From discovery to decision: A connected way to buy in Microsoft Marketplace
When I talk with customers about technology decisions, one thing is clear: finding a promising solution is only the beginning. The real work is deciding whether that solution solves the business need. Can I understand my options quickly? How does one solution compare with another? Can my team try it before making a decision? And when we’re ready to move forward, can the purchase reflect the way our organization actually needs to buy? Those questions become even more important as organizations bring cloud and AI solutions into more workflows and evaluate a growing range of options. That’s why I’m excited about the latest enhancements to Microsoft Marketplace. They help customers to find, evaluate, and choose the cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents that best fit their needs. Start with what you’re trying to accomplish Technology searches don’t always begin with a product name. Often, you know the business outcome or technical scenario you’re trying to address, but you don’t yet know which solution will get you there. You may be looking for an agent that supports a particular workflow, a solution for an industry scenario, or simply a better way to explore the options available to you. This is where intelligent discovery changes the starting point. With smart search in Microsoft Marketplace, you can describe what you’re looking for in natural language. Marketplace uses that input to refine the search and help identify relevant solutions. I think about this as moving from “What should I search for?” toward “Here’s what I’m trying to do.” Once you begin finding potential solutions, the evaluation becomes more specific. You can compare up to three offerings side by side and add your own criteria to the comparison. That matters because every organization evaluates technology differently. The questions that matter to your developers may be different from the questions procurement or business leaders need answered. Interactive chat extends that approach to individual product pages. You can ask questions in natural language about the solution you’re viewing, giving you another way to find the information relevant to your evaluation without relying solely on navigating through each section of the listing. Together, these experiences create a more natural progression: start with your need, explore possible solutions, compare your options, and dig deeper where it matters. Evaluation becomes more meaningful when you can try the solution There’s a point in many technology decisions when research needs to become hands-on evaluation. You’ve learned about the solution. You’ve compared the options. Now you want to understand what it could mean for your organization. Free trials in Microsoft Marketplace help bring that evaluation into the same journey. Solutions with free trials are easy to identify through search, filters, and free trial badges. You can search for free trials or use the Free trial pricing filter to focus on solutions that offer one. Once a trial is underway, you can track its status and see the number of days remaining in the trial period through Azure portal or the Microsoft 365 admin portal, depending on where the solution is managed. If the evaluation confirms that the solution is right for you, you can move to a paid subscription at public pricing at any point during the trial without reinstalling the solution. If it isn’t the right fit, you can cancel before the trial ends. This is one of the changes I find especially useful because a trial becomes part of the evaluation journey itself. You can move from discovering and researching a solution into actually trying it, while retaining visibility into where you are in the trial. The right solution also needs the right commercial structure Technical fit is important, but it isn’t the only consideration. Once a team decides that a solution meets its requirements, the conversation often shifts. How long do we need it? How should the agreement be structured? Does a standard term fit the project we’re planning? This is where we’ve expanded the flexibility available through private offers in Microsoft Marketplace. Custom contract lengths can range from one month to 10 years for supported private offer scenarios. That means an agreement can be structured around a six-month requirement, an 18-month engagement, a multiyear deployment, or another duration appropriate to the customer and partner agreement. There is flexibility in billing as well, including monthly or one-time payment options and annual billing when the term is annual. Custom contract duration is available for SaaS and professional services through private offers. I see this as an important connection between technical planning and purchasing. A proof of concept doesn’t necessarily have the same commercial requirements as a long-term deployment. Providing more flexibility in contract duration can help the commercial agreement better reflect the scenario being planned. Sometimes the next step is simply starting a conversation Not every purchase can be represented by a standard offer. A customer may want to discuss customized pricing, different terms, or specific solution requirements with the publisher. Rather than treating that conversation completely separate from discovery, customers can now initiate it from supported Marketplace listings. With the ability to request a private offer, customers can share their contact information and details about what they’re looking for directly from the listing. The request is delivered to the publisher as a Marketplace lead, creating a clear starting point for the customer and partner to discuss the opportunity. Requesting a private offer is available for SaaS and professional services offers, as well as compute offers including virtual machines, Azure applications, and containers. It’s a relatively simple step, but I think it represents something bigger about the purchasing journey. Discovering a solution, evaluating it, and discussing how to buy it don’t need to feel like unrelated activities. Think of evaluation as a journey, not a search That’s my biggest takeaway from these updates. Searching is one moment in a much broader decision process. You are able to start by describing what you need using Smart Search. From there, you can narrow your options, compare up to three offerings, and ask more detailed questions about an individual solution. When a free trial is available, you can move from researching the solution to experiencing it. And once you’re ready to discuss purchasing, private offers can provide additional flexibility around commercial requirements. For me, the common thread is decision-making with more context at each step. As you evaluate your next solution, I’d keep a few questions in mind: What problem or technical scenario am I actually trying to address? What criteria matters most to the people who will build with, manage, or use this solution? Is a free trial available if we want to validate the fit? What contract duration and purchasing structure are available to reflect the way we plan to use it? Do we need to start a private offer conversation with the publisher? You don’t have to answer all of those questions at once. But thinking about them as parts of one journey can help connect technical evaluation with the eventual purchasing decision. Watch the Microsoft Marketplace customer office hour There’s more to explore than I can cover in a single post. In our Microsoft Marketplace customer office hour, we demonstrate intelligent discovery, smart search, solution comparison, interactive chat, free trials, custom contract lengths, and the ability to request a private offer. We also answer questions about moving from trials to paid subscriptions, finding trial offerings, comparing solutions, and working with private offers. If you’re evaluating cloud and AI solutions, I encourage you to watch the full session on demand at aka.ms/MarketplaceCustomerOfficeHours. And I’d love for the conversation to continue here in the Microsoft Marketplace Community. What are you evaluating today? What would help you make your next technology decision with greater confidence? Share your questions and scenarios with us. They can help shape the conversations we have in future customer office hours.
Matching customer invoices to multiparty private offers
What’s the best way for a reseller to match an Azure Marketplace customer invoice to its multiparty private offer and subscription in Partner Center? We’ve had invoices missing from our reporting and multiple charges tied to the same offer with different Asset IDs. Which reports or fields should we use to match them? Can we also see whether a credit was issued, or does that require the customer’s billing access or Microsoft Support?Bring Marketplace publishing closer to your development workflow
Explore how AI agents can help make Microsoft Marketplace publishing a more natural part of the development workflow. Marketplace Ingestion MCP connects MCP-compatible agent tools with Partner Center APIs, helping publishers turn natural-language intent into supported publishing actions. Learn four ways teams can incorporate agent-assisted publishing into their workflows, from creating and validating offers to building repeatable processes and working from familiar developer tools such as Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot CLI. See how publishers can bring product development and publishing closer together while keeping people involved in reviewing and approving changes. Read the articleBring Marketplace publishing into your agentic development workflow
Bringing Marketplace publishing into the development workflow can help teams connect product development and publishing activities through the tools and processes they already use. Teams build their product, then move into a different set of tools and processes to prepare, validate, and submit it. Marketplace Ingestion MCP creates an opportunity to bring those activities closer together. With Marketplace Ingestion MCP, publishers can use natural language and AI agents to create, validate, publish, and manage offers in Microsoft Marketplace. Instead of starting by manually constructing API payloads, publishers can describe the outcome they want. An agent can then help translate that intent into the information required by the underlying publishing APIs. Publishers can also build custom workflows using the MCP, connecting repeatable publishing activities with the development processes and tools their teams already use. The shift is straightforward: start with the publishing outcome, not the API payload. From publishing task to agentic workflow Marketplace Ingestion MCP is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that connects MCP-compatible agent tools with Partner Center APIs. For example, a publisher can ask an agent to create a SaaS offer and identify what is required before it can be published. The agent can retrieve the appropriate schema, build the payload, validate it, and create the offer as a draft. When the publisher is ready to continue, the agent can perform supported publishing actions. Publishers remain in control through the approval settings in their MCP client. This makes Marketplace publishing a more natural part of an agentic development workflow rather than a separate process that begins after development is complete. Four opportunities for agent-assisted publishing Teams exploring where Marketplace Ingestion MCP fits into their development lifecycle can start with four opportunities. 1. Start with intent Developers do not need to begin by manually assembling an API payload. They can describe the offer they want to create or the update they want to make. The agent can use Marketplace Ingestion MCP to retrieve the required schema, build the payload, and validate it before submission. This allows the publisher to focus first on the intended outcome while the agent handles more of the translation into API-specific structures. 2. Make repeated work part of the workflow Offer creation and updates often include steps that teams perform repeatedly. Those steps can become reusable agentic workflows and, where appropriate, be incorporated into continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. The question for a development team now becomes: Which publishing activities do we repeat often enough that they should become part of our development workflow? The answer will differ across organizations, products, and release processes. Marketplace Ingestion MCP provides the building blocks teams can use to design a workflow that fits their needs. 3. Keep people in control Agent-assisted publishing does not require handing every decision to an agent. MCP client approval settings can require publishers to review and approve tool calls before changes are submitted. Teams can use those controls to determine where automation is useful and where human review should remain part of the process. 4. Work from familiar developer tools Marketplace Ingestion MCP works with supported MCP-compatible clients, including Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot CLI. This brings Marketplace publishing tasks closer to the environments where developers already build and operate their products. It also reduces the need to treat publishing as an isolated activity performed through a separate workflow. What does this look like in practice? Consider a fictional publisher, Contoso, that wants to bring a Microsoft 365 agent to customers. Contoso can provide its workflow integrated with the MCP with existing marketing material and the technical manifest for the agent. Marketplace Ingestion MCP can help translate that information into the structure required to create the product in Microsoft Marketplace. The workflow can then build on that information to create a linked SaaS offer for monetization, using the additional details required for the SaaS offer. The publisher describes what it wants to accomplish, and the agent uses Marketplace Ingestion MCP and the publishing APIs to turn that intent into supported publishing actions. Getting started Marketplace Ingestion MCP is included with access to Microsoft Marketplace publishing APIs. Before getting started, publishers need: A Partner Center account with the required role Access to Microsoft Marketplace publishing APIs A supported MCP-compatible client, such as Visual Studio Code or GitHub Copilot CLI The Microsoft Learn documentation covers prerequisites, installation and authentication, available tools, supported products, data handling, and an end-to-end SaaS example. Learn more: Marketplace Ingestion MCP server - Marketplace publisher Bringing publishing closer to development AI agents are becoming part of how developers build and operate software. Marketplace publishing can become part of those workflows as well. Marketplace Ingestion MCP connects natural-language intent with supported Marketplace publishing actions. It allows teams to create repeatable workflows while keeping publishers involved in reviewing and approving changes. The result is a closer connection between building a product and bringing it to market, helping developers focus on the cloud and AI solutions that differentiate their business. Thank you to the many teams whose collaboration brought Marketplace Ingestion MCP to publishers. Their work reflects a shared investment in helping publishers build, publish, and grow through Microsoft Marketplace.
Getting first customers after publishing what actually worked for you?
I published two transactable SaaS offers earlier this month (Microsoft 365 security and compliance assessment). The technical side went fine, with good support from the ISV team. Getting the offers in front of customers is where I'm stuck. So far I've reached Rewards Tier 3 and activated the listing optimisation benefit. I understand customer references are the gate to co-sell readiness, which feels like a chicken-and-egg problem when you have none yet. For publishers further along than me: what actually produced your first few customers? Was it private offers to targeted tenants, co-sell once you had references, the Marketplace Rewards activities, or something outside the marketplace entirely? I'd rather spend my limited time on what works than keep guessing.Matching customer pricing on Azure Marketplace private offers
Hi everyone, I create multiparty private offers as a reseller and sometimes need several decimal places in the markup to match our customer quote. Is there a recommended way to calculate the markup so the total and each annual installment match exactly? I’ve been running into small rounding differences.Can a reseller set exact customer totals on an Azure private offer?
When we create a multiperiod private offer, we enter our markup as a percentage. Sometimes the customer total Azure calculates is a few cents off the signed quote, even when we use all eight decimal places. Is there a way to set the exact customer price for each period? If not, how are other resellers handling these rounding differences?Land Your Offer - Anatomy of Revenue Generating Partner Offer - Part 1 - Copilot in 30
Copilot in 30: A Ready-Made Marketplace Offer to Grow Your SMB Practice Thirty days. Twenty-five users. One repeatable offer that turns AI curiosity into a long-term customer relationship. Small and medium businesses know AI matters. What they lack is a trusted guide and a low-risk way to start. Copilot in 30 gives you both: a $0, 25-user, 30-day Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trial from Microsoft, wrapped in a structured journey that only a partner can deliver. Package it as a Microsoft Marketplace offer and you have a scalable on-ramp to every SMB customer in your base — and to the managed services that follow. Start Here: Why Publishing on Microsoft Marketplace Matters Microsoft Marketplace is Microsoft's partner-focused business platform, designed to help you reach more customers and simplify how you sell. A published offer gives your practice a permanent, discoverable storefront in the place customers already look for Copilot help. More importantly, an offer turns your expertise into something repeatable. Instead of scoping every engagement from scratch, you define the journey once — activities, timeline, deliverables — and run it across dozens of customers. Professional service and managed service offer types are available in Partner Center, so the same offer can carry both the 30-day journey and what comes after it. The SMB Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight SMB customer segment is still early in their AI journey. These are organisations with 300 or fewer users on Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium — typically without an in-house AI team. That combination is exactly where partners win: high demand, limited internal capacity, and a customer base large enough that a well-designed, repeatable offer scales far beyond what bespoke projects can. Why Copilot Is the Right First AI Step for SMBs Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is the cost-effective Copilot add-on built for SMB customers, delivering the same capabilities as Microsoft 365 Copilot inside the apps their people already use — Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. No platform overhaul, minimal training, immediate relevance. Copilot is also the on-ramp. Once a team works confidently with Copilot, the natural next steps are agents, automated workflows and Copilot Cowork — each one deepening the customer's dependence on the partner who guided them there. Meet Copilot in 30: 25 Users, 30 Days, $0 Copilot in 30 is a limited-time, CSP partner-led Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trial for SMB customers with fewer than 300 employees. The essentials: What the customer gets: 25 Microsoft 365 Copilot Business seats for 30 days at $0, transacted through CSP New Commerce (Product ID CFQ7TTC0MM8R · SKU 006Z) Who qualifies: Customers on Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium with no paid Microsoft 365 Copilot today — one trial per customer How long it runs: Available to transact until 31 December 2026 What happens at Day 30: The trial auto-converts to a paid subscription unless renewal settings are changed, with a 7-day cancellation window What Microsoft provides: A launch kit, campaign materials, setup guidance, the Copilot Success Planner and conversion guidance Microsoft supplies the licences and the assets. The offer — and the customer relationship — is yours. Your Role: The Guide Who Turns a Trial Into a Habit A trial alone rarely changes behaviour. A guided trial does. Your job across the 30 days is to make sure 25 people experience real value in real work, and that the sponsor can see it. Before Day 0 — pick the right customers, become "Customer Zero" by using Copilot in your own business, secure a named sponsor and Copilot admin, and build a 30-day success plan with agreed measures. Day 0 — transact the trial, set the paid renewal quantity and term, complete admin setup, assign all 25 licences and run the kick-off with starter prompts. Days 1–28 — lead a weekly scenario (Outlook, Teams, Apps, Agents), review Copilot Analytics, re-engage low-activity users and capture proof points in the customer's own words. Days 29–30 — run the outcome and ROI review, confirm the paid offer and open the expansion and consumption conversation. Every touchpoint is partner expertise the customer cannot get from a licence alone — and every one moves the decision at Day 30 from "should we?" to "how much more?" Inside the Offer: Activities, Timeline and Deliverables Below is the full activity plan behind the offer, ready to drop into your own offer description or statement of work. ID Stage Activity Trial day (of 30) Key deliverables — Pre-req Customer eligibility (Copilot Business trial) Before Day 0 Active M365 Business base licence; no paid M365 Copilot; one $0 trial per customer; CSP New Commerce transactable; offer open to 31 Dec 2026 I1 Identify Build the prioritised target list Pre-trial Tier A/B target list from ASPX and Cloud Ascent; 50–300 eligible seats I2 Identify Confirm eligibility and trial fit Pre-trial Eligibility check: M365 Business base licence, no paid Copilot, one trial I3 Identify Launch the acquisition campaign Pre-trial Campaign email sent; briefing delivered; responses triaged into pipeline I4 Identify Be Customer Zero: complete microskilling Pre-trial Microskilling complete; internal Copilot experience; team briefed P1 Plan Confirm sponsor and success measures Pre-trial Named sponsor and admin; 25 trial users; agreed success measures P2 Plan Build the 30-day success plan Pre-trial Personalised Success Planner output; weekly scenarios; admin and user views P3 Plan Confirm technical and compliance readiness Pre-trial Minimum requirements verified; data and compliance review; blocker log A1 Activate Transact the trial in CSP New Commerce Day 0 25-seat, 30-day, $0 trial ordered (CFQ7TTC0MM8R · SKU 006Z) A2 Activate Configure the paid renewal settings Day 0 Renewal quantity, term and billing set; Cowork usage-based billing if in scope A3 Activate Complete admin setup and assign licences Day 0 Recommended settings on; 25 licences assigned (starts the clock) A4 Activate Run the kick-off and share starter prompts Day 0 Kick-off email; starter prompts; four-week prompt series scheduled X1 Experience Week 1 · Outlook — catch up and communicate Days 1–7 Week 1 prompts landed; first-week activation rate reviewed X2 Experience Week 2 · Teams — meetings that run themselves Days 8–14 Copilot Analytics checkpoint; recaps adopted; low-activity users re-engaged X3 Experience Week 3 · Apps — create in minutes Days 15–21 App scenarios and proof points; week 3 training gate before day 30 X4 Experience Week 4 · Agents — unlock the next level Days 22–28 Role-built agents trialled; 30-day usage trends from the admin centre C1 Convert Outcome review, paid offer and expansion plan Days 29–30 ROI review; 50-seat offer confirmed in 7 days; wave 2 plan; consumption conversation opened Land Your Offer: What One Customer Is Worth The table below is the revenue anatomy of one Copilot in 30 engagement — and it shows that the money is not in the trial, but in what the trial sets up. Item Value Detail Offer duration 30 days Trial clock runs Days 1–30; identify, plan and Day 0 setup precede it Trial offer 25 seats M365 Copilot Business · 30 days · $0 · one per customer · to 31 Dec 2026 CSP incentive — 25 seats (K) $0.32K 5.0% direct bill (2.5% M365 CSP Core + 2.5% Strategic Product Accelerator Tier 1) on 25 M365 Copilot Business seats x $21/mo† ≈ $6.3K/yr; indirect reseller 2.5% ≈ $0.16K Conversion target 50 seats Lead with 50 paid seats at conversion; sets up the wave 2 expansion plan CSP incentive — 50 seats (K) $0.63K 5.0% direct bill (Core + SPA Tier 1) on 50 M365 Copilot Business seats x $21/mo† ≈ $12.6K/yr; indirect reseller 2.5% ≈ $0.32K Frontier Accelerate deployment funding (K) $2.5K Microsoft Commercial Incentives funding for the Copilot deployment engagement when the conversion lands with 50 paid seats†; funds the deployment and adoption work that leads into managed services † Illustrative estimates from the offer plan. Confirm current incentive rates, funding and eligibility in Partner Center. Three streams stack on top of each other: CSP incentive — earned on every paid Copilot Business seat from the moment the trial converts, and growing again when the customer expands from 25 to 50 seats. Frontier Accelerate deployment funding — $2,500 available when you lead the conversion with 50 paid seats, paying for the deployment work that makes the expansion stick. Managed services — the recurring engagement described in Day 31 and Beyond, which is where the largest and most durable share of revenue lives. Now multiply. Everything above is the anatomy of a single customer. Landing the offer means running it across every eligible customer in your base — and you don't need to guess who they are. Partner Center's growth insights reporting, available through the AI Business Solutions & Security Insights (ASPX) dashboard, gives you account-level Copilot eligibility, seat whitespace, free Copilot Chat usage and adoption signals for the customers you already manage. To turn that export into a ranked target list, my colleague Brian O'Shea has built a Copilot for 30 Power BI dashboard that sits over your ASPX data and scores each customer on a 0–100 priority scale from eligible seats, whitespace, free-to-paid potential and opportunity signals — so your first cohort is the ten customers most likely to convert, not the first ten who reply. How the Offer Fits Together: From Trial Inputs to Proof of Value The offer runs left to right in three layers: Trial inputs — 25 users, 30 days, $0 CSP trial SKU; an SMB with 50–300 eligible Microsoft 365 seats; no paid Copilot today; a Business Basic, Standard or Premium base; one trial per customer to 31 Dec 2026; a named sponsor and Copilot admin; auto-conversion to paid unless changed. Five stages — Identify (I1–I4), Plan (P1–P3), Activate (A1–A4), Experience (X1–X4) and Convert (C1, T1, T2, W2). Each stage produces a concrete output the sponsor can see. Proof of value — a prioritised list and campaign responses; agreed use cases and success measures; a provisioned trial with 25 licences assigned; weekly usage from the Microsoft 365 admin centre; adoption proof points in the customer's words; paid conversion confirmed in Partner Center — and a named wave 2 expansion beyond the first 25. The highlighted activities — admin setup (A3), Week 4 agents (X4), 25→50 paid seats (T1), Frontier Accelerate funding (T2) and the wave 2 expansion plan (W2) — are where the engagement stops being a project and starts becoming an ongoing relationship: managed services, agent build-out, Copilot Studio and Copilot Cowork follow-on once the trial converts. Day 31 and Beyond: Managed Services That Keep Delivering The end of the trial is the start of the real engagement. Package these as standing services in your offer: Copilot adoption management — monthly Copilot Analytics business reviews, prompt and scenario refreshes, champion programme and onboarding for each new wave of users Licence and expansion management — take the customer from 25 to 50 paid seats and on to wave 2, aligning renewals, terms and billing as the footprint grows Agent build-out — design, build and maintain role-based agents with Copilot Studio for sales, service, finance and operations scenarios surfaced in Week 4 Copilot Cowork enablement and governance — introduce consumption-based Cowork scenarios, set budgets and cost controls, and report on usage each month Security, compliance and readiness — keep data protection, permissions and governance in step with expanding AI use, including a path to Microsoft 365 Business Premium Quarterly value reviews — refresh success measures, capture new proof points and agree the next expansion plan with the sponsor Each of these is a recurring, outcome-based service rather than a one-off project — and each keeps you positioned as the customer's AI partner as their needs grow. Ready to Build Your Copilot in 30 Offer? Download the Copilot in 30 launch kit and Microsoft 365 Copilot Partner FAQ from the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Be Customer Zero — run Copilot and the microskilling series inside your own business first. Publish your offer in Partner Center as a professional service (the 30-day journey) with a managed service follow-on (Day 31 and beyond). Pick your first cohort — customers with 50–300 seats on a Microsoft 365 Business plan and no paid Copilot today. Transact your first trial through CSP New Commerce (Product ID CFQ7TTC0MM8R · SKU 006Z) and set the paid renewal on Day 0. Book the Day 30 review before Day 1 — so the conversion and expansion conversation is already on the calendar. The window closes on 31 December 2026. The customers are already in your base. Publish the offer and start the clock. Resources From AI curiosity to Copilot adoption in 30 days — Microsoft Partner Blog Copilot in 30 Launch Kit — partner GTM playbook, customer trial guide, invitation and weekly prompt emails, admin setup guidance Build Your 30-Day Copilot Success Plan Copilot Success Planner Walkthrough video Partner Skilling Hub | Microskilling for Copilot in 30 Power BI Dashboard that integrates with your ASPXi Partner Data · By Brian O'Shea Create compelling customer business casesMicrosoft Marketplace Partner Digest - July 2026
In this edition of the Microsoft Marketplace Partner Digest, you'll find essential announcements, events, and key updates designed to drive your business forward, accelerate deal closures, and maximize your Marketplace success. Partner Center announcements As we kick off the new fiscal year, we're building upon a quarter that delivered valuable enhancements for both Marketplace partners and customers. We’ve focused on expanding partner-led growth across regions, simplifying SaaS transactions, and helping you improve co-sell outcomes. 🌍 Multiparty private offers expand across EMEA and APAC On May 27, Microsoft Marketplace expanded multiparty private offers to 30 countries in Europe, with availability in Australia, Japan, and South Africa coming July 15. Read the blog to discover how we are enabling new opportunities for channel-led growth through Marketplace. Why it matters Software companies gain more opportunities to reach new customers and drive growth without adding operational complexity. Channel partners differentiate their offerings with vetted software solutions while maintaining customer relationships. Recommended action Microsoft’s Jason Rook breaks down six practical steps to activate your channel strategy through Microsoft Marketplace, helping software companies recruit, enable, and scale partner-led growth. 📗Get the playbook 🌏 Resale enabled offers support expands to New Zealand Microsoft continues expanding channel-led sales opportunities by making resale enabled offers available through Microsoft Marketplace to customers in New Zealand as of May 26. Why it matters Channel partners can create and manage offers directly, without relying on software companies to build bespoke private offers. For software companies, resale enabled offers provide a scalable way to grow through trusted channel partners and expand into new markets. 👉 Learn more 📆 Custom contract lengths As of July 6, custom contract lengths for private offers are generally available. Partners can now create private offers with custom contract lengths of up to 10 years in Microsoft Marketplace. Why it matters Flexibility to better meet customer requirements Ability to configure contract durations from 1 to 120 months Define non-standard contract lengths, like 18 months or 45 months Support for both SaaS and professional services transactions 👉 Read the announcement ⚡ Auto activation for SaaS offers On May 18, Microsoft released the optional auto activation for SaaS offers, streamlining customer's Marketplace purchase and onboarding experience. What’s new Billing and subscription activation can now begin immediately when a customer completes a purchase Partners receive a real-time webhook signal to trigger onboarding Available for both public and private offers Default behavior For existing plans auto activation is off, unless you enable it When creating new plans auto activation is on, by default, unless you disable it Why it matters Reduces friction between purchase and onboarding Improves revenue predictability with immediate billing Enables a faster, more seamless customer experience Recommended action Evaluate your SaaS offers and enable auto activation where it aligns with your onboarding model. Make sure your sales and customer guidance reflect the updated experience. 👉 Learn more 🔔 Improve referral quality to accelerate co-sell deals Microsoft has updated how inbound co-sell referrals are reviewed and processed to improve speed and alignment with Microsoft account teams. What’s changing All referrals are now automatically checked for completeness and quality at submission. To avoid delays, ensure every referral includes: Solution area / play Estimated deal value Estimated close date (valid future date) Clear customer need and business context Customer contact (or consent to share later) Why it matters Submitting complete referrals helps you: Get faster seller engagement Reduce rework and follow-ups Improve acceptance rates Move deals forward more predictably Recommended action Audit your referral submission process and ensure these five fields are consistently included across all deals. 👉 Learn more about managing co-sell opportunities ⚠️ Review: Ensure the right contacts receive important partner communications Now is a great time to take care of digital housekeeping. Microsoft is reminding partners to review assigned Partner Center roles and email configurations to avoid missing critical notifications and account updates. Why it matters Having assigned roles like global admin or billing admin does not guarantee email delivery. If accounts aren’t configured correctly, you and your team may miss time-sensitive notifications. Missing communications can result in missed compliance deadlines or delayed actions that may impact your business. Recommended actions Verify your primary contact email is up to date Ensure role-based accounts can receive emails Add Microsoft system emails as safe senders Review role guidance on Microsoft Learn ✨ Bonus: Sign up for the monthly Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program newsletter to stay informed of updates, incentives, and partner opportunities. It’s an easy way to get partner news delivered directly to your inbox. Events Recent events Marketplace as a FinOps platform Explore how Microsoft Marketplace helps simplify purchasing, centralize billing, and better align software investments to optimize cloud spending. As organizations scale cloud and AI investments, managing spend across tools and vendors becomes more complex. Tune in to learn practical ways to better understand the ROI of your organization’s cloud and AI investments. You will walk away with actionable insights to use Microsoft Marketplace as part of your FinOps strategy 📽️ Watch the recording The Marketplace playbook for channel-led sales Get step-by-step guidance and go-to-market resources to help you recruit and activate partners for channel-led sales through Microsoft Marketplace. Through resale enabled offers and multiparty private offers, software companies can empower partners to sell on their behalf to drive scale, reach new markets, and unlock new co-sell opportunities. In markets where both resale enabled offers and multiparty private offers are available, software companies can also scale through distributors, who can activate their broader channel networks. 📽️ Watch the recording Multicurrency transactions explained As Marketplace adoption continues to grow more partners are navigating sales that involve multiple currencies, local customer invoicing, and evolving seller of record responsibilities. Understanding how currency exchanges impact private offers, partner payments, and customer billing is critical to successfully managing Marketplace transactions across global geographies. 📽️ Watch the recording Upcoming events Channel growth in Australia ⌚Wednesday, July 15 at 9:30 AEST Microsoft Marketplace provides several ways for partners to collaborate and grow through the channel. With multiparty private offers launching in Australia on July 16, alongside resale enabled offers, this expansion helps partners strengthen customer relationships, fuel more partner-to-partner opportunities, simplify transactions, and find new growth opportunities. Leave with practical guidance on how these capabilities work together and how to put them into action. 📆 Save to your calendar MCAPS Start for Partners 📆 Wednesday, July 22 from 7:00 – 11:00 am PDT MCAPS Start for Partners gives software companies an early look at Microsoft’s FY27 priorities, investments, and growth opportunities. Learn how AI innovation and agentic applications are creating new customer demand, discover marketplace and co-sell opportunities to expand reach, and explore strategies to modernize, differentiate, and grow your business in the year ahead. 👉 Learn more and register today 🚀 Closing thoughts The last quarter delivered meaningful platform enhancements to make Microsoft Marketplace easier to scale, faster for customers to discover solutions and transact, and more effective for partners to manage business. 👍 Take the next step Explore new regions for multiparty private offers and resale enabled offers Review your strategy for activation of customer SaaS subscriptions Improve your co-sell submission quality Small changes in these areas can have a big impact on your pipeline, conversion, and overall Marketplace success.Microsoft Marketplace Partner Digest - 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 On July 23 we announced the release of Marketplace enhanced trial capabilities. Customers can try solutions with confidence with the free trials in Microsoft Marketplace. Trials are available for multiple offer types, including SaaS, Azure virtual machines, Dynamics 365, and Power BI offers. New capabilities include: Custom meter trials: Partners can configure trials for SaaS solutions with metered pricing. Flexible trial durations: Partners can now configure SaaS trial durations from 1 to 180 days. Partner analytics: Partners can access SaaS trial analytics - including free trials initiated, active free trials, free trials converted, free trials not converted, and average trial duration - all within Partner Center Insights workspace. Customer discovery and management: Customers can better discover and manage trials. Upgrade to paid subscription during trial: Customers can upgrade to paid subscription at public pricing any time during a SaaS trial. Why it matters With enhanced trial capabilities in Microsoft Marketplace, partners can run self-service trials that make it easier for customers to try before they buy — whether for metered, per-user, or flat-rate pricing offers. Marketplace gives partners one place to manage trials end to end — from provisioning and mid-trial changes to insights — while improving offer discoverability through improved search, filters, and dedicated trial badges. Recommended action Review your Marketplace offers and trial strategy. For eligible SaaS offers, evaluate whether free trials can help you engage with more qualified buyers, faster. 📖 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. Watch the recording 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
