How to Sell in AWS Marketplace

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Following the previous blog post, where we discussed what the AWS Marketplace is, what are its benefits and how to create a suitable listing to your product, in this post I’ll share how we at Epsagon, leverage our Marketplace listing to support more enterprise customers.

Build your Marketplace strategy

SaaS Contracts through the AWS Marketplace allows an automated and accelerated purchasing process for AWS customers and expediting time-to-value.

Your public listing is great for your self-serve customers. However, in order to support your enterprise customers, you should be able to provide them a custom offer through the Marketplace and be more accessible in terms of procurement. Here are three programs that can help you to achieve these goals:

• Private Offers
• Enterprise Contract Program
• Channel Incentive Program

Private Offers

The AWS Marketplace Seller Private Offer program allows you to negotiate custom pricing and end-user license agreements (EULA) with potential customers. Once there is an agreement to pricing and the EULA terms, you can then create a Private Offer with the specific terms.

With Private Offers, customers benefit from a simplified software procurement experience. Your products’ purchases on AWS Marketplace are integrated into the customer’s AWS account and bill, and customers can customize purchase for your product based on their needs using AWS Private Offers.

Enrollment requirements

• Annual pricing on all of your AWS Marketplace product listings.
• Sales compensation plans for all AWS Marketplace subscription revenue (hourly, monthly, annual, or metering).
• A formal announcement of an AWS Marketplace compensation plan.
• Agreement to treat data as confidential information and not distribute it for the purposes of lead-generation.

How to create a Private Offer

• You can create private offers through the Marketplace portal. To create an offer, you select the Private Offer tab on the portal and create a new offer. When you create a new offer, you select a product and then set the pricing for your offer and upload a PDF version of the agreed EULA. For further information see here.
• Expiration date — for each offer you can set an expiration date. If the customer does not accept the offer by the date you set, the offer is no longer available.
• The offer takes approximately 45 minutes to process and then will be listed on the Manage Private Offer page. The offer will have a URL to the fulfillment page for the offer that you can copy and then email to the customer. The customer can also navigate to your product page and there will be a banner on the page indicating a private offer is available.

Instructions email we sent to a customer after issuing a private offer

Enterprise Contract Program

Unlike Private Offers where the EULA terms are negotiated, under the Enterprise Contract Program, which was launched in 2018, the EULA is pre-accepted, eliminating long legal cycles.

Customers and Sellers that participate in this program, have to accept the standardized EULA, suggested by AWS.

“Enterprise Contract for AWS Marketplace is designed to be a comprehensive end user license agreement between software buyers and sellers that governs usage of the software and sets terms with respect to the obligations and responsibilities of each party.” From the Enterprise Contract Program page.

Epsagon’s product is available via the Enterprise Contract Program. That means that enterprise customers that also enrolled in the program can benefit from an established, pre-approved enterprise licensing terms, simplifying the procurement process. Such customers can purchase Epsagon’s product from AWS Marketplace immediately under the terms of the Enterprise Contract, rather than spending valuable time negotiating legal terms.

The list of the participating Sellers is published here. Unfortunately, the list of participating Buyers is not public. Therefore, if you are working with a customer on a deal through the Marketplace, check if such a customer is enrolled in this program. If both sides are participating, the sale cycle will be very quick.

Channel Incentive Program

If you’re interested in authorizing your products to be resold in AWS Marketplace, you can also use a reseller through the marketplace.

The AWS Marketplace Channel enables AWS Consulting Partners to recommend and deliver Technology Partners’ software for their customers to help build and grow their AWS-based business.

Conclusion

If you are selling your product to AWS customers, you can leverage the partnership with AWS by using the AWS Marketplace as a customer acquisition channel.

Listing your product in the AWS marketplace is the first step. However, you should not stop there. In order to be enterprise-ready, you can leverage the programs listed above and benefit from a shorter sale cycle.

I provide the Medium community a free access to my Cloud Co-Sell & Marketplaces Playbook, presented in this online course. Click here for a free access.