Azure Marketplace without filter - Start Simple but Start Now!
Note: This article is a major rewrite in July 2024 of an article published for the first time in July 2022.
This article is part of my "Azure Marketplace without filter" series, which now includes one video and three articles.
First, you can watch this video "Azure Marketplace without filter" to see the end-to-end process and user experience for both a publisher/ISV and customer.
Second, this article will focus on the HOW part, illustrating how to create Public and Private offers for a single Publisher.
Third, the article "Setup for ISVs with a Global Scope" will demonstrate how to set up multiple publishers in Partner Center for an ISV with a global scope.
Fourth, the article "Procurement Best Practices!" will describe how a customer can have full control of all purchases on Azure Marketplace and implement a cost allocation process.
Scope of this article: SaaS - Software as a Service
Azure Marketplace supports several offer types, like SaaS, tual Machine Licenses, Azure Applications, Containers.
Focus in this article is SaaS
The Short Version
If you are an ISV with a SaaS solution in Azure who have not yet joined Azure Marketplace, now is the time to do so! By following the preparation steps outlined below, your solution can be transactable on Azure Marketplace within 1-2 weeks.
Don't over-engineer the Azure Marketplace journey
Using Azure Marketplace as a fully integrated (and automated) sales and delivery engine will be a game changer for all SaaS ISVs, but it will require significant investments in technology and in changing your organization
Find the customer first
Based on experience, having a customer who is already ready to buy your solution on Marketplace will significantly simplify your journey. It adds concreteness, especially when dealing with critical Finance/pricing and Legal aspects. It's highly recommended to begin with your existing customers or those with a Microsoft Azure Customer Agreement (MACC).
Focus on Private Offer's
Most ISVs will primarily transact custom deals for individual customers on Azure Marketplace. Consider starting with an MVO (Minimal Viable Offer - see more below) if you expect to primarily transact custom deals.
Don't let technology block you
To facilitate transactions on Marketplace, establishing an integration between the customer, ISV, and the Marketplace is necessary. For most ISVs, it is recommended to implement the "SaaS Accelerator" provided by Microsoft's Commercial Marketplace Services team and, as you will see later, it requires no development or coding effort.
Note: You will NOT need a developer to get on Marketplace!
Introduction to Azure Marketplace
The main audience for this article is Azure SaaS ISVs and the main goal is to describe HOW to get your SaaS solution as a transactable offer on Azure Marketplace, i.e., an offer that customers can buy on Azure Marketplace.
First, you will see how simple it is to become "transactable"; i.e.to create the first "Offer" on Azure Marketplace.
Second, you will see it is even easier to create a "Private Offer", customized to one of your customers, including your SaaS solution as well as Azure cost, managed services, support etc. and with custom pricing and T&C's.
Last, I will describe how selling through Marketplace is different from what you likely do today, especially on the Legal and Finance part.
Why Azure Marketplace?
Note: The goal of this article is not to persuade you to adopt the (Azure) Marketplace, but rather to provide you with valuable insights that will help you make an informed decision.
Most SaaS ISVs, I speak with, understand that digital marketplaces like Azure Marketplace are rapidly growing in the cloud industry. These marketplaces are gaining more attention from customers as they seek to streamline software procurement, consolidate vendors for better cost control, and expedite implementation with improved quality and reduced risk.
While being transactable on Azure Marketplace is a crucial initial step, it is not the ultimate objective. Customers won't automatically purchase an ISV solution just because it's listed on Azure Marketplace. Therefore, most ISVs will still need to actively find and sell their solutions to customers, without relying solely on the marketplace's presence.
In reality, many mature ISVs I've spoken to mainly engage in custom deals with customers, offering personalized pricing and terms - "Private Offers" in Azure Marketplace terms - rather than standard offers publicly available in the Marketplace Storefront.
Based on my experience for Marketplace discussions with many customers, I hear two main arguments for buying on Azure Marketplace are to ...
MACC + Marketplace = Win-Win-Win for Microsoft, ISV and customer!
Hint: Please reach out to your Microsoft contacts - or to me - to understand how Microsoft sales teams around the world may get incentivized to sell your ISV solution - if it is on Azure Marketplace!
You can read much more here Microsoft commercial marketplace.
Azure Marketplace Terminology
First a few important Azure Marketplace definitions ...
Offer - A single unit representing a product in Azure Marketplace.
Plan?- A single version of a particular Offer.
Each Offer have one or more Plan's (like Silver, Gold and Platinum) with the same Pricing Structure, but with different prices and potentially in different markets.
Public Plan is available for all customers in the defined markets
Private Plan is available for selected customers only (with specific Tenant Id)
Private Offer - A custom deal with a specific customer with customized pricing and terms for one or more Public Plan's already in Azure Marketplace.
Private Plan or Private Offer?
As defined above, both a "Private Plan" and a "Private Offer" involve creating a custom offer with custom terms, conditions, and pricing for a specific customer.
For mature Marketplace ISVs with a significant customer base on the Marketplace, private offers are likely the recommended choice.
For an ISV with no or few Marketplace customers, I typically recommend for simplicity to start with private plans.
Important: You can switch between Private Offers and Private Plans at any time, depending on what is best in a specific customer situation.
Note: In this article, the term "Private Offer" will be used for both a "Private Offer" and a "Private Plan" and to maintain simplicity, the article will primarily focus on describing the private plan approach.
Azure Marketplace Maturity Model
Any ISV will typically go through this maturity model
Level 1 - Not in Marketplace: Not yet present in Azure Marketplace
Level 2 - Contact Me: Present in Azure Marketplace with a "Contact Me" marketing page
Level 3 - Public Offer: Has one or more Offers with Public Plans in Azure Marketplace
Level 4 - Private Offer: Has one or more Private Offers or Private Plans
Level 5 - Integrated Offer: Has Azure Marketplace integrated with core systems
The focus of this article is to demonstrate how you get to Level 3 and Level 4, as always in my articles "as simple as possible, but not simpler".
... and now to the real content!
Azure Marketplace resources
In this article, I will heavily utilize already existing publicly available material about Azure Marketplace. The sources include:
The Azure Marketplace Lifecycle
The Azure Marketplace Lifecycle is typically four steps
In the next section, I will go in more details with the Preparation part.
You will see later that it is very simple to create both Public and Private Offers in Partner Center as soon as the preparation is done and all the main decisions are made.
Hint: First Preparation then Partner Center!
The Azure Marketplace Lifecycle - Preparation
To create an(y) Offer in Azure Marketplace, you will need information from four different areas: Marketing, Pricing, Legal and Technical.
Note: In a recent change (June 2024), SaaS ISVs are also requested to provide "Supplemental content" to document that the SaaS solution is fully or partially hosted in Azure. This is on top of the Reference architecture, required to become Co-sell ready (and ultimately MACC Eligible)
Hint: As this information likely will come from four different teams with very different background, I strongly recommend that you collect the relevant information before you start creating offers in Partner Center.
Note: The Technical part is, unlike what many people may think, by far the simplest, at least until you aim for the "Integrated Offer".
However, I still see many ISV's being blocked by the perceived technical complexity, probably also because the Azure Marketplace journey is typically led by a non-tech person at the ISV.
Important: Don't let TECHNOLOGY block your Azure Marketplace journey!
Initially I will recommend dividing the Preparation work into two sections as illustrated
Part 1: Find Marketing and Legal Information
You will most likely have most of the needed Marketing information already in some format, like product name, information, versions, media, consultancy options, support plan(s) etc. You may even have a "Contact me" listing on Marketplace with most of this information.
Hint: Look in Partner Center - or consider looking at the videos SaaS Offer Overview and Publishing a SaaS Offer - to see exactly what information you need.
Hint: Based on experience, you may want to - or even need to - recreate an offer several times while you learn. To minimize the effort, I recommend that you store all relevant information, like text, pictures, videos, links, email addresses etc. in OneNote/OneDrive or similar.
You will likely also have the Legal part, like existing standard Terms & Conditions (as a link or PDF).
Hint: To simplify, you may consider using Microsoft Standard T&C's - see Standard Contract for Microsoft commercial marketplace.
Part 2: Design Pricing Strategy
Hint: Consider looking at the videos SaaS Pricing Overview and SaaS Pricing Demo for more details.
In Azure Marketplace, you must create one or more 'pricing models' (or 'plans') to a product (an offer).
A typical example is to have for example Silver, Gold or Platinum plans for the same offer, offering different quality of service, different support plans or other services attached and with different prices, potentially on different markets and in different currencies.
You see how the data for an Azure Marketplace offer is organized in the diagram below
Note: The Pricing Model for an offer will have the same structure (Flat/user based, Monthly/annual, Customer meters) for all plans (for simplicity not reflected above).
How do customers buy on Marketplace?
A customer has two options to buy from Azure Marketplace as demonstrated in the video Azure Marketplace without filter.
The price for a SaaS solution
Based on experience, defining the "right" pricing model is probably the most difficult and time-consuming part of the whole Marketplace journey for new ISVs.
Again based on experience, Azure Marketplace is flexible enough to accommodate most requirements, but obviously not as flexible as if the ISV will invoice themselves.
The price for a SaaS solution is more than "just" the IP/licenses, as exemplified in the picture above.
Some of these elements may have a "fixed" price and be invoiced monthly, annual or upfront (for a multi-year deal) while others may be "consumption based"; e.g. invoiced based on customer usage - or a "custom meter" in Azure Marketplace terms (see later).
Important: Infrastructure cost (including Azure) is billed to the publisher of the SaaS solution; i.e. the ISV (in other words YOU!) and this should be obviously be reflected in your pricing models.
Next step is to define YOUR pricing model in Partner Center
You will have to go through these steps ...
Pricing Step 1: Do you need more than one plan?
You will need at least one (Public/Private) Plan to an Offer, but you may prefer to have several versions with different versions, services and different prices in different markets and with different currencies.
Note: You don't need a Public Plan if you only plan to transact custom deals on Marketplace. However, without a Public Plan, you will not have a "Contact me listing" on the Azure Marketplace Storefront - see the MVO (Minimal Viable Offer) section later.
Pricing Step 2: Decide which markets each plan should be offered in?
Azure Marketplace is available in 141 markets and Microsoft will handle VAT and Tax in 58 of these markets (as of July 2023) - see more in SaaS Pricing Demo.
Hint 1: For a Public Plan with zero price (e.g. a free/test version or a "Contact me listing" - see the MVO section later), you will likely want to select all markets.
Hint 2: For a Private Plan to a specific customer, you should only select the market for the specific customer. This will make non-USD pricing much simpler!
Pricing Step 3: Decide if you want Flat/User based rate and Monthly/Annual/Onetime billing?
This section is described in details in the videos SaaS Pricing Overview and SaaS Pricing Demo.
Important: You can not mix Flat rate and User based plans for the same offer.
In other words, if you start with a user based offer, you will have to recreate the offer if you want/need a flat rate plan.
Note: The selected structure is per offer and it will be used for all defined plans, both public and private.
Hint: You have to use Flat Rate, if you plan to sell your solution as an "All you can eat" Private Offer; e.g. with a fixed price no matter how many users, your customer will create.
Pricing Step 4: Decide if you want additional billing dimensions ('custom meters')?
This section is only relevant if you want to invoice your customer on "consumption based" areas.
Over time, I am convinced that all mature ISVs will use "custom meters" for two main reasons
Hint: For simplicity, almost all ISVs, I have worked with, have started with a Flat Rate.
It is described in details in the videos SaaS Pricing Overview and SaaS Pricing Demo.
Pricing Step 5: Decide if you want billing in local currencies in different markets?
Azure Marketplace will by default use USD prices, but many ISV's will prefer (or need) to invoice customers in a local currencies, like EUR in most European countries.
You can export pricing data (marked yellow below in the picture below) and define custom prices in local currencies per market in the Excel file.
You can then use the Import option to import your local customized prices.
In the example below, the offer is defined to be available in 4 markets/currencies: Argentina/USD, Australia/AUD, Belgium/EUR and Switzerland/CHF.
You can see a short video describing the process here.
The Azure Marketplace Lifecycle - Technical
I strongly recommend to start with an MVP approach – Minimal Viable Product. You can always extend this later if (when!) you have a critical mass of customers on Azure Marketplace.
In this section, I will illustrate how you can implement the technical part of your Azure Marketplace integration by using the "SaaS Accelerator", provided by the Commercial Marketplace Services team in Microsoft.
In 15 minutes and without writing a single line of code!
Hint: You will need a person with appropriate Azure privileges to allow the SaaS Accelerator to create Azure resources, but you do NOT need a "developer".
Note: In my experience, the SaaS Accelerator will be sufficient for most ISVs, at least for the first 10 Marketplace transactions.
These are the core links for SaaS Accelerator
Hint: If you want a deeper view, you will find everything you need in the (technical) videos on aka.ms/MasteringTheMarketplace, but I recommend you start with the "SaaS Accelerator"!
The Technical configuration requires four parameters, as seen below
Technical Step 1: Configure SaaS Accelerator script
Open the Basic installation script and configure the SaaS Accelerator PowerShell installation script with your choice for web app prefix, resource group name, admin email and Azure location.
Technical Step 2: Run installation script in Azure Cloud Shell
Now paste the customized installation into the Cloud shell in your Azure portal.
The PowerShell script will run for a few minutes and the output is exactly the four parameters, ready to be copied to the Technical Configuration page (see above).?
That is all - now you are ready to publish your first Offer!
Technical Step 3 (Optional): SaaS Accelerator Azure resources
Note: This section section is optional and it is just to show what is actually deployed in Azure by the SaaS Accelerator script.
The new resource group, created by the SaaS Accelerator, contains for example
领英推荐
? <web app prefix>-admin – the admin portal for the ISV
Step 4: The Admin portal
Note: This section is also optional until you get your first customers, but you will need it to activate (accept) or deactivate your Marketplace customers.
If you open the admin portal tab, you will be able to open the Admin portal by click the link, marked yellow.
This will open the Admin portal, generated by SaaS Accelerator, and if you select the Subscriptions tab, you will see all customer subscriptions, with status Subscribed, Unsubscribed, PendingActivation etc.
The Azure Marketplace Lifecycle - The Offer
The E2E process (see picture) is demonstrated in the Azure Marketplace without filter video.
This section is also described in more detail in several videos on aka.ms/MasteringTheMarketplace, specifically in SaaS Offer Overview, Purchasing a SaaS Offer and SaaS Pricing Demo.
Your first Offer
You are now ready to create a new SaaS offer from Overview | Marketplace offers | Partner Center with a new "Offer ID" and "Offer alias".
To help you facilitate the process, use the picture below to see how the structure in Partner Center (the menu items) relates to the information in the four areas that you collected in the previous Preparation phase..
Note that the Technical part is described previously.
The Partner Center Process
In the video Publishing a SaaS Offer, you will see how you use Partner Center to create an offer with a public plan. Each offer will go through the lifecycle illustrated below.
The Azure Marketplace Lifecycle - The Private Offer/Plan
Note: As mentioned previously, to simplify, I will here focus on Private Plans, not Private Offer.
As you will see, a Private Plan is created for ONE specific customer (at "Azure Tenant ID" level).
Hint: The Private Plan creation process (in Partner Center) is so simple that I recommend that you don't start until you have an actual customer, ready to buy.
As you have likely learned the hard way, the complexity in closong in a new customer deal lies in creating the right deal with this right product mix, terms, pricing etc.
You will often need several iterations before a(ny) customer is ready to accept your offer, and you will often need to make changes to T&C's and Plan(s)/Pricing.
The Full Picture
The diagram below illustrates the full data model, described in the previous sections.
See a comparison here Private offers in Azure Marketplace.
The MVO ("Minimal Viable Offer") Shortcut
Some ISVs may have products that are suitable for a scale motion where customers find and buy Public Offer (with a Public Plan) directly from Azure Marketplace Storefront, like in an App Store.
However, most of the ISVs, I work with, have solutions with a complexity and a price point, that will require a 'traditional' sales process, but where customers still want to leverage a committed Cloud spend (in a MACC) and benefit from the simplified procurement process by using Azure Marketplace.
This will require a Private Offer/Plan.
Note: This section will describe a few shortcuts that could potentially significantly reduce the time to get to Azure Marketplace if you only expect to transact through Private Offers/Plans.
In short: You should focus on the areas that are mandatory for the 'process (Procurement, deployment, support, contact info ...)
Make it "As Simple as Possible, but Not Simpler!"
Marketing Shortcut
As your product is likely sold 'outside' Azure Marketplace, you could consider focusing on the mandatory sections and use less time and effort on the sections that are optional/"Nice to have".
Legal Shortcut
As your product is to be sold as a Private Offer with special T&C's or for a Private Plan with reference to a contract outside Marketplace, the legal part of your Public Offer will not be used!
To save time, you should consider to keep the Legal section of the Public Offer to a minimum, maybe use Microsoft Standard T&C's.
NEW: Document that your SaaS solution is hosted in Azure.
As defined in the Commercial marketplace certification policies, it is a requirement to be able to transact a SaaS solution on Azure Marketplace that it is fully or partially hosted in Azure.
To supplement the previous required reference architecture (to become MACC Eligible, see below), you will now also be asked to provide "Supplemental content" as shown below
Important note:
Hint: It is recommended to provide 2 or more GUIDs with your highest consuming PROD subscriptions, e.g. subscriptions that are likely to increase when you sell a solution on Marketplace.
Make all offers MACC eligible - before your first customer!
I recommend that you make all your Offers MACC Eligible, if possible, before you have any Marketplace dialogs as your customers will likely require that.
See more about MACC Eligibility of Marketplace offers in the picture below or read more here.
See more about Co-sell eligible status of Marketplace offers in the picture below or you can read more here.
Pricing Shortcut - before you have your first customer!
Note: You need to do the steps below per offer; e.g. you have to do the steps again, if you have more than one offer or had to recreate the offer.
Step 1: Create a Private Plan to yourself and publish the offer
Your offer will need to have at least one plan (public or private) in order to be able to publish the offer.
I recommend that you start by creating a private plan with 1$ price and the Tenant id from your own Azure environment.
This will be sufficient for you to be able to publish the offer.
You will now have transactable offer with a price larger than 0$ live on Marketplace - and in order to make the offer MACC eligible, you only need to make it co-sell eligible! More on that in step 3 below.
Hint: You don't need to transact this private plan, only to publish it!
Step 2 (optional) : Publish a "Contact me listing" with a ZERO price
If you don't expect to sell the Public Offer "as-is", but still want to be visible on the Azure Marketplace Storefront, you should consider create a Public Plan with 0$ price.
This will in reality turn your “Public Plan” in to a “Contact me listing” - see these examples from Cognite and Insurity.
Step 3: Make your Offer Co-sell eligible - and with that MACC Eligible
As soon as your offer is published and live on Azure Marketplace, I recommend that you make your offer "co-sell eligible".
You initiate that process from the Co-sell menu option for your offer - see below.
Hint: I recommend to do this step as early as possible as the process will require a manual validation of the architecture for your solution and it may take a few days and even some iterations to get the validation done.
Based on experience, I know a potential delay here is not optimal if you are just about to close a deal and the customer requires your offer to be MACC eligible!
You will now need to provide at least a customer one-pager and a customer presentation deck in the Documents section.
Pricing Shortcut - when you have your first customer!
I will now assume that you have done the steps above and have created 3 plans to for your MACC eligible offer
As you will see below, it is now very easy to create a new Private Plan for a potential new customer in four very simple steps.
You can see the full process and the user experience for both ISV and customer in the video Azure Marketplace without filter.
Step 1: Create a new private plan
Hint: It is a best practice to use the description field to connect the private plan to an existing contract, signed outside Marketplace.
Step 2: Edit the markets to only match your specific customer
Since this private plan is for a specific customer, it is recommended to update the markets to be available on the one market, where the customer is located.
Step 3: Add the real prices in your Private Plan
You will now be able to add all pricing data in your Private Plan, based on what you have agreed with the customer.
Step 4: Add customer tenant id and publish the offer again!
Last step is to add your customer's tenant id and to publish the offer again.
When the new offer is "live", the new private plan will be visible only in the specific Azure tenant for this specific customer.
The Finance Deep Dive
Buying a SaaS Application
In order to be successful on Azure Marketplace, you obviously have to make the Customer purchase experience
I will recommend that you look at the video Azure Marketplace without filter.
The invoicing process with a SaaS Application
It is obviously very important that you as ISV understands how you sell your SaaS solution on Azure Marketplace - and by experience, I know this is very important for Finance.
The Process without Marketplace
As you will see, it is different than the process that you most likely use today, probably similar to what it illustrates below, where your customer will sign a contract, send you a Purchase Order (PO) and you will then send an invoice with this PO and finally book the payment in your accounting system against this invoice.
The Process with Marketplace
When you sell your Azure SaaS solution through Azure Marketplace, a few things will be different ...
The "contract" (or "T&C's") will be different, as prices and payment terms typically are defined elsewhere.
All prices must be defined in the private offer/plan plan as described above to make Microsoft able to send the invoices. Further, the customer payment terms will be the same as in their Azure contract.
If the customer is located in a Microsoft managed country, Microsoft will also handle VAT and Tax - see here.
Last, but not least, Microsoft will send the payment to you, as per the transaction details in Partner Center and you will be able to "book" this in your accounting system, typically refering to the usage and payment information in the transaction reports and the Revenue Summary report.
Azure Marketplace - Azure Docs Links
Note: Click the pictures below to go to the specific Azure Docs site.
Marketplace generic (for the ISV)
Marketplace SaaS specific
Marketplace generic (for the customer)
Azure Marketplace - Policies and Terms
Mastering the Marketplace
As mentioned, I consider this is the ultimate source for "How To" get to Azure Marketplace "as simple as possible, but not simpler".
General SaaS Knowledge
SaaS Technical Knowledge
SaaS Private Offer Knowledge
SaaS Accelarator Reference Implementation
Azure Marketplace Payment Process
Azure Marketplace Payment Overview - very detailed. Note that you will need to register to see this video.
Relevant links on Marketplace
Gartner & Forbes
Tackle.IO
Definitions
COTS (Commercial off-the-shelf)
Descriptive term for software that can be purchased from an external supplier, as opposed to that which is developed within the enterprise.?
ISV (Independent Software Vendor)
A company whose function is to develop, sell and support COTS software, typically in areas where primary vendors (i.e., SAP) have gaps, allowing clients to round out their software needs without inhouse development.
(Inspired by Gartner - see Definition of ISV (Independent Software Vendor) - IT Glossary | Gartner)
Azure SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)
Azure Software as a Service (SaaS)?is software that is owned, delivered and managed remotely in Azure by one or more providers. The provider delivers software based on one set of common code and data definitions that is consumed in a one-to-many model by all contracted customers at anytime on a pay-for-use basis or as a subscription based on use metrics.
(Inspired by Gartner - see Definition of Software as a Service (SaaS) - Gartner Information Technology Glossary)
Azure Marketplace
Azure Marketplace?is an online store that contains thousands of IT software applications and services built by industry-leading technology companies. In Azure Marketplace you can find, try, buy, and deploy the software and services you need to build new solutions and manage your cloud infrastructure. The catalog includes solutions for different industries and technical areas, free trials, and also consulting services from Microsoft partners.
Note: In the context of this article, I will use the term "Azure Marketplace" for everything related to Azure ISV solution in the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace Ecosystem; i.e. including Azure solutions in App Source.
Want to hear more, have feedback/suggestions or need help?
As always, I am very interested on your feedback. Please feel free to add a comment to this article, reach out to me ([email protected]).
Last, but not least: If you have a customer that wants to buy your Azure SaaS solution on Azure Marketplace and you need?any?help, reach out to your Microsoft contact - or to me ([email protected]).
Business Development Manager at Binary Stream
1 年This is an amazing information. Thank you for sharing it.
Strategic Partnerships at Microsoft
1 年Fantastic content Anders Bonde and thank you for the share Matt Holzmann!
Turning AI complexity Into Revenue Growth | Business Development Innovator | Driving Customer Satisfaction & Adoption for Microsoft 365 Copilot | Digital Transformation & Sales Enablement
1 年I wish this article was available back in 2019 when I was an ISV Partner Dev. Manager, brilliant explenation and visuals!
Chief Marketing Officer @ Synergy SKY | Strategic Marketing Management
2 年This article is brilliant! As an ISV we have been on the listing journey far too long. Now I see the ?? Anders Bonde can we set up a short call? We are having request from joint customers to get Synergy SKY listed co-sell ready. www.synergysky.com
Enthusiast riding the wave of disruption and transformation supporting with developing new business opportunities.
2 年Very insightful and comprehensive article getting all the relevant pieces into once view. Thank you for posting Anders!