SPLA Price Increases for 2019

Microsoft SPLA Price Increases

Good Afternoon Digital Edge Customers,

We are writing to you today to inform you of changes to monthly Microsoft licenses. (The Microsoft Service Provider Licensing Agreement, or SPLA, is designed to provide customers hosted software services including web services, database services and applications.)

We received communication from Microsoft regarding the expected price changes for January 2019. Please see the information below. Once we have official set dollar amounts we will communicate that information as well. Please let me know if you have any questions! We want to make sure you have this information as soon as possible to give you as much time as possible to plan for these changes.

Programs Impacted – Corporate

Effective January 1, 2019 prices for the following products will increase:

• By 10% for Windows Server Standard Core
• By 15% for Windows Remote Desktop Services SAL

For more information regarding these changes, or to speak with the Digital Edge team, please contact us today!

Updated November 2026: the original post is kept above; the sections below add context for readers today.

What to do when license prices rise

Price notices like this one arrive every year or two, so it pays to have a routine. Licensing in hosted and cloud environments has also become more complex since 2019, and the best option now depends on where each workload runs.

• Keep an accurate monthly count of Windows Server cores and Remote Desktop users.
• Remove servers and accounts nobody uses before the new prices start.
• Consider consolidating SQL Server instances to reduce core licenses.
• Compare hosting licenses with Microsoft Azure or license-included options on other clouds.

Ask Digital Edge for a licensing review as part of CloudOps.

Price changes are also a good moment to check whether older servers can be retired or moved to newer versions, which often need fewer licenses for the same work.