What is the commercial marketplace?

Cloud marketplaces are redefining the business-to-business (B2B) landscape. They're becoming a preferred channel for customers to find, buy, and manage applications and services to achieve business outcomes. The Microsoft commercial marketplace is a comprehensive B2B marketplace that connects you to thousands of Microsoft solutions and vetted partner solutions.

Purchasing decisions increasingly fall outside traditional IT. These days, everyone is a tech buyer. Companies of all sizes and stages have an increased need to simplify the procurement and deployment process.

Value and benefits

Spend smarter: Apply eligible purchases to your organization's Azure cloud commitment and get faster time to value with solutions that work with your current technology. Empower your organization to consume on demand while maintaining prominent levels of governance by enabling a private marketplace.

Buy with confidence: Access a comprehensive catalog of certified cloud solutions, and know that Microsoft is helping to protect your business. Enjoy the peace of mind that comes from buying and running solutions on a trusted cloud with industry-leading security. Use private offers to get exactly what you need, including customized terms and conditions, negotiated pricing, prototypes for proof of concept, and tailor-made solutions.

Increase efficiency: Streamline the selection, procurement, and management of your solutions by relying on a global marketplace that reduces complexity. Centralize the entire journey in one trusted place with simplified procurement and invoicing. Manage your cloud applications and services within Azure and get insights into your budget by using Microsoft Cost Management.

Getting started

The Microsoft commercial marketplace is an extension of the Microsoft Cloud to solve business and technology challenges across AI, security, infrastructure, and more. Customers can shop a single catalog of thousands of Microsoft and partner solutions. Customers have many paths to acquire the technology solutions that they need, whether they're shopping independently, relying on their channel partner, or negotiating deals directly.

Ways to shop the marketplace include:

Digital direct: Shop independently across the digital storefronts, Microsoft AppSource for line-of-business applications, and Azure Marketplace for IT solutions. Shopping direct helps organizations vet solutions that they might want to invest in, or it offers credit card purchasing for small businesses or start-ups.

Through partner: If you rely on a channel partner to manage your cloud estate, your partner can use multiparty private offers to source solutions on your behalf. Direct your partner to the documentation to learn more.

Enterprise buying: Get negotiated pricing and customer terms through private offers that count toward a Microsoft Azure consumption commitment.

Tip

The commercial marketplace is most valuable when an organization aligns its Azure strategy to the marketplace. This alignment:

  • Dramatically simplifies procurement.
  • Reduces time to value, to accelerate innovation.
  • Helps maximize investments by counting eligible solutions toward a Microsoft Azure consumption commitment.

Browsing through the marketplace

As an extension of Azure, the commercial marketplace is integrated into the Azure portal. This integration creates a convenient discovery experience for Microsoft and partner solutions, including Azure benefit-eligible solutions that count toward your cloud consumption commitment.

Search with advanced filters, or use the AI-powered solution finder to explore synergistic combinations of various products. If you work with a Microsoft partner to procure a custom deal, you manage your private offers through a dashboard. A Microsoft partner in this case can be either a software as a service (SaaS) provider or a channel partner. The dashboard streamlines the purchasing journey and procurement workflows in a unique location for your convenience.

Tip

Use Azure Marketplace to search for solutions and manage private offers. For more information, see Find what you need in Azure Marketplace.

Alignment to Azure role-based controls

The commercial marketplace uses role-based access control (RBAC) so you can acquire Microsoft and partner solutions that are certified to run on Azure. These controls delineate purchasing privileges within your organization. They help ensure adherence to compliance standards, established security protocols, and workflows by restricting purchases to authorized personnel.

Assigning roles and permissions to people within an organization is a foundational step to guaranteeing secure and compliant access to marketplace transactions. This alignment contributes to the secure use of the marketplace as a platform for procuring cloud solutions.

Tip

Aligning to Azure roles and permissions helps you synchronize your cloud investments for a holistic view that's centralized on your organization's Azure invoice. For more information, see Roles and permissions.

Custom deals with private offers

The commercial marketplace extends beyond a standard one-size-fits-all approach by offering custom deals with private offers and multiple-year pricing. You can procure:

  • Solutions with terms that are tailored to your requirements.
  • Negotiated pricing.
  • Azure benefit-eligible solutions that count toward your cloud consumption commitment.

Purchasing under long-term agreements optimizes budgets and facilitates the negotiation of more favorable pricing and terms. Multiple-year pricing reduces the complexity and administrative overhead of renewals.

Getting custom deals through private offers that include Azure benefit-eligible solutions is a strategic approach to getting more value from your organization's cloud budget. This approach helps maximize the value derived from your budgetary allocations while helping to ensure that your cloud investments align with your organization's needs and financial objectives.

If you work with a Microsoft channel partner to manage your technology investments, your partner can procure cloud solutions on your behalf with multiparty private offers. As you prepare to engage with a Microsoft partner to negotiate a custom deal by using a private offer, ensure readiness. That is, confirm that your Azure account is equipped with the necessary permissions and configurations to accept and proceed with the private offer transaction.

Tip

The commercial marketplace can support your organization in getting more value for your cloud investments by aligning your marketplace strategy to an Azure consumption commitment and using capabilities like private offers and multiple-year pricing. For more information, see Overview of the commercial marketplace and enterprise procurement.

Charges and billing

When you purchase through the commercial marketplace, you eliminate the complexity of managing individual vendor relationships and invoices. You get a single, consolidated monthly invoice from Microsoft that includes your Azure charges and your marketplace purchases. The invoice is generated based on your billing account type.

Invoices are created for Enterprise Agreement accounts, Microsoft Customer Agreement accounts, and Microsoft Online Services Program accounts. If you purchase products by using a credit card that's associated with your Azure account, all purchases are consolidated on a single invoice and billed to that credit card.

Solutions purchased through the commercial marketplace can have different billing models. Some solutions are billed in a pay-as-you-go fashion, whereas others might have fixed monthly charges. Charges are calculated according to each solution's billing model. To learn how to view and analyze marketplace charges and download your invoice, see Cost management for Azure Marketplace purchases.

Governance and control

Private Azure Marketplace is a service that adds a governance layer at the Azure tenant level. This layer provides control over the deployment and procurement of Microsoft partner solutions.

When you create a private Azure Marketplace instance, only offers that the marketplace administrator explicitly approves can be deployed within the Azure tenant. This approach provides a heightened level of control and oversight. Administrators can govern the selection of Microsoft partner applications that people within the organization are authorized to purchase and deploy. Users keep the ability to explore the entire marketplace catalog, but purchases and deployments are restricted to approved solutions. This model establishes a compliant environment that aligns with principles of effective governance and control.

Tip

Administrators can use private Azure Marketplace to govern who can deploy Microsoft partner solutions in an organization. A person can deploy only offers that the marketplace administrator approves. For more information, see Govern and control using private Azure Marketplace.

Certification and security

Certification policies for Microsoft partners that publish solutions to the commercial marketplace guarantee the security, compliance, and functionality of those solutions. These policies encompass specific technical requirements for publishing offers, virtual machine images, and containers. These policies also help ensure proper integration with fulfillment and metering APIs for SaaS solutions.

For secure authentication, options must support both Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft account types for SaaS offers. We encourage buyers to thoroughly review each product to ensure that it aligns with their organization's unique requirements. For more information, see Commercial marketplace certification policies.

For Microsoft 365 solutions, the Microsoft 365 certification demonstrates to customers that an app has undergone scrutiny against controls derived from leading industry-standard frameworks. This certification affirms the implementation of robust security and compliance practices to help safeguard customer data.

Customers who are exploring and deploying Microsoft 365 apps in AppSource can access publisher attestation and certification details. Publisher attestation provides self-attested information on security, data handling, and compliance practices. You can view this information on Microsoft 365 apps in AppSource to verify compliance with specific standards, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or industry-specific regulations. This verification helps ensure that selected solutions align with your organization's regulatory obligations.

Public and government clouds

The commercial marketplace is available in the Azure public cloud. Azure Government customers can deploy applications through Azure Government Marketplace. Azure Stack Hub customers can deploy solutions through Azure Stack Hub Marketplace.