From listing to sale: Microsoft Marketplace made easy

Kyle Heisner is a veteran GTM and Cloud Marketplace leader at Suger with extensive experience helping software companies scale through strategic partnerships and co-sell programs. He is known for transforming complex cloud ecosystems into clear, repeatable revenue motions.

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You’ve built an amazing product and listed it on Microsoft Marketplace. Now what?

For many software development companies, that’s where progress stalls. Your listing is live, yet transactions aren’t flowing. You’re in the Marketplace, but not yet part of its commerce motion.

Going from “listed” to “transactable” is the turning point. It’s when your Marketplace presence becomes a measurable pipeline, eligible for co-sell, incentives, and enterprise purchasing. This guide walks through how top software companies go transactable, combining AI, automation, and integrations to make it simple and scalable.

Why Microsoft cares about transactable software companies

Microsoft is doubling down on transactable listings as the foundation of its marketplace strategy. Transactable offers enable customers to buy directly through their Azure commitments, simplifying procurement and making cloud adoption measurable.

For Microsoft, this shift drives predictable consumption, cleaner billing, and stronger alignment with enterprise buyers. For partners, it opens access to co-sell programs, incentives, and higher placement in Marketplace search.

Being transactable isn’t optional anymore. It’s the cost of entry for the next generation of cloud GTM.

Why being transactable benefits software companies

For software companies, transactable listings transform Marketplace visibility into a repeatable revenue channel. Microsoft handles billing, invoicing, and disbursements, so customers can purchase through existing Azure agreements without new vendor onboarding or security reviews.

When your listing is transactable:

• Enterprise buyers purchase through committed Azure spend.
• You qualify for Marketplace Rewards and co-sell incentives.
• Microsoft sellers can align on deals that generate mutual pipeline.
• Your revenue data flows directly into payout and forecasting systems.

Transactable listings reduce friction for buyers, streamline sales cycles, and create a scalable path to growth alongside Microsoft.

Aligning your sales methodology

Microsoft Marketplace isn’t a side motion; it’s a core sales channel. The best software companies fold Marketplace into their qualification and closing process, turning it into a repeatable path that accelerates deals and reduces friction across teams.

Role-based actions for Microsoft Marketplace success

Partner & Alliances

• Identify customers with Azure consumption commitments that can fund your deals.
• Build joint account plans with Microsoft Partner Development Managers (PDMs).
• Share pipeline regularly and flag co-sell-eligible opportunities early.

Sales Reps

• Ask early if buyers have Azure budgets or enterprise agreements.
• Present Marketplace as the fastest purchasing path.
• Tag Marketplace opportunities in CRM and trigger co-sell workflows.

 Sales Management

• Review Marketplace pipeline in forecasts and QBRs.
• Set targets for the percentage of deals closing through Azure.
• Align compensation to reward Marketplace adoption.

 RevOps

• Standardize CRM fields and automate referral submissions.
• Track cycle time and win rates versus direct deals.
• Measure Marketplace impact on deal velocity and CAC.

Finance

• Reconcile payouts with Partner Center data.
• Sync invoices and taxes into your accounting system.
• Forecast Marketplace cash flow accurately.

Embedding Marketplace into sales motions creates a repeatable, low-friction channel that scales across every team.

Go from listed to selling fast

Going transactable used to take months of coordination. With automation and AI, it now takes days.

Suger helps Azure software companies:

• Connect Partner Center, CRM, and finance systems.
• Publish transactable offers.
• Automate MPOs, invoicing, and payout tracking.
• Visualize performance in unified dashboards.

Whether you’re a startup or enterprise, the path to your first Azure sale is shorter than ever if your systems and workflows are connected.

How it works step-by-step

Publishing a listing is only the start. To generate revenue, connect your CRM, finance, and partner systems so deals flow cleanly from quote to cash. Many software companies get stuck on manual offers or disconnected data. The fix is automation. The fastest-growing software companies standardize the path from listing to sale.

Step 1: Connect your systems

You don’t need to integrate everything at once. Connect core systems early to avoid rework. Suger’s 30+ native integrations make it simple, no engineering required.

• CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot): Link Partner Center so listings, referrals, and private offers live inside Opportunities.
• Finance (NetSuite, QuickBooks, Stripe): Sync invoices, payouts, and true-ups automatically.
• Communications (Slack, Teams): Notify teams when offers are created, accepted, or near expiry.

These integrations give every team a shared view from day one.

Step 2: Build you listing with AI

To transact, you need a listing that defines how your product is sold, including pricing, descriptions, and compliance details. That’s where many software companies slow down.

Suger’s AI Listing Assistant speeds publishing by auto-filling:

• Product info (e.g. title, descriptions, and categories)
• Support contacts
• Resource links

In minutes, you can publish a compliant listing with minimal effort. Suger then syncs pricing, SKUs, and entitlement configurations through your connected systems, ensuring your listing is ready for transactions.

Auto-fills listing details so it’s publish-ready in minutes

Step 3: Validate and go live

Once the listing is ready, make it transactable by linking it to offer plans that define pricing, fulfillment, and entitlements.

Suger automates this process end-to-end:

• Imports listing data from Partner Center
• Prefills pricing and fulfillment details from CRM and finance
• Validates compliance with Azure transaction rules
• Publishes back to Partner Center as “transactable”

In minutes, your offer is connected and live, ready for reps to create private offers directly in CRM.

Step 4: Enable co-sell with Microsoft

Going transactable unlocks the Azure Co-Sell program, the fastest way to grow joint pipeline with Microsoft.

Suger automates co-sell operations by:

• Sharing eligible opportunities with Microsoft automatically
• Enriching missing required referral details (e.g. company, website, address, industry, size, and phone)
• Syncing updates back to CRM as deals progress

That keeps both sides aligned in real time.

Step 5: Generate private offers

Most software companies start with a Microsoft Private Offer , a custom quote for a specific buyer.

With Suger, reps create offers directly in their CRM:

• Offer details auto-populate from CRM or CPQ records
• Approvals route through Slack or Teams
• Accepted offers sync back for payout reconciliation

Create offers directly in your CRM and workflow

When an offer is accepted, Suger automatically:

• Attaches EULAs and entitlement documents to the record
• Notifies Finance to mark the deal as Closed Won
• Syncs revenue data with accounting systems for payout reconciliation

Automate the full quote-to-close process across teams and systems

The entire process—from quote to close—takes minutes instead of hours, keeping teams focused on selling instead of administration.

Step 6: Automate billing and payouts

Once the deal closes, automation continues.

Suger’s enterprise-grade billing and metering turn raw usage into clean financial data:

• Converts consumption into billable records that match Microsoft’s billing format.
• Handles hybrid and usage-based pricing models automatically.
• Flags discrepancies before invoices hit Finance.
• Exports payouts directly into NetSuite or QuickBooks.

Finance teams gain accurate, audit-ready data, and sellers gain visibility into when revenue actually lands. No spreadsheets, no missed payments, no confusion.

Step 7: Measure and optimize

After your first sale, visibility drives optimization.

Suger unifies Marketplace, CRM, and finance data into dashboards for every team.

• Sales: Pipeline by region and offer type.
• Alliances: Co-sell progress and seller engagement.
• Finance: Payout timing and reconciliation.
• RevOps: Deal velocity and attribution.

Dashboards simplify forecasting and export easily to Power BI or Tableau.

Track pipeline, co-sell performance, and payouts in one place

Avoid common pitfalls

Most teams hit the same snags. Automation turns bottlenecks into repeatable, scalable processes.

Check your readiness

Before transacting, confirm:

• Offer readiness: Transactable offer configured, approved, and tested.
• System readiness: CRM, billing, and Partner Center fully synced.
• Workflow readiness: Private offer creation and approvals automated.
• Visibility readiness: Dashboards tracking pipeline, payouts, and cycle time.
• Team readiness: Roles trained on Marketplace quoting and fulfillment.

This helps ensure smooth and scalable processes after kick-off.

The Suger difference

Suger combines automation, AI, and native integrations in one platform built for hyperscaler marketplaces.

This combination helps software companies go live faster and scale sustainably without adding headcount or complexity.

Reignite your Marketplace listings

If your Azure listing is live but inactive, start here:

1. Convert to transactable. Use guided templates to publish a compliant offer quickly.
2. Connect core systems. Sync CRM, Partner Center, and finance for automatic deal flow.
3. Automate private offers and co-sell. Let reps manage everything directly from CRM.

These steps unlock visibility, accountability, and revenue: the foundation for long-term Marketplace success.

Impact by team

Every team benefits when Azure Marketplace operations are automated and connected.

• Sales: Faster deal creation and fewer errors by staying inside CRM.
• Partner/Alliances: Real-time visibility into co-sell pipeline and cloud alignment.
• RevOps: Unified analytics connecting listing, pipeline, and revenue.
• Finance: Reliable payout data, no spreadsheets, and automated reconciliation.
• Engineering: Less manual maintenance thanks to productized integrations.

Shared data and workflows make Marketplace revenue predictable.

Going transactable is the tipping point between simply being listed on Microsoft Marketplace and generating real, predictable revenue. By connecting core systems, automating private offers, and enabling co sell, software companies turn Marketplace into a repeatable sales channel. Automation removes the operational burden and lets offers generate in minutes while data flows cleanly from CRM to finance. When teams have visibility into pipeline, payouts, and performance, Marketplace becomes easier to forecast, manage, and scale. The companies that win are the ones that treat Marketplace as a core sales strategy, not a side experiment.

Start your journey

Ready? Publish a transactable offer, enroll in co-sell, and share a referral to get there faster.

 Need help? Contact Suger for a consultation and go from listed to selling fast.

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Resources

Microsoft Marketplace Trusted source for cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents

Microsoft Marketplace - Marketplace publisher | Microsoft Learn   How to guides for working in Microsoft Marketplace

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