Software Assurance includes an extensive set of technologies, services, rights, and benefits to help you and your organization get the most out of your investments in IT.

You make significant investments in IT, and Software Assurance from Microsoft helps you take fullest advantage of the value your investments can bring. Save time and money with the right tools, resources, and support to help unlock the full potential of your investments in Microsoft technologies. Software Assurance spans a broad range of Microsoft software and services, including Azure, Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365, System Center, SQL Server, and many others. When combined with the technologies you support every day, the wide-ranging set of benefits can help your organization take full advantage of your Microsoft investments.

Software Assurance benefits are used in a variety of ways across organizations and industries. With Software Assurance, you get the tools and resources you need to do more with the IT investments you plan to make as well as those you’ve already made. New version rights, license mobility, and home use rights are popular benefits, but Software Assurance doesn’t stop there. You get a broad range of benefits that help you make the most of your software and online services subscriptions. Unique technologies, services, and rights help you deploy, manage, and use Microsoft products efficiently. And specialized benefits—such as the option to spread out payments over time and Step-up licenses—can help you save time and money.

The Software Assurance benefits interactive chart (PDF, 768 KB) provides an overview of Software Assurance benefits as well as basic eligibility information. Here are just some of the ways you can get the most from your Software Assurance benefits.

Budget and plan

Software Assurance helps your organization spend less and do more. Employees need to use a variety of organization-owned and personal devices to work effectively in the office, from home, and on the road. Your organization gets flexible licensing rights and use options to best support office and mobile workers on a broad range of devices.

• The Microsoft Home Use Program gives both employees and organizations exceptional value, providing an economical means for employees to use the same productivity tools at home that they use at work.
• With New Version Rights, you can upgrade each Microsoft product license that is covered by active Software Assurance to the most recent version for no additional cost.
• With Spread Payments, you spread the costs of your License and Software Assurance purchase across three equal, annual sums, helping you calculate your technology budget up to three years in advance.
• Step-up licensing lets you migrate your software from a lower-level edition to a higher-level edition, such as Office Standard to Office Professional Plus, at a low cost.

Manage and support

Software Assurance can help with developing and applying organization-wide policies to help keep software configurations up to date, secure, and configured to best support your IT environment. You also get greater control of the tools that your employees are using, which means less downtime for the organization.

• 24×7 Problem Resolution Support provides as-needed phone and web incident support for Microsoft desktop and server products via a direct connection to Microsoft to maximize uptime and lower support costs. Note that the 24×7 support offer is available until February 2023.
• Disaster recovery for SQL Server and Windows Server gives you the tools to protect your systems and support critical business functions should your primary data infrastructure get corrupted or deleted.
• Failover rights gives you rights to use a passive instance of SQL Server and Windows Server on systems used for passive fail-over under certain conditions.
• The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack is a dynamic desktop solution that helps you personalize the user experience, simplify application deployment, improve application compatibility with Windows, and manage and secure your devices. Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack is available to customers with Windows licenses with Software Assurance coverage until April 2026.
• Office Roaming Use Rights allows users to remotely access Office, Project, or Visio on their virtual desktops from third-party devices.
• Windows To Go Use Rights provides a fully manageable corporate desktop running Windows 10 Enterprise edition on a bootable USB stick that can be run on any licensed device or by any licensed user.