Since 2024, a Microsoft Visual Studio monthly subscription has implicitly the benefit of a Microsoft 365 developer E5 license.

Good to know

Be aware: Microsoft webpages are actually outdated. This has been confirmed on September 2024 by the Visual Studio Support team based on my issue ticket #2408210040004719.

The Microsoft Visual Studio monthly subscription does NOT have implicitly the benefit of a Microsoft 365 developer E5 license. This is only included in the yearly Microsoft Visual Studio subscription. In addition, the E5 license does not include ALL trials such as Entra Premium, Dynamics, Power Platform, etc.

Visual Studio professional subscription

The Visual Studio professional subscription starts at 45 US$/month.

First, ensure on portal.azure.com that the default directory is set to your preferred Azure subscription.

Then, go to https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms.vs-professional-monthly and login.

Enter the registration information.

Choose the quantity.

Review the registration.

You should see the following confirmation.

Visual Studio Subscription User Assignment

Login to https://manage.visualstudio.com/Subscribers with the user account used for the Visual Studio subscription payment.

Select the subscription level, and add a subscriber.

After having added the new subscriber, see all registered subscribers.

Add External Administrators

Cloud subscriptions are managed by administrators who are assigned to the Azure subscription used to purchase the cloud subscriptions. The owner of the subscription is automatically assigned as the first administrator.

To add external administrators, go to portal.azure.com and login with your cloud administrator user account.

Select Microsoft Entra ID and select 'invite an external user'.

Invite the user.

Fill-in the properties.

On Asssignments tab, click on 'add role'.

Select the directory role 'License Administrator'. Keep in mind the difference between Azure roles and AzureAD roles, see https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/itops-talk-blog/what-s-the-difference-between-azure-roles-and-azure-ad-roles/ba-p/2363647.

Click 'invite'.

The user gets an invitation email.

Accept the invitiation by logging-in with the user account of the invited user.

Accept the permissions.

The workflow opens the MFA dialog

Go through all necessary steps with QR code.

After having finished, ony the myaccount webpage, click on Organizations. Both organizations are listed now.

Also in portal.azure.com > Users, you can see the added user account.

Visual Studio Subscriptions - Manage Administrators

In case you want to promote a user to act as an additional Visual Studio subscription administrator, go to portal.azure.com > Cost Management + Billing. Click on your subscription.

Click on Access Control (IAM). Click on 'Add role assignment'.

On 'Privileged administrator roles', search and select 'User Access Administrator'. Click Next.

Click on 'select members', and add the external user account to the selected members. Click Select, and then Next.

On 'Conditions', click 'Select roles and principals'.

Specify your role assignment condition as needed. Click save, and then Next.

Click 'Review + assign'.

Sign out from https://manage.visualstudio.com/administrators?mkt=en-us.

Login to https://manage.visualstudio.com/administrators?mkt=en-us with the tenant user account, specified as external user account. Select the correlating directory.

On Manage subscribers tab, you can see the access to the subscription.