GoDaddy Microsoft 365 Defederation & Tenant Takeover moves your Microsoft 365 tenant out from under GoDaddy's control — without migrating anywhere. IT Partner plans and executes the defederation: the domain is converted from GoDaddy's federated sign-on to standard Microsoft Entra managed sign-in, every user receives a new password that we prepare in advance and set ourselves the moment the domain converts, and GoDaddy's delegated administration is removed from the tenant so you hold Global Administrator control. GoDaddy's support is not needed to remove the federation. Licensing is your choice and is not what gives you control: you can keep your GoDaddy licenses until their current term ends (they cannot be renewed once the tenant is defederated), switch them to IT Partner as your CSP with our help during the transition, or buy directly from Microsoft on your own. Your mailboxes, files, and Teams stay exactly where they are — you keep the tenant, you lose the middleman.
Microsoft 365 bought through GoDaddy is not quite yours. GoDaddy provisions the tenant with its own federated sign-on, holds delegated administrative access, and limits which admin capabilities you can reach. Leaving that arrangement is called defederation — and done casually, it locks every user out of email at once. This service is the careful version. IT Partner converts your domain from GoDaddy's federated authentication to standard Microsoft Entra managed sign-in, resets the password of every user the moment the domain converts, takes over global administration, and removes GoDaddy's delegated access from the tenant. GoDaddy's support is not needed to remove the federation: we work directly with you to reach an admin account in the tenant and do that part inside Microsoft Entra. Who sells you the licenses is a separate question, and changing it is not required. Control of the tenant comes from the defederation and the admin takeover, not from where the licenses are bought — moving your licensing away from GoDaddy does not by itself give you admin control, and keeping GoDaddy as your reseller does not take it away. You have three options: keep your GoDaddy licenses until their current term ends — they keep working, but GoDaddy cannot renew them once the tenant is defederated, so they must be replaced before they expire; switch them to IT Partner as your Cloud Solution Provider, in which case we help with the transition and coordinate the GoDaddy cancellation; or buy licenses directly from Microsoft, in which case the purchase, assignment, and GoDaddy cancellation are yours and outside this project. Unlike a tenant-to-tenant migration, nothing moves: mailboxes, OneDrive files, SharePoint sites, and Teams all stay in place, because the tenant was always yours — only the sign-in path and administration change hands. If you would rather consolidate into a different existing tenant, the sibling service GoDaddy Microsoft 365 to Microsoft 365 Tenant-to-Tenant Cutover Email Migration covers that path instead; we help you choose in the first call.
Request delegated admin access to your GoDaddy account as the first step; inventory GoDaddy subscriptions, licensing, every domain on the tenant, users, MX records, the security defaults state and delegated access; confirm your licensing choice; agree the cutover window; prepare the new passwords with you.
Convert every domain from GoDaddy federated sign-on to Microsoft Entra managed authentication in the agreed window, reset the password of every user immediately from the prepared list, and change MX records where GoDaddy's email security add-on was in front of the mailboxes.
Confirm Global Administrator control, remove GoDaddy delegated administration from the tenant, confirm security defaults are enabled (and enable them if they were off), and verify mail flow.
Only if you switch licensing to IT Partner as your CSP: purchase and assign replacement Microsoft 365 licenses once the tenant is verified self-sufficient, so no user has a coverage gap, then work with GoDaddy to cancel the old licenses. This step usually takes longer than the conversion itself. If you keep GoDaddy licensing or buy directly from Microsoft, this milestone is skipped.
Deliver the closeout report, including the final state of the tenant and your licensing status, with the expiry dates of any GoDaddy licenses you kept.
Microsoft 365 sold through GoDaddy uses GoDaddy's own federated sign-on: your users authenticate through GoDaddy's identity system, not directly with Microsoft. Defederation converts your domains back to standard Microsoft Entra managed authentication, so sign-in and administration no longer route through GoDaddy. Your tenant, mailboxes, and files never move — they were always in Microsoft's cloud; what changes is who controls the front door.
Not to remove the federation. We work directly with you to reach an admin account in the tenant, starting from the GoDaddy-provided admin credentials or an admin account you already hold, and the conversion, the password reset and the takeover happen inside Microsoft Entra. GoDaddy only comes in if you switch your licensing to IT Partner: then we work with GoDaddy to cancel the old licenses once the replacements are in place, using the delegated admin access to your GoDaddy account that we ask for as the first step.
No. Defederation does not require a license change, and changing your reseller is not what gives you control of the tenant — the defederation and the Global Administrator takeover do. You can keep your GoDaddy licenses until their current term ends, switch them to IT Partner as your Cloud Solution Provider and we help you through the transition, or buy directly from Microsoft, which you handle yourself outside this project. Keep in mind that GoDaddy cannot renew its licenses once the tenant is defederated, so if you keep them, plan their replacement before they expire.
No — provided the sequencing is right, which is the core of this service. Mailboxes, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams stay exactly where they are and mail keeps arriving throughout. MX records change only if your GoDaddy plan included GoDaddy's email security add-on, which sits in front of the mailboxes; the plan switches them to Microsoft's, and mail flow is verified after the cutover. If you move licensing away from GoDaddy, replacement licenses must be assigned before any GoDaddy license is cancelled.
No. In a GoDaddy tenant the password lives in GoDaddy's identity service, so once the domain becomes managed every account needs a password set in Microsoft Entra. Nothing creates one automatically: we prepare the new passwords with you in advance, reset every account the moment the domain converts, and enforce a change at first sign-in.
A new password and a sign-in on each device: Outlook, the Office apps, and their phones ask them to sign in again. Depending on whether MFA was enabled before the defederation, they may also be asked to register their MFA methods, since a defederated tenant uses Microsoft MFA with security defaults on. Their email address, mailbox, files, and Teams are untouched. You announce the switch and hand out the passwords; signing in again is each user's own task, and we step in when something breaks.
Yes, as a priced option. The engagement price covers a window during business hours; an after-hours window is billed at the hourly rate with a three-hour minimum ($175 per hour) and quoted in advance.
No. The domain can stay registered at GoDaddy indefinitely — domain registration and Microsoft 365 federation are separate things. Only the Microsoft 365 sign-on and administration change.
Defederation keeps your existing tenant and removes GoDaddy's control of it — nothing migrates. The tenant-to-tenant cutover migration moves your mailboxes into a different tenant, which is the right path when you are consolidating with another organization or want a fresh start. Most GoDaddy customers only need defederation; we confirm which fits in the first call.
That is up to you. If you keep your GoDaddy licenses, they keep working until their current term ends, but they cannot be renewed after defederation — you need replacement licenses in place before they expire, either from IT Partner or directly from Microsoft. If you switch to IT Partner as your Cloud Solution Provider, we help with the transition: replacement licenses at the same Microsoft price are assigned once the tenant is verified self-sufficient, so there is no coverage gap, and then we work with GoDaddy to cancel the old licenses — this step usually takes longer than the conversion itself. If you buy directly from Microsoft, the purchase, assignment, and GoDaddy cancellation are yours and not part of the project.
Because cancelling first is the disaster path: when a GoDaddy Microsoft 365 subscription lapses before licenses are replaced and federation is removed, users lose access and mailbox data is at risk. Cancelling also does not give you control of the tenant — the defederation does. Done safely, the sequence is: convert authentication and reset the passwords first, take over administration second, and only if you are leaving GoDaddy licensing, put replacement licenses in place before any GoDaddy license is cancelled.
Yes. Once your GoDaddy Microsoft 365 tenant is defederated, you'll gain direct administrative control of the tenant, including the ability to assign Global Administrator permissions, manage applications and integrations, and fully configure Microsoft 365 services without GoDaddy acting as an intermediary. You'll also have access to the full range of Microsoft 365 products and services available in the United States. In many cases, direct CSP partners like us can provide licensing options and specialized SKUs that aren't available through GoDaddy, and some offerings are only available through Microsoft's CSP channel. After the migration, GoDaddy is removed from the tenant entirely. You'll own the tenant directly, control all administrator accounts, and manage your Microsoft relationship without the limitations, restrictions, or administrative barriers commonly associated with GoDaddy-managed Microsoft 365 environments. For AI solutions such as Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and other third-party integrations, you'll have the administrative flexibility needed to configure and manage them according to each vendor's requirements, subject to the capabilities and permissions those solutions require.