A3 licensing question costs

[password1234]

Hi Guys

Few of our Infants/primary school are looking to move to A3 Licensing

 

Questions:

 

1) What price are some of you guys paying per license? Looking to get Windows defender Endpoint P1 as well which i guess is an extra small cost you have to pay?

 

2) Is it true that A3 Licenses are billed monthly for schools (One Supplier told us this?)

 

 

Thanks!

[fredesq]

Can't remember the individual cost per licence but I certainly know that it's not monthly only lol. Find yourself a CSP reseller and you'll get them annually through there

[Olliedawg]

Following this thread as i'm also looking at A3

[localzuk]

Which licensing scheme would you be buying under? EES, OVS-ES or CSP? EES and OVS-ES are yearly.

 

How many FTE EQU would you be buying of A3?

[Jonah]

Think we were quoted about £41 per EQU per year for M365 A3 when we moved to A5 and were comparing the two.

 

Edit: And about £79 for M365 A5 if that’s any use.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Jonah

[ConceroEdu_Brad]

M365 A3 Faculty Annual: MSRP - £63.60 PA

M365 A3 Faculty Monthly: MSRP - £5.30 PM

O365 A3 Faculty Annual: MSRP - £37.20 PA

O365 A3 Faculty Monthly: MSRP - £3.10 PM

M365 A5 Faculty Annual: MSRP - £118.80 PA

M365 A5 Faculty Monthly: MSRP - £9.90 PM

O365 A5 Faculty Annual: MSRP - £92.40 PA

O365 A5 Faculty Monthly: MSRP - £7.70 PM

There is a 40:1 ratio for Student Use Benefit for these licenses.

 

Defender for Endpoint P1 Annual: MSRP - £5.88 PA

Defender for Endpoint P1 Monthly: MSRP - £0.49 PM

Note that Defender for Endpoint P1/P2 is included in M365 A5 (but not for the student use benefit licenses)

 

All prices shown are CSP Microsoft Recommended Prices however you should expect discounts of between 5% and 20% depending on quantity purchased

 

Hope that helps

Edited June 26, 2023 by ConceroEdu_Brad

[Oaktech]

Our MAT negotiates directly with MS on our behalf because we're fairly large. We're being charged £45 per year for M365 Faculty for between 60 and 80 licenses billed yearly.

[Mr.Ben]

We are buying for the whole MAT here using the CHEST framework

 

£38.28 per A3 (Core CAL version)

£85.92 per A5 (Core CAL plus step up)

 

We also buy the security step up to A5 for our A3 users at £25.32 per user.

[mjhardisty]

Whats the justification for moving to A3? Are you a fully-cloud school? If not then you'll need to consider hybrid licencing for your on-prem services too.

 

https://m365maps.com/ gives you a breakdown of everything in A3 - EndPoint is included in the licence.

[password1234]

Whats the justification for moving to A3? Are you a fully-cloud school? If not then you'll need to consider hybrid licencing for your on-prem services too.

 

https://m365maps.com/ gives you a breakdown of everything in A3 - EndPoint is included in the licence.

 

Not Fully cloud hybrid at the moment, but for A3 ideally looking to use intune and also Defender (trying to cut costs from using other 3rd party applications) so the schools can just deal with less transactions

[mjhardisty]

It would be worth evaluating whether additional defender protection is required for students, given the device restrictions.

 

You could look at Enterprise and Mobility which might give better value for money than a full A3. EMS gives the required InTune licencing:

 

https://m365maps.com/files/EMS-E3.htm

 

I think student-use benefit is 1:15 for these.

 

You'll need to retain EES for your on-prem server/user CALS for your hybrid environment.

[InternetPlumber-48]

We recently switched to A3 and ended up saving around like £3000 per year.

 

I think the school is paying around £7500 for 150 A3 licences and we get student benefit licensing as well.

 

Idea for the change was to start on the Intune path. Can find out more details if necessary as I wasn't directly involved in most of this process.

[Edu-IT]

We are buying for the whole MAT here using the CHEST framework

 

£38.28 per A3 (Core CAL version)

£85.92 per A5 (Core CAL plus step up)

 

We also buy the security step up to A5 for our A3 users at £25.32 per user.

How do you access the CHEST framework? I searched for Microsoft on the website that came up but nothing relevant shows.

[CrootUK]

https://www.chest.ac.uk/agreements/microsoft-ees-education-qualified-user/

[Netwacky87]

https://www.chest.ac.uk/agreements/microsoft-ees-education-qualified-user/

 

We did this through SoftCat (not many of the other approved suppliers replied!!) Saved loads of £££!

[Mr.Ben]

Others have answered but it looks like the CHEST framework option has now ended - I suspect it will be back soon though.

[Mr.Ben]

We did this through SoftCat (not many of the other approved suppliers replied!!) Saved loads of £££!

We used Softcat too, although Phoenix did respond.

[Edu-IT]

Who do you deal with at Softcat? I might reach out to them.

[ITGuyNW]

I've just contact Phoenix about ours actually.

 

Currently on A1, most on prem, however need benefits of A3, so need to see what can be done.

[FragglePete]

We used Softcat also on our renewal back in October - mixture or A3 plus stuff for our on-prem bits and bobs. Moved us onto the Campus Agreement via JISC which reduced the price significantly from previous years.

 

Pete

[RLR]

How does intune licensing work with shared windows devices. Does A3 user licensing allow users to sign into a device that is setup as a shared device? We're not 1:1 but most things seem to be geared towards assigning a device to a user.

[Mr.Ben]

Our process is to set up Autopilot in self deploying mode, then the device isn't 'owned' by a user. Along with device based O365 licensing this gives a good shared device experience.

[RLR]

Our process is to set up Autopilot in self deploying mode, then the device isn't 'owned' by a user. Along with device based O365 licensing this gives a good shared device experience.

 

From reading, it seems like self deploying shared mode requires a Device license. It's not covered under the usual user A3 licensing. We are not 1:1 with windows devices so the majority of our devices will be shared but this would mean we'd need to purchase two lots of licensing and the device licensing seems to be very expensive.

 

Device-only licensesMicrosoft Intune offers a device-only subscription service that helps organizations manage devices that aren't affiliated with specific users.You can purchase device licenses based on your estimated usage. Microsoft Intune device licenses are applicable when a device is enrolled through any of the following methods:Windows Autopilot Self-Deploying modeApple Device Enrollment Program without user affinityApple School Manager without user affinityApple Configurator without user affinityAndroid Enterprise dedicatedUsing a device enrollment manager account

 

Edit:

 

So I've been doing some digging on this and there seems to be a lot of confusion. A lot of people are saying you need a device license as well as a user license if you are using self deploying shared mode.

But I have found this:

Devices enrolled without user affinity typically don't have any associated users. These devices need to have an Intune device license. If devices enrolled without user affinity will be used by an Intune-licensed user, a device license isn't needed.

To summarize, if a device has a user, the user needs to have an assigned Intune license. If the device doesn't have an Intune-licensed user, the device needs to have an Intune device license.

 

This suggests device licenses are not needed if the user signing into the device is Intune licensed via another method such as A1/A3.

Edited January 29, 2024 by RLR

[Mr.Ben]

That's how we interpreted it (that the user licence covers it) back in 2019 and we got Trustmarque to confirm (Trustmarque were Capita's licensing arm).