Microsoft commercial marketplace publisher FAQ - Marketplace publisher (2024)

The commercial marketplace connects business and government agencies with solutions built by our partners. Our partners create and manage offers in Partner Center, and customers can discover and buy solutions through in-product experiences, such as Microsoft AppSource, Azure Marketplace, resellers in the Cloud Solution Provider program, and our sales teams through the co-sell program.

To learn more, see the Microsoft commercial marketplace hub.

AppSource includes business and industry solutions, such as apps that integrate into Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform services.

Azure Marketplace includes IT and developer solutions that are built on Azure or used within Azure subscriptions themselves.

To learn more, see the Marketplace customer documentation.

The commercial marketplace is a starting point for go-to-market collaboration and enablement with sales channels and Marketplace Rewards. The websites and in-product experiences give your products visibility to millions of customers who are seeking solutions like yours. You don't even need to build or buy the commerce capabilities.

The commercial marketplace is available in 141 regions, on a per-plan basis.

We manage tax payment in many countries/regions, and we provide access to our global channel network of resellers. You can use a customer's Microsoft Customer Agreement or Enterprise Agreement to sell to organizations without having to create a new buying relationship.

To learn more, see the Microsoft commercial marketplace hub.

To create offers in the commercial marketplace, your organization needs to be a Microsoft partner by agreeing to the Microsoft Partner Agreement and accepting the Publisher agreement.

To sign up to be a commercial marketplace publisher, go to Partner Center.

The ways that customers can use your commercial marketplace offer depend on how you create the offers.

• For solutions that you provide automatically, whether they're paid, bring-your-own-license (BYOL), or free, customers are urged to Get It Now.
• Offers that support a test drive (demo) request the customer to Test Drive.
• Software as a service (SaaS) offers that provide a trial outside the commercial marketplace say Free Trial.
• Simple listings allow the customer to request Contact Me.

After you sign up and accept the Publisher Agreement, you'll have access to the commercial marketplace page in Partner Center. This is where you create and manage offers and where you view analytics reports. For Microsoft 365 apps, you must also activate the Microsoft 365 and Copilot program within Partner Center.

For more information, see Welcome to the commercial marketplace and Monetize your Microsoft 365 add-in through Microsoft Commercial Marketplace.

To prevent Microsoft from charging your employees and assessing the store service fee on the sale of your offer, you must first create a private plan for the offer with a $0 price and send this offer to the internal users who want to purchase it.

You can also use our Private Marketplace functionality to ensure internal users are only purchasing specific offers that are approved by your administrator.

To contact our marketplace publisher support team, you can submit a support ticket from within Partner Center.

You can also join our active community forum to learn about best practices and share information.

As a publisher, you set the terms of use for your software solution, which customers must accept as part of the purchase flow. To simplify and speed things up, we provide a Standard Contract that you can choose to include in your terms and conditions. This lets customers review the Standard Contract one time, get approval from legal and buying teams, and then focus on the amendments for each offer.

You can create changes that apply to all customers, or you can make the changes specific to certain customers. You can also fully customize your terms and conditions, which can be entered into a text box in Partner Center.

To learn more, see Standard Contract for the Microsoft commercial marketplace.

There are four relevant roles that govern Partner Center access.

• Manager: Provides permissions to manage Partner Center users in the directory, and create and update offers.
• Developer: Allows a user to create and update offers.
• Financial Contributor: Provides permissions to view payout reporting.
• Owner: Can set up the payout account and tax profile. The user who accepted the Publisher Agreement becomes the Owner by default.

Microsoft Entra ID Global Admin permissions are necessary to create new user accounts or invite guest accounts in the underlying directory. Partner Center applies Microsoft Entra ID to the identity model, and an organization's Microsoft Entra instance is often managed and controlled by its IT or security teams.

To learn more, see Assign users roles and permissions.

Commercial marketplace publishers are responsible for supporting their software, and Microsoft is responsible for supporting the purchase, billing, payments, and subscription management experiences.

When the offer removal is initiated by the publisher, the publisher owns communication of the removal to the customer.

During the publishing process, you're given access to a preview of your offer. Access is restricted to users that you specify in the Preview tab, and the offer can't be viewed by anyone else. You can purchase a preview and test the process, but you'll be charged the full amount according to your offer's setup.

To complete a purchase at a low price, we suggest publishing a private plan that's viewable by you alone and at a price you can accept as the cost of testing. A price of $0.00 is supported but won't reflect the full experience, as a paid subscription would, so we recommend setting the price at $1.00.

As customers use your offers on the Microsoft AppSource and Azure Marketplace online stores, information is captured. After customers have demonstrated enough interest, a lead is created and an opportunity is sent to the system of your choice. Publishers who are successful with the commercial marketplace often pursue leads, develop relationships, and turn interest into deals.

For more information, see Customer leads from your marketplace offer.

Our global network of resellers includes tens of thousands of organizations who take part in the Cloud Solution Provider program. The CSP program enables organizations to resell our products and offers from the commercial marketplace, and it gives them the tools to do it successfully.

For more information, see Cloud Solution Providers.

Yes, you can make offers available to all resellers in the Cloud Solution Provider program or only to those whom you specify.

For more information, see Cloud Solution Providers.

• Transaction is the exchange of money for goods. An offer is considered transactable in the commercial marketplace if it has a price and is paid for by the customer through our billing and collections.
• Monetization is the ability to charge money for your intellectual property, which can happen within or outside our commerce platform. For example, your bring-your-own-license (BYOL) Teams app can be monetized with a transactable SaaS licensing service.

Get It Now offers can be handled through Microsoft for some delivery models. This is currently supported with the following delivery models:

• Azure Application(Managed application)
• Azure Container
• Azure Virtual Machine
• Software as a service (SaaS)
• Dynamics 365 apps on Dataverse and Power Apps
• Power BI visual

• VM images are billed based on hourly usage, and the price is set per hour.
• Managed applications are billed based on an optional monthly flat fee, plus metered billing and any usage costs for VM images that are used by the app.
• SaaS applications are billed based on a flat rate, per user, or by custom metering on a monthly or annual basis.

Yes, and there are multiple ways to offer free trials:

• The preferred method is to add a free period at the beginning of paid SaaS offers (one month) and VM image offers (one or three months). The customer will receive a $0.00 charge, and after the trial period ends, the subscription automatically changes to paid. The contract term then starts at that point.
• You can create a SaaS offer listing that takes the customer to a web address of your choice to start a trial outside of the commercial marketplace. Some offer types support a Test Drive that lets you provide the customer with a demo.

Professional service offers are transactable if:

• You have previously transacted large service deals outside of the Microsoft ecosystem, or
• You want to sell services that supplement your software offering and are worth more than 10% of the total deal value.

Transactable professional services also enable partners, such as System Integrators (SIs) and Managed Services Providers (MSPs), to sell services offerings through the commercial marketplace. When customers make purchases through the marketplace, it reduces procurement complexity and simplifies billing.

Azure Marketplace requires customers to have a Microsoft Entra ID and an active Azure subscription. If neither or only one requirement is in place, the customer is asked to create them in the purchase flow.

Microsoft AppSource requires customers to have a Microsoft Entra ID. If the ID doesn't exist, the customer is asked to create it in the purchase flow.

Customers can get solutions from the commercial marketplace in 141 locations around the world.

To review the list of locations, go to Tax details for commercial marketplace publishers.

Transactions can be handled in the following 17 currencies:

• AUD
• BRL
• CAD
• CHF
• DKK
• EUR
• GBP
• INR
• JPY
• KRW
• NOK
• NZD
• RMB
• RUB
• SEK
• TWD
• USD

To review the list of currencies, go to Geographic availability and currency support for commercial marketplace.

Customers can increase or decrease user counts for per-user SaaS subscriptions at any time. The license subscription terms will remain the same regardless of any volume or plan upgrades. Plan changes are also supported for existing subscriptions via the application programming interfaces (APIs). Publishers can use API calls to change the customer's subscription plan. We encourage independent software vendors (ISVs) to consider a customer's user experience within the SaaS solution for upgrade and downgrade situations.

If the plan is changed for an existing subscription, the term remains unchanged, and the cost is prorated according to the duration of the remaining term.

For Microsoft AppSource, the customer must have a credit card with a billing address in the same country/region as their Microsoft Entra instance, and the customer's Microsoft Entra admin must ensure that the system doesn't prevent authentication to Microsoft AppSource.

For Azure Marketplace, the customer must have an active Azure subscription and a user account with Owner or Contributor permissions on that subscription. The customer's Azure administrator must ensure that the Azure Policy doesn't conflict with the offer being used, and that cost management can't be set up to disable Azure Marketplace.

Payouts happen monthly. For details on payment schedules, finding your upcoming payouts in Partner Center, and how we deal with customer non-payments, see Payout policy details.

• For transactions where the customer used an Enterprise Agreement, payouts are issued in the next payout cycle 30-days post customer invoice.
• For transactions where the customer used a credit card, there is an additional 30-day escrow period after we receive payment to ensure funds clear and there are no chargebacks or suspected fraud.

Payouts are issued only when sales have reached a minimum combined value of $50.00.

For more information, see Payment thresholds, methods, and time frames.

Customers can find solutions from the commercial marketplace around the world, and we manage taxes in many locations.

To review the full list of locations, go to Tax details for commercial marketplace publishers.

Within Partner Center, a user with Owner or Financial Contributor permissions can view payout reporting. These users can access reports at the upper right by selecting the icon showing a hand holding a bill.

For more information, see Payout statements.

With Partner Center, users with Owner permissions can set up the payout account and tax forms. Users can do this by selecting the Settings button (gear icon) at the upper right.

For more information, see Set up your payout account and tax forms.

Refunds are available to customers under certain conditions and for certain charges. Requests for refunds of recurring SaaS charges are eligible for a refund within 72 hours of purchase or renewal.

Refunds aren't issued for variable charges resulting from usage (from either virtual machine offers or metered billing).

Here are some resources to get you started:

• What is the Microsoft commercial marketplace?
• Microsoft commercial marketplace hub

We recommend these resources:

• To join the Microsoft Partner Community, see Microsoft AppSource and Azure Marketplace.
• Learn about and join the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace Insiders Program.

• Partner Center documentation
• Welcome to the commercial marketplace

For information about the Microsoft Admin Center, see Manage third-party app subscriptions for your organization.

• Microsoft Cost Management + Billing documentation
• Understand Azure Marketplace charges on your Azure bill
• Convert Azure subscription to invoice payment

• Azure Government
• Microsoft Trust Center
• Azure Government documentation
• Azure Government marketplace
• Azure Government compliance