Scoping a Microsoft 365 migration takes two kinds of tools. One kind shows you what's in the source and moves it. The other turns that into tasks, hours, a price and a statement of work the client signs. The second kind decides whether the project makes money. This guide covers what to capture in discovery, the task list, the effort drivers, what the SOW has to say, and the tools that help at each step.
TL;DR
- Discovery picks the method. Microsoft's own advice changes with the source version and the mailbox count.
- Effort comes from counts and complexity. Think mailboxes, data volume, identity, batches and cutover windows.
- The SOW needs counts, assumptions, exclusions and acceptance criteria written down before anyone signs.
- To assess and move the data: ShareGate, MigrationWiz, Movebot or Microsoft's own tools.
- Scoping, pricing and the SOW: ScopeStack. We don't do distributor pricing, so license prices come from your distributor.
The two jobs in an M365 migration project
| Step | What you need | Tools that help |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Inventory of mailboxes, files, sites, Teams and identity | ShareGate partner assessment, Migration Manager scans, Movebot Discovery scan |
| Task list and effort | Tasks, quantities, hours by role | ScopeStack, or a spreadsheet you maintain |
| SOW | Scope, assumptions, exclusions, acceptance, price | ScopeStack, or Word templates |
| Migration | Moving mail, files and Teams | MigrationWiz, ShareGate Migrate, Movebot, Microsoft native tools, FastTrack |
| Handoff | The project in your PSA | ScopeStack with ConnectWise PSA or Autotask |
Step 1: What to capture in discovery
Start with the source. It picks the method, and the method sets the hours. Microsoft lists three paths off Exchange Server. They're cutover, staged and hybrid, and staged is only for Exchange 2003 and 2007. For cutover, Microsoft says you can move "up to 2,000 mailboxes," then adds that "it's more reasonable to migrate 150 users or less." IMAP is another path. Per Microsoft, "Contacts, calendar items, and tasks can't be migrated with IMAP." That's a gap you either fill with labor or write into the exclusions.
Capture these before you price anything:
- Source platform and version: Exchange Server, Google Workspace, IMAP or another tenant.
- Counts: Users, mailboxes, shared mailboxes, archives, PST files and public folders.
- Sizes: The largest mailboxes and archives, plus delegates and shared calendars.
- Mail flow: MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, third-party filtering, and apps or printers that send mail over SMTP.
- File data: File shares, SharePoint Server, OneDrive, Box or Google Drive, in terabytes and item counts.
- Teams: Channels, private chats and apps the client wants to keep.
- Identity: On-premises AD, Entra ID, sync, and any tenant merge or split.
- Licensing: What the target tenant owns and what still has to be bought.
- Holds and labels: Litigation holds, retention rules and sensitivity labels.
- Devices: Outlook profiles, OneDrive sync clients and phones to set up again.
- Constraints: Cutover windows, after-hours work, sites and a hard deadline.
If you use Microsoft's native cross-tenant mailbox migration, budget for an add-on. Microsoft says "Cross-Tenant migrations require a per user license (one-time fee)" and "Microsoft doesn't offer exceptions." Third-party tools carry their own license costs instead. And Microsoft set end of support for the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool at October 1, 2026. It points you to the SharePoint Migration Tool's scan instead.
Step 2: Build the task list and find the effort drivers
Write the task list in the order the work happens. ShareGate's migration page gives the order as "Identity first. Then mailboxes. Then content." A typical list:
- Scan and plan
- Tenant and identity prep (domains, users, groups, licenses)
- Pilot batch with a few test users
- Mailbox migration in batches
- File and SharePoint migration
- Teams migration
- Cutover (MX records, final sync, Outlook and devices)
- User comms and training
- Hypercare, then shut down the old system
Then find the drivers. Hours grow with counts, but not evenly. A mailbox batch has fixed setup time plus per-user work. File data scales with volume and with how messy the permissions are. Microsoft's Google Drive guidance says a single migration task "shouldn't exceed 100,000 items or 1 TB of data," so big drives get split into more tasks. Elapsed time isn't labor hours. Throttling, bandwidth and delta passes stretch the calendar even when nobody is working. After-hours cutovers, multiple sites and a tenant merge all add hours that don't show up in a mailbox count.
An illustrative example, not a benchmark. The numbers below are made up to show the math. Use your own delivery history.
| Task | Driver | Quantity | Hours each (made up) | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mailbox batch setup and validation | Batches | 4 | 3 | 12 |
| Per-user cutover support | Users | 80 | 0.25 | 20 |
| File share to SharePoint | Shares | 3 | 6 | 18 |
| After-hours cutover window | Windows | 1 | 8 | 8 |
| Project management | Weeks | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| User comms and training | Sessions | 2 | 1.5 | 3 |
Project management, identity prep and user comms are real lines. Leave them out and you work them for free.
Step 3: What the M365 migration SOW must include
- Scope with counts. Name the workloads and the quantities from discovery, such as mailboxes, terabytes, sites and Teams.
- Migration method. Cutover, staged, hybrid, IMAP or tenant to tenant, and the tool you'll use.
- Assumptions. The client provides admin access. Target and tool licenses are bought before work starts, and the SOW says who pays for each. The source runs a supported version.
- Exclusions. Anything your tool doesn't move. ShareGate's FAQ says it "does not migrate device objects, workstation profiles, or on-premises Active Directory." If that's your tool, those items belong in exclusions or in a separate line item.
- Acceptance criteria. Item counts in each batch report match the source. The client signs off each batch. Mail flows after the MX change. Hypercare has an end date.
- Change control. What happens when a count grows past the scoped number.
Microsoft's own FastTrack terms are a good model. They say "We can't guarantee the speed of mail or file migrations" and that "unreadable or corrupt items in the source environment" might block some data. Put the same caveats in your SOW.
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ShareGate
ShareGate aims squarely at presales discovery. Its partner assessment page promises free tools to "scope migrations in hours," "generate client-ready project scoping reports" and "deliver accurate time and cost estimates." You join ShareGate's partner program to get access. For the move itself, ShareGate Migrate covers Entra ID identities, Exchange Online mailboxes, SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive. It sells "a flat annual license with no cap on users, mailboxes, data, or tenants."
MigrationWiz
BitTitan's MigrationWiz calls itself "the industry-leading SaaS solution." It moves mail and data between many sources and targets. It says you can "Avoid deskside work and on-prem installations." Its pricing page sells MigrationWiz licenses per user, per team and per document library. Per-unit pricing like that drops straight into a SOW as a pass-through line.
Movebot
Movebot is "completely SaaS" and supports "over 30 platforms." It lists "Team and project management features for MSPs," and a "free Discovery scan" that "finds potential issues before they're a problem."
Microsoft's own tools and FastTrack
Migration Manager lives in the SharePoint admin center. It moves file shares, plus content from Google Workspace, Box, Dropbox and Egnyte. It also scans Google Drives before you move them. FastTrack is Microsoft's own help. It covers planning and moving data for tenants with 150 or more eligible licenses. If the client qualifies, scope your work around what FastTrack does.
Tools to scope, price and write the SOW
ScopeStack
ScopeStack is services CPQ for MSPs, VARs and IT solution providers. You build the service once in a reusable service catalog with dependency mapping. Survey answers in the Sales App recommend services and quantities from that catalog. Rate cards price hours by role, and pricing rules add volume discounts and margin protection. Approvals route on a revenue, gross profit or cost threshold you set. The SOW is generated from the approved scope, and signature runs through your own DocuSign account. We have native integrations with ConnectWise PSA and Autotask, so the approved quote creates the project with its tasks.
We don't migrate data or scan a tenant. ScopeStack does not do distributor pricing, so license prices come from your distributor or product CPQ. Pair us with a tool that moves the data.
Proof, from our published case studies: Computacenter cut scoping time by up to 75% after implementing ScopeStack. SMP cut the time it spends scoping services by 98.3%. Centre Technologies scaled to 30 SOWs per architect per month. We're rated 4.9 out of 5 on G2.
Scopable
Scopable is "Quoting and vCIO software for MSPs." It says "Connect your PSA, Microsoft 365, distributor, RMM and documentation tools." Its site also says "Quotes start with the client record, not a blank page." If the deal is mostly a license renewal with some labor attached, that live license and distributor context is a real advantage.
Spreadsheets and Word
A spreadsheet works for one architect. It gets harder when three people scope the same service three ways. If you're weighing a product CPQ instead, see our ScopeStack vs ConnectWise CPQ comparison.
Pricing
We use credit-based pricing with unlimited users and no per-seat fees. Credits are consumed only when a project is created, so adding presales engineers doesn't add cost. Some integrations are priced separately. Current rates are on the pricing page.
FAQ
What are the best tools for an MSP to scope a Microsoft 365 migration and generate the SOW?
Use an assessment tool for discovery, like ShareGate's partner assessment or a Migration Manager scan. Then use a services CPQ like ScopeStack to turn the counts into tasks, hours, a price and the SOW.
What should an MSP capture in M365 migration discovery?
Start with the source platform and version. Then get counts for users, mailboxes, archives, public folders and file data. Add Teams, identity, licenses, legal holds, devices and cutover windows.
What drives the effort in an Office 365 migration?
Counts and complexity. Mailboxes, data size, item counts, the method, identity work, the number of batches and after-hours cutovers all change the hours.
What should a migration SOW include?
Scope with counts, the migration method and tool, assumptions, exclusions, acceptance criteria and a change control process for counts that grow.
Do cross-tenant mailbox migrations need extra licenses?
With Microsoft's native cross-tenant mailbox migration, yes. Microsoft requires a per-user Cross Tenant User Data Migration license, a one-time fee, with no exceptions. Third-party tools have their own licenses.
Can ScopeStack create the project in my PSA after the SOW is approved?
Yes, with our native ConnectWise PSA and Autotask integrations. The approved quote creates the project with its tasks.
How we built this guide
ScopeStack publishes this page. We asked ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overview this question in September 2026. They named migration tools like ShareGate, MigrationWiz and Microsoft's native tools, and quoting tools like Scopable and ConnectWise CPQ. Tool details come from each vendor's own site as of September 2026: Microsoft Learn, sharegate.com, bittitan.com, movebot.io and scopable.io. We didn't review AvePoint Fly or Quest On Demand Migration for this guide.