Incentive administrator, or the enrollment is in the Action required or Validating enrollment states.
9 Essential Tips for Microsoft Partner Center Incentives
Before diving into the incentives program, consider these essentials to optimize your experience and prevent payout delays:
If you're not yet a partner, joining maicpp program is essential to take advantage of incentives and other benefits.
Read Incentives Program Guide
Each program has a detailed guide outlining eligibility and enrollment requirements, earning opportunities, and other program-specific information.
Learn About Roles and Permissions
Understand the different roles and permissions within the incentives program to assign appropriate roles to your team.
Gather Necessary Enrollment Information
Have all the required company information ready before you start the enrollment process.
Set Up Your Tax and Banking Profile
Inaccurate or incomplete tax and banking profiles are a common cause of payout delays. Make sure to complete this step before starting your incentive program.
Review the Incentives FAQ
Get answers to common questions and stay informed with updated information from Microsoft Support and other partners.
Confirm Your Program Eligibility
Ensure you have provided all necessary documentation and have met any required competencies.
Confirm Your Earnings Eligibility
Verify you have provided all required information to Microsoft.
Read the Partner Center Online Help
Access detailed procedures for all incentive-related tasks in the Incentives section of the Partner Center online help.
Proof of Execution (POE)
POE documentation provides evidence of partners' efforts to drive customer adoption and usage of Microsoft solutions. The specific requirements vary based on the incentive program.
Claims Requiring Partner of Record Association: Usage-based incentives or those tied to role-based access control require POE to validate the partner's association with the customer.
Examples include:
MCI Modern Work & Security Usage: Requires proof of influence on customer usage of Microsoft 365.
MCI Biz Apps Presales Advisor: Requires evidence of pre-sales activities that led to customer adoption of Business Applications.
Claims for Cooperative Marketing Funds (Co-op): Partners must document their marketing and demand generation activities to claim co-op funds.
Other Incentive Types: Microsoft might request POE at its discretion for incentives based on activities performed, access to customer environments, or engagements with public sector entities.
Constructing Strong POE
To maximize the likelihood of successful claims, partners should focus on creating strong POE documentation that includes:
Active Engagement: Clear demonstration of the partner's proactive involvement throughout the customer engagement.
Detailed Activity Descriptions: Comprehensive accounts of all tasks performed, timelines, and resources utilized.
Engagement Timelines: Well-defined start and end dates for engagements, including key milestones achieved.
User Counts: Specific details on the number of users engaged or impacted by the partner's activities, especially for user adoption-focused engagements.
Customer-Specific Solutions: Emphasis on how solutions were tailored to meet the customer's unique needs and overcome challenges.
Acceptable activities for POE documentation include
Deployment/Migration of customer workloads to Microsoft cloud solutions.
Remote guidance and support are provided to customers when utilizing Microsoft technologies.
Adoption and change management initiatives.
Pilot programs, planning and advisory services, and customer support.
Detailed Breakdown of Incentive Amounts
Copilot Adoption Accelerator: For driving customer adoption of Microsoft Copilot, partners can earn:
XLarge (Market A): $75,000
XLarge (Market B): $55,000
XLarge (Market C): $37,500
Large (Market A): $50,000
Large (Market B): $37,500
Large (Market C): $25,000
Copilot Evaluation Accelerator: For facilitating customer evaluation of Microsoft Copilot:
Medium (Market A): $25,000
Medium (Market B): $20,000
Medium (Market C): $15,000
Small (Market A): $15,000
Small (Market B): $11,500
Small (Market C): $7,500
CSP Microsoft 365 E5 Adoption Accelerator:
$12,750 (Market A), $9,750 (Market B), and $8,750 (Market C) for driving the adoption of Microsoft 365 E5.
Teams Phone Pilot:
$20,000 (Market A), $15,000 (Market B), and $10,000 (Market C) for assisting with Teams Phone pilot implementations.
Threat Protection
$6,500 (Market A), $4,000 (Market B), and $1,500 (Market C) for encouraging customer adoption of security workloads.
Microsoft Sentinel Migrate and Modernize
For supporting customer migration to Microsoft Sentinel:
Medium: $35,000 (Market A), $28,000 (Market B), $21,000 (Market C)
Large: $50,000 (Market A), $40,000 (Market B), $30,000 (Market C)
Azure Migrate & Modernize Partner-led Engagements
Fixed payments based on project size, with varying amounts for Solution Assessment for Rapid Migration, Migrating to Azure VMware Solution, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, SAP Migration, and Migration to SAP RISE in Azure. Refer to the AMM Engagement Payout page for country-specific details.
Azure Innovate Partner-led Engagements
Fixed payments, again based on project size, for engagements like Accelerate Developer Productivity Deployment, ISV Build & Modernize AI Apps Proof of Value, Azure AI Platform Proof of Value, and Azure AI Platform Deployment. Specific amounts are detailed on the Azure Innovate Engagement Payout page.
Business Applications Incentives
Biz Apps Presales Advisor Incentives
Fixed dollar amounts per incremental seat for various workloads, with differentiated rates for enterprise (ENT) and small and medium-sized customers (SMC). Examples include:
Sales & Service: $20 (ENT), $80 (SMC)
Finance & Supply Chain: $175 (ENT), $350 (SMC)
Low Code: $5 (ENT and SMC)
Activity & Devices: $75 (ENT), $175 (SMC)
CSP Incentives
Microsoft 365 new commerce CSP
Incentives are based on billed revenue, with percentage rates varying for core, strategic accelerators, and customer adds. Specific details and maximum earning opportunities are outlined in the sources.
Dynamics 365 new commerce CSP
Similar to Microsoft 365, incentives are tied to billed revenue, with differentiated percentages for core, strategic accelerators, and customer adds. Refer to the sources for detailed information.
Important Considerations
Market Segmentation
Incentive amounts often differ based on geographical regions, typically categorized as Market A, Market B, and Market C. The sources provide detailed lists of countries within each market segment.
Maximum Earning Opportunities: Many incentive programs have maximum earning limits (caps) that partners can reach within a given period. Once a cap is reached, further earnings might be halted until the next incentive year.
Conclusion
Navigating the intricacies of Microsoft's partner incentive programs requires a thorough understanding of eligibility criteria, POE procedures, and the specific incentive structures for each program. By diligently adhering to the guidelines, maintaining accurate documentation, and strategically aligning activities with program objectives, partners can optimize their earning potential while driving customer success and solidifying their partnership with Microsoft.
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