August 2026
What's new in Marketplace
Convert more buyers into customers
Microsoft recently expanded Marketplace listing capabilities with enhancements to free trials and the introduction of an option to request private offers, giving partners more ways to engage buyers at different stages of the purchasing journey. Customers can now discover and evaluate solutions through expanded trial experiences and transition more easily into paid subscription discussions by requesting custom pricing and terms directly from your Marketplace listings.
✨ Help customers evaluate your solution with free trials
What's new
Microsoft has expanded trial capabilities across Microsoft Marketplace, giving partners more ways to help customers discover, evaluate, and purchase solutions. Trials are now available across additional offer types, including SaaS, Azure virtual machines, Dynamics 365, and Power BI offers.
- Configure trial durations from one to 180 days for eligible SaaS solutions
- Choose from 1-, 3-, or 6-month trial periods for Azure virtual machines
- Provide one-month trials for Dynamics 365 and Power BI apps
- Move qualified free trials to paid subscriptions faster with clear upgrade paths
- Track performance in the Partner Center Insights workspace
Why it matters
By bringing trials, discovery, insights, and conversion paths together within Microsoft Marketplace, partners can reduce friction in the customer journey, align trial experiences to their sales motions, and more effectively identify and convert qualified buyers into paying customers.
Recommended action
Review your Marketplace offers and trial strategy. For eligible SaaS offers, evaluate whether free trials and configurable trial durations can help attract more qualified buyers.
📖 Learn more about free trials for SaaS
⚡ Customers can now request a private offer on Marketplace
What’s new
As of July 20, you can add a private offer request option directly on your Marketplace product pages. Customer requests are captured as Marketplace leads in referrals workspace and connected customer relationship management (CRM) integrations you’ve setup.
- This setting is disabled by default.
- You can easily activate it for applicable public offers.
Why it matters
More and more customers are seeking customized contracts and subscription pricing and terms tailored to their individual needs. This simple call to action reduces friction and helps you start the conversation with prospective buyers.
Recommended action
In the Marketplace offers workspace of Partner Center, update each of your offers for which you provide customers private offers. Enable the Request Private Offer setting and republish the offer.
Events
Recent events
Multiparty private offers expand channel growth opportunities in Australia, Japan and South Africa
Multiparty private offers continue to help software companies accelerate channel-led sales through Microsoft Marketplace. This past month, we hosted two region-focused Marketplace office hours sessions designed to help partners better understand local market opportunities, engage distributors and resellers, and scale Marketplace transactions through channel ecosystems in Australia and Japan. Whether you're looking to expand an existing Marketplace motion or explore new geographic opportunities, these sessions will provide practical guidance and market-specific insights to help you grow. See a list of currently supported countries/regions.
Check out the recorded sessions:
• Channel growth in Australia (English)
• Channel growth in Japan (Japanese)
Helping developers build, monetize, and scale AI solutions with Marketplace
Discover how Microsoft Marketplace helps software companies access AI models and developer tools, accelerate application development, and reach customers through Microsoft's global commercial ecosystem. Learn how to monetize applications and agents without building and maintaining your own commerce and distribution infrastructure.
Upcoming events
Build AI-powered solutions, monetize through Microsoft Marketplace, and scale revenue through Microsoft expertise, skilling, and investments.
Frontier Accelerate for Marketplace is an upcoming unified offering for software development companies to bring AI-powered solutions to market, drive customer acquisition and revenue growth, and scale through Microsoft Marketplace with technical guidance, skilling, and investments aligned to every stage of growth.
📆 Join us on August 26th before general availability to learn about the new offering, benefit alignment, migration guidance, and enrollment requirements.
Next steps
Turn insights into FY27 success — starting today.
Ready to carry the momentum forward from MCAPS Start for Partners? Get everything you need to refine and execute your FY27 strategy in the Partner Activation Zone, including session recordings, ready-to-use playbooks, and tools to start building pipeline.
Leverage your Marketplace Rewards benefits
Discover use cases and how to leverage your Azure sponsorship. With Marketplace Rewards Azure sponsorships, eligible software development companies can increase sales through Microsoft Marketplace by using the sponsorships for customer deployments tied to Marketplace deals—and to offset infrastructure costs from eligible free trial offers.
📍Review the Marketplace Rewards Azure sponsorship policy guide for the latest
