Services / Microsoft 365
Microsoft Office 365 consultant.
Project work, not a retainer.
Senior-led Microsoft 365 consulting for the regulated mid-market — tenant assessment, identity, governance, and Copilot readiness. Fixed-fee, scoped in writing before kickoff. We are not a managed service provider and we do not resell licensing.
A Microsoft 365 consultant works out what your tenant is actually configured to do, decides what it should do instead, and delivers that as a scoped project with a start and an end. The work covers a tenant assessment against a written baseline, identity and Conditional Access design, endpoint and device policy, SharePoint and OneDrive information architecture with permissions rationalized rather than inherited, data governance and retention, and Copilot readiness where AI is on the roadmap. Microsoft renamed the Office 365 plans to Microsoft 365 in April 2020; buyers still use both names, and the tenant, the admin centers and the work are the same either way. Pro IT NW delivers it senior-led and fixed-fee, labor-only and vendor-neutral — we take no resale margin and no vendor commissions. Seattle and the Puget Sound region, delivered USA-wide.
Reviewed by Mat Wolfley, Founder & Principal Engineer at Pro IT NW — Seattle, delivered USA-wide.
Service detail
What a Microsoft 365 consultant actually does
Scoped engagements against a tenant you already own. The boundaries are written down before kickoff, including the ones that say what we will not do.
What's in scope
- ›Tenant assessment against a written baseline — what is configured, what drifted, what is exposed
- ›Identity: Entra ID, Conditional Access, MFA coverage, privileged-access boundaries
- ›Endpoint and device policy — Intune and Defender for Business baselines
- ›SharePoint and OneDrive information architecture, with permissions rationalized rather than inherited
- ›Data governance: sensitivity labels, retention, and oversharing remediation
- ›Copilot readiness — the permission cleanup that has to happen before AI reads your tenant
- ›Licensing fit review: what you are paying for against what you are using. Advice only, no resale
What we don't do
- ›Ongoing help desk or an unlimited-everything retainer — we are not an MSP
- ›Hardware or software resale, and no vendor commissions on anything we recommend
- ›Hourly billing that grows when the estimate was wrong
- ›Junior consultants learning on your tenant — the engineer who scopes it delivers it
- ›Project-management methodology design or PMO practice consulting
- ›Custom line-of-business application development
What you get
- ›A written assessment: current state, target state, and the gap between them in priority order
- ›A fixed-fee scope agreed before kickoff, with the boundaries written down
- ›Runbooks and configuration documentation you keep, whether or not you work with us again
- ›A named senior engineer who scopes the work and then does it
- ›A two-business-day response on intake, with a scope and a fixed-fee range
Routing
Where the work goes
Microsoft 365 work splits into a few distinct practices. If your project is really one of these, start there — each has its own scoping model.
01
Microsoft 365 migration consultant
Moving mailboxes and content between tenants, decommissioning on-premises Exchange, or bringing file shares into SharePoint and OneDrive. Its own practice, its own runbooks.
Learn more
02
Identity, security & compliance
Entra ID and hybrid identity, Active Directory audit, Purview data governance, GCC High and CMMC. Where the governance work lives.
Learn more
03
Copilot readiness
The permission and oversharing cleanup a tenant needs before Copilot is switched on. Scoped as a fixed-fee assessment.
Learn more
04
Managed IT support
Ongoing support after a delivered project, with scope boundaries in writing. Not sold standalone, and not a help desk.
Learn more
How engagements are scoped and priced
Every engagement is fixed-fee, agreed in writing before any work starts. The scope and the number are settled together, so the boundaries are explicit on both sides. We do not bill hourly — if the work takes longer than we estimated, that is our problem, not a larger invoice. There is no discovery retainer to get to a number.
We are labor-only and vendor-neutral. We do not resell Microsoft licensing and we take no vendor commissions, which means we have no financial interest in which SKU you land on or which product you choose. You buy licensing directly, at the price Microsoft sets.
What a given engagement costs depends on seat count and the state the tenant is in. Tell us both and you get a scope and a fixed-fee range within two business days.
FAQ
Common questions about hiring a Microsoft 365 consultant.
What does a Microsoft 365 consultant do?
A Microsoft 365 consultant works out what your tenant is actually configured to do, decides what it should do instead, and then does that work — as a scoped project with a start and an end. In practice that means a tenant assessment against a written baseline, identity and Conditional Access design, endpoint and device policy, SharePoint and OneDrive information architecture with permissions rationalized rather than inherited, data governance and retention, and Copilot readiness where AI is on the roadmap. It is engineering work, not a support contract and not a licensing resale relationship. Pro IT NW delivers it senior-led and fixed-fee from Seattle, USA-wide.
Is an Office 365 consultant the same as a Microsoft 365 consultant?
Yes. Microsoft renamed the Office 365 subscription plans to Microsoft 365 in April 2020, and the product most people still call Office 365 is now Microsoft 365. Buyers use both names interchangeably and so do we — the underlying tenant, the admin centers and the work are identical. If your paperwork, invoices or internal documentation still say Office 365, nothing about the engagement changes.
Does Microsoft offer consulting services directly?
Yes, in a limited form. Microsoft runs a free business-consultation and training offer through its store, staffed by its own specialists, and it is genuinely useful for product guidance, feature walkthroughs and end-user training. What it is not is an engineering engagement: it does not scope your tenant, design your Conditional Access model, rationalize your SharePoint permissions or take responsibility for a delivery timeline. Use it for product questions. Bring in a consultant when someone has to be accountable for the outcome in your tenant.
How much does a Microsoft 365 consultant cost?
Ours is fixed-fee per engagement, scoped in writing before any work starts, with the scope and the number agreed together. We do not bill hourly, so a project that takes longer than we estimated is our problem rather than a bigger invoice. We are labor-only and vendor-neutral: we do not resell Microsoft licensing, we take no vendor commissions, and we have no margin riding on which destination you pick. What a specific engagement costs depends on tenant size and the state it is in, which is what the scoping conversation establishes — tell us the seat count and the workload and you get a range within two business days.
Do you take over Microsoft 365 administration on an ongoing basis?
Not as a standalone engagement. We are not a managed service provider and we do not run a help desk. Ongoing managed support exists for clients we have already delivered a project for, with scope boundaries written down rather than an unlimited-everything retainer — that is described on our managed IT support page. If what you need is a monthly support contract with no project attached, we are the wrong firm and will say so on the first call rather than the third.
Do I need a Microsoft partner for this work?
No. Partner status is a commercial relationship with Microsoft, not a measure of engineering ability, and it usually comes with licensing margin attached — which means the partner has a financial interest in what you buy. We hold no partner badges deliberately. We are labor-only: you buy your licensing directly at the price Microsoft sets, and we have no incentive to steer you toward a heavier SKU than you need. What you should ask any consultant for instead is the engineer who will actually be on your tenant, and what they have done with it before.
How is this different from a Microsoft 365 tenant move?
Different work, different page. If your project is moving mailboxes and content between tenants, decommissioning on-premises Exchange, or bringing file shares into SharePoint and OneDrive, that is our Microsoft 365 migration practice and it has its own scoping model and runbooks. This page is for the work that is not a move — assessing a tenant you already have, designing identity and governance, rationalizing permissions, and getting a tenant ready for Copilot. Many organizations need both, in that order, and we will tell you which one you are actually asking for.
Field notes
- → The 12,000-permission problem — what a tenant assessment finds before Copilot is switched on.
- → Copilot governance and tenant sprawl — why governance is the constraint, not licensing.
- → Why we hold no partner badges — the commercial reason, stated plainly.
Tell us the seat count and the workload.
Two-business-day response with a scope and a fixed-fee range. No discovery retainer to get to a number.