For FY26, Microsoft is making its largest-ever financial commitment to customer success in the cloud. This isn’t about discounts; it’s a direct co-investment in the outcome of your projects.
Microsoft is boosting its investment in Azure partner programs by 70%, AI and Copilot solutions by 50%, and security initiatives by 15%. This funding is channelled through the new Azure Accelerate program, a single, simplified framework designed to make your cloud projects faster, cheaper, and significantly less risky.
The program consolidates previous initiatives like “Azure Migrate and Modernize” and “Azure Innovate” into one end-to-end offering. This simplification is part of a larger strategic shift at Microsoft, which is moving away from traditional Enterprise Agreements (EA) and focusing on its partner-led Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) model. Microsoft’s vision is for customers to choose a CSP who will lead the implementation and provide ongoing support, and by co-investing through Azure Accelerate, they are making this model more attractive than ever. No longer should customers buy Azure separately from migration, implementation, and support. The new approach combines these into a single relationship with a partner who helps build the business case, manages cloud costs, and is accountable for your ongoing success. Well, that is how we’ve read the tea leaves!
What This Means for Your Next Project
The program is designed to be accessed through expert partners like Codify, turning partner incentives into direct financial and technical benefits for your business.
For a Migration Project
Instead of manually planning a cloud migration, our team can deliver a complete, data-driven migration plan in record time and build out a migration strategy and timeline to get you to the cloud on your own terms. We go beyond the basics and build an evidence-based plan around your own applications and systems with consideration for your foundational Azure landing zone too. We can then leverage co-funding to turn your migration into reality. The result is a faster, more predictable, and lower-cost migration with dramatically reduced risk.
Here are the following Azure Accelerate offers you should be considering taking advantage of. You’re not limited to any one of these offerings; ideally you should be using them all to maximise the co-investment for your own migration. These investment amounts are all in Australian dollars and include taxes.
| Azure Accelerate: Migrate & Modernize Assessment and POV | $23,300 to $38,900 depending on the size of the project for Assessment of existing on-premises/AWS environment and building an Azure migration plan |
| Azure Accelerate: Migrate & Modernize XXS – L | Tiered partner investments based off the size of migration $3,100 (for migrations planned to consume $7,700 per annum) to $116,700 (for migrations planned to consume $389,000 per annum)
An extra 15% where customers also choose to implement Defender for Cloud with a migration to Secure Cloud |
| Azure Accelerate: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Migration XXS – L | Tiered partner investments based off the size of migration $3,100 (for migrations planned to consume $7,700 per annum) to $116,700 (for migrations planned to consume $389,000 per annum) |
| Azure Accelerate: Cloud Accelerate Factory Infrastructure Migration | Provides expert assistance at no cost to help partners rapidly and reliably migrate customer workloads to Azure by collaborating on infrastructure and database migrations |
For an Application Modernisation Project
Many organisations rely on legacy applications that are difficult to scale and slow to update. Modernising these to cloud-native Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a priority, but the complexity and cost can be prohibitive. The Azure Accelerate program can fund an initial assessment to map out a modernisation strategy, identifying the best path to move an application to services like Azure App Service or Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). The program then co-invests in the partner’s effort to refactor the application and establish a modern DevOps pipeline, embedding security into the development process from the start. The result is a scalable, secure, and agile application with lower operational overhead, allowing your teams to innovate faster.
| Azure Accelerate: AI Apps, Agents and Developer Assessment and POV | $23,300 to $38,900 depending on the size of the project for Assessment of existing enterprise applications and building an Azure migration plan |
| Azure Accelerate: Migrate & Modernize XXS – L | Tiered partner investments based off the size of migration $3,100 (for migrations planned to consume $7,700 per annum) to $116,700 (for migrations planned to consume $389,000 per annum)
An extra 15% where customers also choose to implement Defender for Cloud with a migration to Secure Cloud |
| Azure Accelerate: Cloud Accelerate Factory App & Database Migration | Provides expert assistance at no cost to help partners rapidly and reliably migrate customer workloads to Azure by collaborating on infrastructure and database migrations |
Offset Project Costs with Azure Credits
To further minimise financial barriers, the Azure Accelerate program provides a grant of free Azure credits to offset platform consumption costs during your project. This directly lowers the initial cash outlay required and improves the early-stage ROI. These credits are designed to be used in high-value scenarios, such as:
| Funding a Proof-of-Concept | Use the credits to create a free sandbox environment to pilot new solutions, like an AI agent or a modernised application, proving its value to stakeholders before a full-scale investment. |
| Covering Migration Costs | Offset the “bubble” costs incurred when running systems in both your on-premises environment and Azure during a migration project |
| Enabling Development and Testing | Pay for the non-production environments needed to refactor and test applications as you modernise them for cloud-native services. |
The Bottom Line
Microsoft is making a substantial co-investment to ensure its customers succeed in the cloud. The Azure Accelerate program provides significant funding and expert resources to make your projects faster, more successful, and more cost-effective.
The key to unlocking this value is working with a qualified Microsoft specialist partner who can navigate the program and build the business case on your behalf.
Don’t leave Microsoft’s investment on the table. Connect with our team for a no-obligation chat to explore your eligibility for the Azure Accelerate program.