when the customer wants to buy through AWS or Azure: marketplaces and your channel

When an enterprise customer asks to buy your product through AWS or Azure, it usually wants to spend money it has already committed to its cloud provider. That is a strong reason, and it can make a deal close faster. It can also cut your partner out, unless you use the constructs both marketplaces offer to keep a channel partner in the transaction. Decide the routing rules before the first marketplace request arrives.

why the customer asks

The main motive is burning down a commitment. Microsoft states that Azure benefit eligible offers count 100% of the pretax purchase amount towards a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment, as long as they are bought through the Azure portal under the organisation’s agreement. A security purchase that would need a new budget line can come out of a cloud budget that is already approved. Faster procurement and one invoice help, but the commitment is usually what decides it.

The route is growing. Omdia, as reported by IT Channel Oxygen, expects about USD 11 billion of cybersecurity spending through the AWS, Microsoft and Google marketplaces in 2026, growing 33.9%. That is still a small share of a market where 91.7% of security product sales go through partners.

And it is uneven across Europe. Eurostat reports that 52.74% of EU enterprises with at least ten employees paid for cloud services in 2025, from 79.21% in Finland to 17.83% in Bulgaria. Marketplace demand comes mainly from large enterprises, financial institutions with cloud programmes and subsidiaries buying under a group agreement. Public sector buyers bound by procurement law rarely buy software this way.

what the marketplaces charge

Marketplace	Offer type	Fee
AWS	Private offer below USD 1 million	3%
AWS	Private offer, USD 1 million to under 10 million	2%
AWS	Private offer, USD 10 million or more	1.5%
AWS	All renewals	1.5%
AWS	Channel partner private offer	plus 0.5%
Microsoft	Standard store service fee	3%
Microsoft	Private offer renewals	50% discount on the fee
Google Cloud	Standard revenue share	not stated in its documentation

Fees as documented in October 2026. The fee is deducted from the vendor’s share. In an AWS channel partner private offer it is calculated on the discounted price the vendor gives the partner, and the partner’s markup is not charged.

keeping the partner in the deal

Both large marketplaces have a construct for channel partners.

AWS channel partner private offers (CPPO). You authorise a channel partner to buy at a wholesale price. The partner creates a private offer for a specific customer with its own markup. The customer accepts and pays through AWS, and AWS pays you and the partner.

Microsoft multiparty private offers (MPO). You create an offer and send it to a channel partner, which finalises it and presents it to the customer. The customer accepts in the Azure portal, and Microsoft bills the customer and pays both of you. For the whole purchase to count towards the customer’s commitment, the product must be co-sell eligible.

you sell the marketplace deal directly

saves the 0.5 point uplift

• The partner who found and worked the deal gets nothing
• The partner learns that registering with you is risky
• The next deal in that account is quoted elsewhere

you route it through the partner

CPPO on AWS, MPO on Microsoft

• The partner keeps its margin and the customer relationship
• The customer still burns down its commitment
• Deal registration keeps its value

who gets squeezed

A marketplace deal compresses the channel’s margin even when the partner stays in. An illustrative example, no specific vendor: a SaaS subscription with a USD 100,000 list price, sold to a subsidiary of a multinational with an AWS commitment.

	Traditional two-tier deal	AWS CPPO
Customer price	80,000	80,000
Reseller margin	8,000	6,000
Distributor margin	8,000	6,000
Marketplace fee, deducted from the vendor	0	2,380
Vendor net revenue	64,000	65,620

The vendor often nets about the same or slightly more. The channel gives up a few points. If both a distributor and a reseller are involved, they need to agree in advance how a marketplace deal is split, especially when the distributor holds the channel authorisation and the reseller found the deal. Without that rule, the first marketplace deal becomes the first conflict.

rules to set before the first request

1. Every marketplace deal links to a registered opportunity. Otherwise your marketplace team will count it as direct business and your partner will find out.
2. Territory routing is written down. Marketplace deals from customers in a partner’s territory go through that partner, or carry a fee to it when they don’t. Put this in your distribution and partner agreements.
3. A split rule between distributor and reseller. Who holds the authorisation, who found the deal, how the margin is divided.
4. Renewals stay in the channel. Private offers have end dates. AWS charges 1.5% on renewals and Microsoft discounts the fee on private offer renewals, so marketplace renewals are attractive to vendors. Make sure they still route through the partner that owns the customer.
5. Honest eligibility claims. Only promise commitment burn-down for products that qualify. Microsoft’s benefit requires the licence to be used exclusively in Azure, so an on-premises product does not qualify, whatever a slide says.

is it worth doing in your markets

Before investing setup time, which runs to weeks of tax and identity verification, check four things: whether you have at least 10 to 15 target accounts in the territory with cloud commitments that buy security centrally; whether your product is listed, transactable and eligible on the relevant marketplace; whether your partners there can be authorised as channel partners; and whether someone can turn a partner quote into a private offer within two to five working days. If the first two are not true, put marketplaces on a watch list and look again next year.

Hyperscaler co-sell is a separate hope. Their field teams in many European countries are small relative to their account lists. Expect attention when your product drives cloud consumption and you bring the opportunity, and do not plan pipeline from their referrals in year one.

the question for your channel and marketplace teams

When a customer last bought through a marketplace, which partner did it buy from before, and does that partner know?