What Message Center update MC1253515 means for Dynamics 365 Sales Premium users, why it provides short-term relief, and why it doesn’t change the long-term cost picture for your Dataverse environment.
If you’re running Dynamics 365 Sales Premium and you happened to check your Microsoft 365 Message Center in mid-March, you’ll have seen MC1253515 – a quiet but meaningful announcement that Microsoft is increasing the default Dataverse storage capacity for your licence. Effective 15 April 2026, the change is automatic, costs nothing extra, and requires no action from your administrators.
That’s genuinely good news. And we want to acknowledge it as such before we explain why, for most of the membership organisations and professional bodies we work with, it still doesn’t solve the underlying problem.
What the update actually changes
Under MC1253515, Dynamics 365 Sales Premium licence holders will receive the following automatic increases on 15 April 2026:
| Storage Type | Before | After | Change |
| Base tenant storage | 30 GB | 45 GB | +50% |
| Per-user accrual (Sales Premium) | 250 MB | 500 MB | +100% |
| Dataverse file storage | 40 GB | 60 GB | +50% |
To put the per-user numbers in context: a 100-user Sales Premium tenant moves from approximately 55 GB to roughly 95 GB of total pooled storage – nearly double, at no extra cost and with no migration effort. If you have been receiving storage overage alerts, those should resolve automatically after the 15th. If you have purchased Dataverse storage add-ons to cover overage, this is the right moment to audit those – you may now be paying for capacity you no longer need.
Quick action for admins: Run a storage report in the Power Platform Admin Center before 15 April to baseline your current usage, then compare after the update. Database add-ons cost around $40 per GB per month – even a small reduction pays back quickly.”
Why this helps … but only for a while
We work exclusively with membership organisations, charities, professional bodies, and trade associations. Almost without exception, the D365 environments we encounter share a common pattern: years of accumulated data that grows faster than any licensing uplift can offset.
Consider a typical mid-sized professional body on 150 Sales Premium licences. Under the new entitlements, their pooled Dataverse capacity will increase from around 68 GB to approximately 120 GB. That sounds generous. But add up five years of member activity records, CPD logs, event registrations, email attachments, audit trails, and note attachments, and it becomes clear that 120 GB is not a solution, it is a delay of the inevitable.
The fundamental economics of Dataverse have not changed. Database storage is priced at a premium precisely because it is engineered for governed, structured, relational data – with the security, audit capabilities, and Power Platform integration that makes it the right place for your live CRM records. It is not, however, the right place for five-year-old PDF attachments, historic activity logs that nobody queries, or audit records that exist solely for compliance purposes.
The cost picture over time
At $40 per GB per month for Dataverse database add-ons (approximately £32 at current rates), an organisation sitting just 10 GB over their entitlement is paying over £380 per month, every month, with no ceiling as data continues to grow. Archiving that same 10 GB of qualifying data via the 365 Data Optimiser costs a small fraction of that, and the archived data remains fully accessible within D365.
The question is not whether the free storage uplift is useful, it is. The question is how long it buys you, and what you do when the clock runs out.”
What a smart response looks like
There are broadly three types of organisation receiving MC1253515 right now:
- Those currently over their storage limit – for whom the April uplift provides automatic and welcome relief. Our advice: use this window to conduct a proper data audit rather than waiting for the next overage.
- Those close to their limit and watching the dial – for whom the uplift buys time, but not indefinitely. Data grows. The right response is to use the breathing room to implement a structured archiving strategy before pressure returns.
- Those well within their current limits – who may not feel the urgency today, but whose data estate is almost certainly still accumulating. For this group, the cost of inaction is gradual and invisible until, suddenly, it isn’t.
In every case, the answer is the same: use the uplift as a genuine opportunity to get ahead of the problem, not as a reason to defer it.
How the 365 Data Optimiser fits in
The Intercloud9 365 Data Optimiser is designed precisely for this situation. It applies configurable retention rules to your D365 environment, automatically moves data that has passed its active-use threshold into low-cost Azure storage, and keeps that data discoverable and accessible within D365 for users who need it.
Key capabilities include:
- Automated archiving based on retention rules you define – aligned to your compliance, operational, or governance requirements
- Zero disruption to daily D365 use – the tool operates in the background
- Full data discoverability – archived records remain searchable and accessible within the D365 interface
- Immediate Dataverse cost relief – data moves out of premium storage into cost-effective Azure Blob and Table Storage
- Compliance support – archived data satisfies retention obligations without the overhead of premium Dataverse pricing
The April 2026 storage uplift from Microsoft is a tailwind. The 365 Data Optimiser is the strategy. Used together, they give membership organisations the best of both: free capacity today, and a sustainable, cost-controlled data estate for the years ahead.
Find out where you stand
Intercloud9 offers a free diagnostic assessment of your D365 data footprint, a cost-savings model projecting potential savings, and guidance on retention policy design. If you’d like to understand whether the April uplift gives you enough runway or whether a more structured approach is warranted, we’d be glad to take a look.
Please just get in touch.
