How to request a reseller relationship from a customer in Partner Center

Appropriate roles: Admin agent | Sales agent

To purchase on behalf of a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) customer, you must first have a reselling relationship established with them, and the customer must sign the Microsoft Customer Agreement. When you add a new CSP customer, a reselling relationship is automatically formed between the partner and customer tenants. However, to provision and manage a customer's service or subscription on their behalf, the customer must also grant administrator permission for that service or subscription. Learn more about administration privileges at Obtain permissions to a customer's service or subscription.

If you want to establish a reseller relationship with a customer and to manage only the Azure subscriptions you provision, you don't need to obtain administrator permissions.

Note

The option to not request permissions isn't available to partners operating in Microsoft Cloud for US Government.

Invite an existing Microsoft customer to establish a reseller relationship with you

As previously mentioned, when you add a new CSP customer, a reselling relationship will automatically be established between your partner tenant and the customer’s tenant. However, if you wish to bring on an existing customer who previously conducted business with another Microsoft CSP partner, or a customer who purchased from Microsoft directly, you can request a reseller relationship with their existing customer tenant. This reseller relationship is advantageous if you, the partner, or the customer, wish to manage a single, or fewer, tenants.

Keep in mind most regions are only allowed to establish reselling relationships with their same region or country.

Request a reselling relationship from an existing customer in Partner Center

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Customers workspace, which loads your Customer List.
2. Select New relationship, which loads a templated email request. This process generates a unique link for the customer to view the relationship request details.
3. Follow the template instructions, and share the message with your customer.
4. The customer must then accept the reselling relationship request from you in Microsoft 365 admin center, using the unique link from your message.
5. Once the customer accepts the reselling relationship from you, the customer appears in your Customer List with a reselling relationship. You can now purchase on behalf of this CSP customer. (Keep in mind you'll also need a separate admin relationship to manage their service or subscription.)

Where a customer accepts an invitation

Where a customer accepts an invitation to establish a reseller relationship depends on whether the customer is in a public or national cloud:

Type of cloud customer	Where the customer accepts a reseller relationship invitation
Customer in public cloud	Microsoft 365 Admin Center
Customer in Partner Center for Microsoft Cloud for US Government	Microsoft Office Admin portal

Next steps

• Assign support contacts
• Remove a relationship with a customer