We’re excited to announce that the Microsoft marketplace now supports multiyear contract durations—enabling customers and partners to lock in terms and pricing for up to five years. New options include four and five-year terms for SaaS and Professional Services, and two, four, and five-year terms for Virtual Machine Software Reservations (VMSR). These contract durations are available globally across all marketplace-supported currencies.
The value for your customers and for you
With multiyear contract durations, customers can buy with confidence knowing they will have stability and continuity of service, making it easier to plan and forecast expenses and lock in substantial savings that often come with longer contracts. Partners benefit by supporting customers’ budget needs, strengthening customer relationships, reducing administrative burdens, and growing reliable revenue streams.
“Our customers value five-year contracts for the stability and long-term value they provide. With multiyear contracts now available in Microsoft marketplace, we can better align with their operational timelines, reduce renewal cycles, and focus on building lasting relationships—while driving predictable revenue.”
Sue Wilkinson,
Global Director of Partners, IFS
How it works
To enable multiyear contract durations, software partners must take the following steps:
- Create a public offer with multiyear contract durations. Partners must ensure their public offers include extended contract terms before they can create private offers with those durations. Partners have two options:
- Update an existing public plan to support new options for extended durations (i.e., four and five-year options for SaaS offers and two, four, and five-year options for VMSR), or
- Create a new public plan that includes multiyear contract durations.
- Create private offers with multiyear contract durations. Once a public offer with multiyear contract durations is published, partners can configure private offers that leverage those durations.
Notes:
- Existing customer agreements cannot be modified mid-term to extend contract length. Customers must cancel their current plan and purchase a new one that includes the desired extended duration.
- Multiyear contract durations for CSP offers will be enabled later this summer. Until then, partners can create new offers without opting to resell through CSP to take advantage of extended contract durations.
Creating multiyear contracts with flexible billing schedules
Partners can create private offers that combine multiyear contract durations with flexible billing options—like quarterly, semiannual, or bimonthly—making it easier to align with customer needs and streamline sales.
“Microsoft’s recent launch of multiyear contracts and flexible billing has been a game changer, simplifying the buying process and enhancing the customer experience. We can now build private offers in the Microsoft marketplace in a more natural way that mirrors our contracts in the platform.”
Sue Wilkinson,
Global Director of Partners, IFS
Learn more about flexible billing schedules and capturing the marketplace opportunity.
Eligibility for multiyear contracts and how to get started
Any company who is part of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program can sell on the marketplace with multiyear contract durations. Details are provided in our documentation, but at a high-level:
- Be a member of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program (it’s free to join)
- Sign the marketplace publisher agreement
- Publish your public offer with multiyear contract durations.
- Sell private offers with multiyear contract durations.
In addition, we have many support resources for partners depending on where they are on their marketplace journey. For example, software development companies can join ISV Success, within the Partner Program, for tools and resources that help them publish their solution and maximize reach through the marketplace.
Learn more by visiting:
Microsoft