ISV Success and Marketplace Rewards

Microsoft is committed to the growth and success of its partner software development companies. Part of that commitment is supporting them throughout the entire journey of building, publishing, and selling apps through Microsoft Marketplace. To further this mission, Marketplace Rewards is now included in Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Success, a pathway within the Microsoft AI Cloud Program, and is available - at no cost - to all participants.

To see how Rewards can help you accelerate growth and close more deals, view this two-minute video:

Your Microsoft Marketplace benefits

As you grow through Microsoft Marketplace, you unlock new benefits designed to help you convert customers and close deals. For details on the program and benefits, see Marketplace Rewards (PPT). To see what other Microsoft partners are saying about their experiences with Marketplace Rewards, visit Marketplace Rewards testimonials.

The benefits at each stage of growth help you progress to the next stage, helping you to grow your business to Microsoft customers, with Microsoft's field, and through Microsoft's channel by using Microsoft Marketplace as your platform.

Your benefits are differentiated based on whether your offer is List, Trial, Consulting, or Transact.

Based on the type of listing your company published, you'll unlock benefits in the Benefits workspace.

List, Trial, and Consulting offers receive benefits once every 12 months at the partner level. Transactable offers are eligible for evergreen benefit engagement based on performance by trailing 12-months (TTM). For transacting partners, as you grow through Microsoft Marketplace, you unlock increasing benefits by tier of Marketplace Billed Sales (MBS), Business Application solution value, or Teams App monthly active users (MAU) tier for each 12-month period.

The minimum requirement to publish in the online stores is a Partner ID, so these benefits are available to all partners regardless of Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program competency, Solutions partner designation, Action Pack subscription status, or partner type. Every partner is empowered to grow your business through Microsoft Marketplace as a platform.

You'll get support in understanding the resources available to you and in implementing the best practices, which you can also review on your own. If you're a partner who publishes a transactable offer, you also get a dedicated Engagement Manager to help you understand, prioritize, and maximize your benefits.

To learn more about Marketplace Rewards, see the Marketplace Rewards page in Partner Center.

Your steps to get started are easy

1. Publish an offer in Microsoft Marketplace.

2. To see your list of benefits, go to the Benefits workspace in Partner Center, and select the Marketing benefits tab.

3. To activate sales and marketing benefits, you must first assign a company marketing contact. This contact receives follow-up communications about your Marketplace Rewards.

4. To add or update your marketing contact information:

   1. Go to the top of the Marketing benefits tab on the Benefits workspace, then select Add, update, or change.
   2. Select a user from the list. If the user you want to assign isn't in the list, you can add new users in Account settings.
   3. Provide an email address for the user that's different from the email address associated with your company's Partner Center account. We'll email instructions for using your Marketplace Rewards benefit to your designated marketing contact's email address.
   4. Provide the contact phone and preferred language for this marketing contact. After you finish entering this information, select Assign user.
   5. After you've updated the marketing contact, select Activate for the benefit you want to start using. Once you activate a benefit, a member of the Rewards team will contact your marketing contact within a week.

   Note

   If your first offer in the 12-trailing months (TTM) has been live for more than three weeks, or if you have earned Marketplace Billed Sales in the TTM that meets one of the transactable benefit tiers, but you haven't received your benefits in the Benefit workspace, open a support ticket.

   All partners unlock a base level of benefits, including optimization recommendations and promotion as part of a self-serve email of resources and best practices, once every 12 months when you publish a nontransactable offer. However, Marketplace Rewards benefits are performance-based, so as you scale your transactable sales, you can unlock more benefits.

Use your Marketplace Rewards free Azure to win more customers

One of the most valuable benefits in Marketplace Rewards - the free Azure sponsorship - can help you grow your Microsoft Marketplace sales by providing free Azure usage to qualified partners and their customers. You can use Azure sponsorship:

• As a deal sweetener: Allocate to customers to help close one or more Microsoft Marketplace deals.
• On your own tenant: Offset operating costs on your own Azure subscription and/or costs associated with proofs of concept, trial or implementation.

Top performing software companies can qualify for even more Azure cloud credits to support large Microsoft Marketplace deals. To learn the process, watch this short Marketplace Rewards video.

Limitations

Azure sponsorship can be applied on pay-as-you-go, Enterprise Agreement (EA), and Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) billing accounts. Azure sponsorship has known limitations which are important for partners and their customers to be aware of. Read more about the limitations here Marketplace Rewards