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Licensing · 11 September 2026 · 7 min read
The same Windows Server licence is not the same price both ways, and the difference is not what most resellers say. With the numbers from both price lists, and the four cases where each wins.
Two ways to buy the same Microsoft software from the same partner. Cloud Solution Provider is the subscription channel: monthly or annual, invoiced by the reseller, and since 2023 it also sells one-payment perpetual licences for Windows Server, SQL Server and Office. Open Value is the volume-licensing agreement: three years, licences with Software Assurance paid once a year, yours at the end. Both are on this site with prices, so this is a comparison you can check.
Windows Server 2025 Standard, 16 cores. Under Open Value the licence with Software Assurance is €698 a year for three years, €2,095 in total at our price (part 9EM-00297). Through CSP the same licence, perpetual, is eight 2-core packs at €157: €1,256, once. The perpetual licence is 40% cheaper over three years and 100% cheaper afterwards.
SQL Server 2025 Standard, one 2-core pack: €2,340 a year under Open Value, €7,020 over three (part 7NQ-00069), against €4,223 once through CSP. Same shape.
So in cash, for a licence you will keep and not upgrade, CSP perpetual wins every time. Open Value costs more because it includes something CSP perpetual does not.
Every Open Value line is licence plus Software Assurance; you cannot buy the licence alone. For servers, SA brings four things that matter: new versions at no extra cost while the agreement runs (Windows Server 2028 when it ships); licence mobility, the right to move the licence between hosts and into shared hosting; failover rights, one passive replica free for SQL Server, disaster-recovery rights for Windows Server; and Azure Hybrid Benefit, which reuses the licence in Azure for a large discount. Plus the payment spread over three years with no interest, and, for desktops, Windows Enterprise rights and Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.
If you will use two of those four, Open Value is worth the difference. A SQL Server cluster with a passive node, or a workload heading to Azure, gets more back from SA than it costs. A domain controller that will run the same version until the hardware dies gets nothing from it.
Flexibility. CSP subscriptions can be reduced or cancelled at each renewal; monthly terms can go to zero next month. Perpetual licences through CSP are one payment and one line on one invoice, with no agreement to sign and no five-licence minimum. For Microsoft 365, Azure and Dynamics there is no Open Value equivalent worth having: those are subscriptions by nature, and CSP is the channel built for them. Open Value Subscription exists, but it is a three-year commitment to rent desktop software, which few organisations want now.
Visual Studio subscriptions with MSDN. Microsoft does not sell them through CSP at all; CSP has only the monthly cloud subscription, which lacks the dev/test software catalogue and perpetual rights. A developer team that installs SQL Server and Windows Server in test environments needs the subscription, and the subscription comes under Open Value. The calculator prices it →
A licence you will keep, unchanged, for years — a file server, a domain controller, an application server on a version the vendor supports: CSP perpetual, one payment, done.
A licence that will move, fail over, or go to Azure — SQL Server with a passive replica, hosts in a cluster, anything with a cloud roadmap: Open Value, for the Software Assurance rights.
Headcount that changes, or software you want to stop paying for — Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics: CSP, always.
Developers with test environments — Visual Studio subscriptions: Open Value, because nothing else sells them.
The licences are yours; Software Assurance stops. To keep the SA rights you sign a new agreement for SA renewal, at a lower price than the first because the licence is not bought again. To stop, you stop, and keep the version you have. Either way it must be decided before the end date, and it can be signed with any reseller — which is why the renewal audit is free.
Prices: Microsoft Open Value price list for the euro area, September 2026, at our price 5% below ERP; CSP prices from Microsoft’s Europe price list, same month. Both catalogues are on this site: Open Value, CSP.
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