Frequently asked questions about ISV-to-customer private offers

Private offers let you transact private deals with your customers in the marketplace. It supports many new capabilities and addresses limitations associated with private plans. Use the new private offers feature to:

• Create a private deal with more than up to 10 offers/plans; for example, SaaS and virtual machine.
• Give a time-bound discount for consumption-based (VM) offers.
• Give a deal at the customer organization level (using billing account) instead of the customer tenant or subscription level.
• Specify custom terms and conditions associated with the private deal with a simple PDF upload.
• Stop requiring the customer to redeploy VMs with new private offers just because the price changes (for consumption-based products like VMs).
• Close the private deal within 15 minutes.
• Specify an expiration date (accept by) date to help close the private deal with the customer.

* Requires a publicly transactable offer in the marketplace.

Private offers can be created for all transactable offer types: SaaS, Azure Virtual Machines, and Azure Applications. It doesn't yet support offers in Microsoft AppSource.

Use private offers to (a) create a private offer for a customer to buy through Azure portal, (b) create a discount to incentivize CSP partners to drive adoption for your offers in the marketplace, and (c) create an offer that includes a channel partner and is transacted through Azure portal.

To offer your employees free access to your products using the marketplace, ISVs can follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Partner Center, and select Marketplace offers.
2. Select Private offers from the left-nav menu to open the dashboard.
3. Select +New private offer.
4. Choose the duration you want to extend the free products to your employees.
5. Input your ISV billing account as the customer’s billing account.
6. Assign a 100% discount for consumption-based products, or $0 charge for entitlement-based products.
7. Use your customer account to accept and purchase the offer.

Once this is done, Microsoft will charge only the infrastructure cost for any usage or subscription on that billing account.

To create a private offer, you need the billing account ID of your customer. Customers can find the billing account information in the Azure portal either in Cost Management + Billing > Settings > Properties. Or, if the customer knows the subscription they plan to use for the purchase, they can find their billing account information in Azure portal in Subscriptions > select the relevant Subscription > Properties (or Billing Properties). The customer must be an owner or contributor on the billing account to access this information. If a customer doesn't have a billing account, they can create one by signing up on Azure.com. See Billing account scopes in the Azure portal.

With the private offer applied at the Billing Account ID level, if new subscriptions are added to the customer's Azure plan, the private offer automatically applies to those subscriptions and no edits need to be made to the private offer.

Billing account information is only available to customers. Publishers cannot access customer billing account information.

While creating a new private offer, select “Accepted date” as the start date to make the price available for the customer to transact as soon as the private offer is accepted. If you want a private price to be available to the customer immediately on acceptance, choose Accepted date.

Choose a specific month to make the private price available in a future calendar month. Example: If you create a private offer on May 15 and want the private price to be available to the customer on June 1, select June. The private offer starts on the first day of the month and ends on the last day. You can't select specific start and end dates. If a customer purchases the public offer/plan before to June 1, they won't receive the private offer price for any transactions before June 1. The time zone for the start date is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The Accept by date is the private offer's expiration date. Your customer must accept the private offer before the end of this date in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or the private offer expires. The End date specifies the date on which the private price and terms end.

The time zone for the Accept by date and the End date is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

You can document and upload custom terms that were agreed upon with the customer as part of the private deal. The customer is required to legally accept these terms as part of the private offer acceptance. Uploading custom terms is optional in a private offer. You can upload only one document and it must be in PDF format.

These custom terms between you and the customer shouldn't violate any terms included as part of the Marketplace Publisher Agreement.

It depends. If you wish to use the public terms of use for the private offer with no changes, you can skip uploading any custom terms and conditions to the private offer. The public terms of use will be presented to the customer during purchase of the private offer.

If you want to amend the public terms for the private offer, you need to upload custom terms and conditions to the private offer. The custom terms and conditions will be presented to the customer during purchase of the private offer.

You can use a discounted price to provide a percentage-based discount on top of a publicly listed plan. Specifying a discounted price can only be done when the private price is lower than the publicly listed plan price. The absolute price can be used to specify a price point higher, lower or equal to the publicly listed plan price, and can only be applied at a plan level. Absolute price can't be applied for Virtual Machine offer types or any plans that have a trial enabled.

Cloning a private offer allows you to create an editable copy of an existing private offer and publish it as a new private offer. Clone can be used on any private offer regardless of its status.

Upgrading a private offer allows you to upgrade an existing accepted private offer. Marketplace only supports upgrade at renewal; for example, the upgraded offer start and end date can't overlap with the existing private offer. ISVs can only edit pricing, dates, terms and notification contacts for the upgraded private offer. If other required changes are needed, create a new private offer.

A private offer in a Pending Acceptance state can't be changed. If the customer hasn't accepted the private offer, you can withdraw a private offer from the customer to make changes. After you withdraw the private offer, your customer won't be able to access it and you'll need to resubmit the private offer to your customer for them to access it.

If you publish multiple private offers to the same customer with the same offers/plans and the customer accepts them, the customer price is determined as follows:

• If you have overlapping percentage-based discounts and absolute pricing for the same plan, the absolute price applies
• If you have overlapping percentage-based discounts for the same plan, the customer gets the best price (highest percentage discount)
• If you have overlapping absolute pricing for the same plan, the customer gets the best price (lowest absolute price)

Partner Center uses the Notifications contact to notify you of changes to the private offer status. The notification email is sent when the private offer status changes from In Progress to Pending Acceptance, Pending Acceptance to Accepted, or Pending Acceptance to Expired.

No, Microsoft doesn't send any notifications to the customer. You should copy the private offer link and send it to the customer for acceptance.

No, you're notified via the SaaS fulfillment API that a SaaS offer is activated but not that it has a private offer associated. You can see if a private offer was accepted by the customer in the Insights reporting.

Private offers can't be upgraded mid-term. An ISV can create an upgrade at any time and a customer could accept it, but the upgrade only takes effect at the end of the existing private offer.

Use Upgrade to extend the start and end date and include revised custom terms and conditions associated with the private offer. To add or remove offers and plans, create a new private offer.

Any user within the customer’s organization can see the details of the private offer. To accept a private offer, the user in the customer organization needs to be an owner, contributor, or admin on the Azure account. Without appropriate permissions, the user can't accept the private offer. To get access to the billing account, the user should contact the billing account admin or owner. A red notice at the top of the page indicates 3 people within the customer’s organization who have the appropriate permissions to reach out to.

Once a private offer is accepted, it's a legal agreement between you and the customer and hence can't be changed.

If the private offer is due to begin on the Accepted date, the customer can go to the Azure portal to subscribe to the offer using any Azure Subscription associated with the billing account. They must use an Azure subscription associated with the configured billing account to get the private price. If the private offer includes pay-as-you-go offers (Virtual Machines) and was extended to an existing customer, the customer is charged using the private price as soon as the private offer is accepted.

For a private offer that includes SaaS, the customer must subscribe to the software as a service (SaaS) product first and then configure the product within 30 days of subscribing to the product.

If you configured the private offer to begin at a future date, your customer could accept the private offer before the Accept by date but should not complete the purchase until after the private offer Start date.

Once the customer accepts the private offer, it can take up to 15 minutes for the private price to be reflected in the marketplace on the Private products details page. If the customer transacts within these 15 minutes, the marketplace still charges the customer correctly using the private price.

Accepting a private offer doesn't initiate billing. To complete the purchase, customers must subscribe to the software as a service (SaaS) product or deploy the Virtual Machine or Azure Application products within the private offer in Azure portal.

For a private offer that includes a SaaS product, the customer must also configure the product within 30 days of subscribing to the product.

If the customer has auto-renew enabled, and you don't create a new private offer which is accepted by the customer, the customer is charged the list price of the public plan.

Yes, customers with Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments are able to decrement their MACC for benefit eligible purchases through customer private offers. Customers are unable to decrement their MACC for product purchases through CSP partner private offers.

There are no changes in the Payouts experience for private offers. Once a customer transacts using private offers, the transaction details are reflected in Earnings, specifically under the earnings and reports.

In the Insights workspace, the Orders and Usage reports can be filtered by private offers and public offers.

You should use private offers your negotiated deals on Azure Marketplace. Private plans continue to be supported and can be used for specific scenarios. For example, if you want to use a private (custom) VM image for your customer as part of the private deal or it meets requirements for their specific use case.

To leverage private offers, ISVs must have publicly transactable plans published to Azure Marketplace.

It isn't recommended for an ISV to have both a private plan and a private offer for the same customer, product, and time period. Private plans can continue to exist for existing deals and ISVs can use private offers for new deals.

Move customers to private offers as the customer’s private plan term comes up for renewal or expiration. You can create a private offer that will begin at the end of the current private plan subscription term. Once your customer accepts the private offer, customers will need to subscribe to the plan contained in your private offer.

You can also move your customers to private offers in the middle of a private plan term. If your customer paid for the full term of the original private plan, create a private offer and set the customer price to $0 or apply a 100% discount to your retail price. Your customer will need to accept the private offer terms and subscribe to the products within the private offer.

Private offers support monthly, annual, 2-year or 3-year terms. If your customer has a remaining duration that’s different than these terms, it’s best for your customer to complete the private plan term before subscribing to a private offer. For example, if your customer is in year 2 of a 3-year private plan term and is due to pay for their third year, you could create a private offer for a 1-year duration to charge the customer's final year via a private offer. Your customer then needs to cancel the original subscription to the private plan to avoid getting charged as part of the private plan renewal. You can then stop-sell the private plan.

Related content

• Create a private offer for a customer