Create plans for a SaaS offer

  • Article

Offers sold through the Microsoft commercial marketplace must have at least one plan. You can create a variety of plans with different options within the same offer. These plans (sometimes referred to as SKUs) can differ in terms of version, monetization, or tiers of service. For detailed guidance on plans, see Plans and pricing for commercial marketplace offers.

Note

If you choose to process transactions independently, you won't see this option. Instead, skip to Sell a SaaS offer.

Important

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Graph is deprecated as of June 30, 2023. Going forward, we're making no further investments in Azure AD Graph. Azure AD Graph APIs have no SLA or maintenance commitment beyond security-related fixes. Investments in new features and functionalities will only be made in Microsoft Graph.

We'll retire Azure AD Graph in incremental steps so that you have sufficient time to migrate your applications to Microsoft Graph APIs. At a later date that we will announce, we will block the creation of any new applications using Azure AD Graph.

To learn more, see Important: Azure AD Graph Retirement and Powershell Module Deprecation.

Create a plan

  1. Near the top of the Plan overview tab, select + Create new plan.
  2. In the dialog box that appears, in the Plan ID box, enter a unique plan ID. Use up to 50 lowercase alphanumeric characters, dashes, or underscores. You can't modify the plan ID after you select Create.
  3. In the Plan name box, enter a unique name for this plan. Use a maximum of 200 characters.
  4. Select Create.

Define the plan listing

On the Plan listing tab, you can define the plan name and description as you want them to appear in the commercial marketplace.

  1. In the Plan name box, the name you provided earlier for this plan appears here. You can change it at any time. This name will appear in the commercial marketplace as the title of your offer's software plan.
  2. In the Plan description box, explain what makes this software plan unique and any differences from other plans within your offer. This description can contain up to 3,000 characters.
  3. Select Save draft before continuing to the next tab: Pricing and availability.

Define markets, pricing, and availability

Every plan must be available in at least one market. On the Pricing and availability tab, you can configure the markets this plan will be available in, the desired monetization model, price, and billing terms. In addition, you can indicate whether to make the plan visible to everyone or only to specific customers (also called a private plan).

  1. Under Markets, select the Edit markets link.

  2. In the dialog box that appears, select the market locations where you want to make your plan available. You must select a minimum of one and maximum of 141 markets.

    Note

    This dialog box includes a search box and an option to filter on only "Tax Remitted" countries/regions, in which Microsoft remits sales and use tax on your behalf.

  3. Select Save, to close the dialog box.

Note

Offers will be billed to customers in the customers' agreement currency, using the local market price that was published at the time the offer was created. The amount that customers pay, and that ISVs are paid, depends on the Foreign Exchange rates at the time the customer transacts the offer. Learn more on "How we convert currency?".

Define a pricing model

You must associate a pricing model with each plan: either flat rate or per user. All plans in the same offer must use the same pricing model. For example, an offer can't have one plan that's flat rate and another plan that's per user. For more information, see SaaS pricing models.

Important

After your offer is published, you can't change the pricing model. In addition, all plans for the same offer must share the same pricing model.

Configure flat rate pricing

  1. On the Pricing and availability tab, under Pricing, select Flat rate.
  2. Configure the Billing terms you want. You can add 1-month, 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year billing terms. For each billing term you add, configure the payment option to set the payment schedule. One payment option per billing term is supported for the same plan.
  3. Enter the price for each payment occurrence.

Note

To add another payment option for the same term, create a new plan.

Add a custom meter dimension

This option is available only if you selected flat rate pricing. For more information, see Metered billing for SaaS using the commercial marketplace metering service.

  1. Under Marketplace Metering Service dimensions, select the Add a Custom Meter Dimension (Max 30) link.
  2. In the ID box, enter the immutable identifier reference while emitting usage events.
  3. In the Display Name box, enter the display name associated with the dimension. For example, "text messages sent".
  4. In the Unit of Measure box, enter the description of the billing unit. For example, "per text message" or "per 100 emails".
  5. In the Price per unit in USD box, enter the price for one unit of the dimension.
  6. For each billing term you enable on the plan, in the corresponding quantity included in base box, enter the quantity (as an integer) of the dimension that's included for the entire billing term. To set an unlimited quantity, select the check box instead.
  7. To add another custom meter dimension, select the Add another Dimension link, and then repeat steps 1 through 6.

Important

You must keep track of the usage in your code and only send usage events to Microsoft for the usage that is above the base fee.

Configure per user pricing

  1. On the Pricing and availability tab, under Pricing, select Per User.
  2. If applicable, under User limits, specify the minimum and maximum number of users for this plan.
  3. Add the billing terms you want: 1-month, 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year billing terms can be added.
  4. For each billing term, select the payment option to set the payment schedule. Only one payment option per term can be configured on the same plan.
  5. Enter the price for each payment occurrence.

Note

To add another payment option for the same billing term, create a new plan.

Validate custom prices

To set custom prices in an individual market, export, modify, and then import the pricing spreadsheet. You're responsible for validating this pricing and owning these settings. For detailed information, see Custom prices.

  1. You must first save your pricing changes to enable export of pricing data. Near the bottom of the Pricing and availability tab, select Save draft.
  2. Under Pricing, select the Export pricing data link.
  3. Open the exportedPrice.xlsx file in Microsoft Excel.
  4. In the spreadsheet, make the updates you want to your pricing information and then save the .CSV file.
    You might need to enable editing in Excel before you can update the file.
  5. On the Pricing and availability tab, under Pricing, select the Import pricing data link.
  6. In the dialog box that appears, click Yes.
  7. Select the exportedPrice.xlsx file you updated, and then click Open.

Note

For billing terms that support multiple payment options, only one payment option is allowed per billing term. The prices for a given billing term must be defined for the same payment option across all markets that are selected for the plan.

Enable a free trial

You can configure a free trial for each plan in your offer. Select the check box to allow a one-month free trial. This check box isn't available for plans that use the marketplace metering service. For more information, see Free trials.

Important

After your transactable offer has been published with a free trial, it can't be disabled for that plan. Make sure this setting is correct before you publish the offer to avoid having to re-create the plan.

  • Under Free Trial, select the Allow a one-month free trial check box.

Choose who can see your plan

You can configure each plan to be visible to everyone or to only a specific audience. You grant access to a private plan using tenant IDs with the option to include a description of each tenant ID you assign. You can add a maximum of 10 tenant IDs manually or up to 20,000 tenant IDs using a .CSV file.

Note

If you publish a private plan, you can change its visibility to public later. However, once you publish a public plan, you can't change its visibility to private.

Make your plan public

  1. Under Plan visibility, select the Public box.
  2. Select Save draft, and then in the upper left of the tab, select Plan overview to return to the Plan overview tab.
  3. To create another plan for this offer, near the top of the Plan overview tab, select + Create new plan. Then repeat the steps in the Create a plan section. Otherwise, go to View your plans.

Manually add tenant IDs for a private plan

  1. Under Plan visibility, select the This is a private plan box.
  2. In the Tenant ID box that appears, enter the Microsoft Entra tenant ID of the audience you want to grant access to this private plan. A minimum of one tenant ID is required.
  3. (Optional) Enter a description of this audience in the Description box.
  4. To add another tenant ID, repeat steps 2 and 3.
  5. When you're done adding tenant IDs, select Save draft, and then in the upper left of the tab, select Plan overview to return to the Plan overview tab.
  6. To create another plan for this offer, near the top of the Plan overview tab, select + Create new plan. Then repeat the steps in the Create a plan section. Otherwise, go to View your plans.

Use a .CSV file for a private plan

  1. Under Plan visibility, select the This is a private plan box.
  2. Select the Export Audience (csv) link.
  3. Open the .CSV file and add the Azure IDs you want to grant access to the private offer to the ID column.
  4. Optionally, enter a description for each audience in the Description column.
  5. Add "TenantID" in the Type column, for each row with an Azure ID.
  6. Save the .CSV file.
  7. On the Pricing and availability tab, under Plan visibility, select the Import Audience (csv) link.
  8. In the dialog box that appears, select Yes.
  9. Select the .CSV file and then select Open.
  10. Select Save draft, and then in the upper left of the tab, select Plan overview to return to the Plan overview tab.
  11. To create another plan for this offer, at the top of the Plan overview tab, select + Create new plan. Then repeat the steps in the Create a plan section. Otherwise, if you're done creating plans, go to the next section: View your plans.

View your plans

After you create one or more plans, you'll see your plan name, plan ID, pricing model, availability (Public or Private), current publishing status, and any available actions on the Plan overview tab.

The actions that are available in the Action column of the Plan overview tab vary depending on the status of your plan, and can include the following:

  • If the plan status is Draft, the link in the Action column will say Delete draft.
  • If the plan status is Live, the link in the Action column will be either Stop distribution of a plan or Sync private audience. The Sync private audience link will publish only the changes to your private audiences, without publishing any other updates you might have made to the offer.

Before you publish your offer

If you haven't already done so, create a development and test (DEV) offer to test your offer before publishing your production offer live. To learn more, see Plan a test and development SaaS offer.

Next steps

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