What happens when you change Visual Studio subscription levels?

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In Visual Studio subscriptions, the software, tools, services, and other benefits available to you depend on your subscription level. Generally, the higher your subscription level, the more robust the benefits it provides.

There can be scenarios where you start with one subscription level and either increase (upgrade) or decrease (downgrade) to another level. Examples of those scenarios include:

  • You decide you need a more full-featured version of the Visual Studio IDE or access to a broader selection of software downloads, so you choose to upgrade.
  • Your company's subscription admin might choose to change your subscription level based on your current role or project, or changes in your company's purchasing plans. For example, your company might choose to change the mix of subscriptions they purchase to achieve cost savings.

Based on whether you upgrade or downgrade, and which subscription level you have, you might need to take action to access benefits in your new subscription.

How do my benefits change?

The changes you see for a specific benefit depends on the benefit itself. This article looks at some examples, and discusses effects of upgrades and downgrades for each.

Visual Studio IDE

For information about which version of Visual Studio is included in your subscription, check out our Visual Studio subscription benefits page. Visit the Compare Visual Studio 2019 Editions page to learn about the differences between the editions included in your subscription.

UPGRADES: You have access to the level of the IDE provided in your new subscription. To use it, uninstall the lower version and install the new, higher version.

DOWNGRADES: You still have perpetual use rights for the version provided in the higher subscription level. You can't sign in to access that version of the IDE, though, so you need to activate it with a product key before you lose access to the higher level subscription. You can get a product key by visiting the product keys page in the subscription portal. If you claimed product keys for Visual Studio, you can also export the list of keys you claimed. Learn more about finding and claiming product keys.

Individual Azure credits

The allotment of individual Azure credits varies by subscription level. You might receive anywhere from $0 to $150 in credits per month, depending on your subscription level.

There are three scenarios you might encounter if your Visual Studio subscription changes. In addition to potential upgrades or downgrades, your company's subscriptions admins might assign you a subscription at the same level you have now, but with a different subscription ID. In all three of these cases, the effects on your Azure subscriptions are the same--only the amounts of individual credits might change.

Changing your Visual Studio subscription breaks the link with your Azure subscription that receives the credits and a new Azure subscription is created when you activate the benefit in your new subscription. When that happens, the old Azure subscription is subject to eventual deactivation. To avoid losing your assets, choose one of the following workarounds:

  • Convert the subscription to pay-as-you-go. For details, https://azure.microsoft.com/offers/ms-azr-0023p/. You need to attach a payment instrument such as a credit card to this subscription.
  • Create a new Azure subscription using the benefit in your new Visual Studio subscription, and transfer any existing Azure assets in the old Azure subscription to the new one.

    Important

    It is important that you move your Azure assets to your new Azure subscription or change the existing Azure subscription to pay-as-you-go to avoid loss of your existing Azure assets.

Software downloads

The software downloads available to you depend on your subscription level. For details, see our list of available software downloads article.

Tip

The list of software titles you see on the downloads page depends on the highest subscription level you've assigned to your sign-in email address. You'll see all of the titles available to the highest subscription level you have. For example, if you have a Visual Studio Enterprise subscription and a Visual Studio Dev Essentials membership, you'll see all of the titles included in your Enterprise subscription, even if you're signed in to your Dev Essentials membership.

Other benefits

The effects of changing subscription levels on other benefits can vary widely.

Benefits with a fixed length

Many of the benefits provided by our partners are offers that have a fixed length. If you activated them before any changes in your subscription level, many of them are unaffected and remain available to you until the end of their normal term. For example, if you activated a six month subscription to a training benefit as part of an Enterprise subscription, and your Visual Studio subscription is downgraded to Visual Studio Professional, you still have any remaining time on the training subscription.

Benefits that require authentication

If you're using a benefit that's authenticated every time you sign in to Visual Studio, that benefit isn't available if your subscription level is downgraded.

Benefits that aren't available in lower subscription levels

If you're using benefits offered in your current subscription but not in the subscription to which yours is downgraded, you might lose access to those benefits.

Support resources

See also

Next steps