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In our recent session on creating transactable offers on the Azure Marketplace, our subject matter experts provided guidance on the process of creating pricing for your solutions on the Azure Marketplace, how to choose the best offer type for your solution, and how to set the optimal price for your offer. Here are some of the top takeaways from the presentation by Christine Brown and Julio Colon, from Microsoft's marketplace team.
- There are many benefits to publishing a transactable offer on the marketplace, such as reaching a large customer base, leveraging Microsoft's billing and tax services, and accessing various partner programs and incentives.
- You can reach millions of customers who use the Microsoft marketplace to find and buy solutions that meet their needs.
- You can leverage Microsoft's billing and commerce capabilities to handle the transactions, invoicing, and tax remittance for you.
- You can offer different pricing options, such as flat rate, per user, per meter, or reservation pricing, to suit your business model and customer preferences.
- You can create private plans or private offers to customize your pricing and terms for specific customers or markets.
- You can test your offer before publishing it to ensure that it works as expected and provides a seamless customer experience.
- Access to a large and global customer base of over 75 million buyers
- Increased visibility and discoverability of your solution
- Enhanced customer experience and trust
- Opportunity to participate in co-selling and co-marketing programs with Microsoft and partners
- There are a few different types of transactable offers, such as software as a service (SAS), virtual machines (VM), containers, and Azure managed apps, and their key features and options.
- SaaS (Software as a service): This is the most common offer type, where your solution runs in your own tenant and customers access it through a web browser or an app. You can charge a flat rate or per user, and you can use meters to track variable usage. You can also integrate with Azure Active Directory, Microsoft 365, and other Microsoft services.
- VM: Virtual machine. This is where your solution runs in the customer's tenant as a virtual machine image. You can charge per hour, per CPU, per market, or per reservation. You can also offer different VM sizes and configurations.
- Container: This is where your solution runs in the customer's tenant as a containerized application on a Kubernetes cluster. You can charge per core, per node, per pod, or per cluster. You can also use custom meters to track usage based on your own metrics.
- Managed app: This is where your solution runs in the customer's tenant as a fully managed application that you can monitor and update. You can charge a flat rate per month and use meters to track variable usage. You can also offer different service levels and support options.
- The webinar walked through the steps to create a transactable offer in the Partner Center, such as choosing an offer type, setting up the offer details, configuring the technical aspects, creating plans and pricing, and publishing the offer.
- Best practices and tips for designing and pricing your plans include considering your target markets, customer segments, usage levels, and billing terms, and using meters and variables to charge for different aspects of your solution.
- Think about how you want to sell and market your solution to your customers and what value proposition you offer them.
- Choose the appropriate offer type for your solution, whether it is SaaS, VM, container, or managed app, and understand the technical configuration and requirements for each one.
- Decide on the billing terms and pricing models that suit your solution and your customers' needs. Some of these options include flat rate, per user, per CPU, and custom meters, depending on the offer type.
- Select the markets where you want to sell your solution and be aware of the tax implications and currency conversions for each country.
- Create multiple plans to offer different levels of service, features, or discounts to your customers. You can use the plan name, description, and summary to highlight the differences and benefits of each plan.
- Test your plan before publishing it to make sure it works as expected and you can track the usage and billing correctly. You can use the private plan option and the preview audience feature to do a test purchase.
- Review and publish your offer and make sure it passes the validation check and meets the certification criteria.
- We covered the scenarios and examples of how to use different pricing models and options, such as flat rate, per user, per market, per vCPU, reservation pricing, and custom meters, and how to adjust them for different customer needs and preferences.
- Flat rate: This is a fixed price for the entire offer, regardless of the usage or consumption. It can be used for SaaS, VM, or managed app offers. It can have different billing terms, such as one month, one year, two year, or three year. It can also have variable pricing based on meters, such as number of reports, invoices, or API calls. The publisher needs to track and report the usage of these meters to Microsoft.
- Per user: This is a price based on the number of users or licenses that the customer purchases. It can be used only for SaaS offers. It can have different billing terms, such as one month, one year, two year, or three year. It can also have minimum and maximum number of users. The publisher needs to track and report the number of users to Microsoft.
- Per market: This is a price based on the country or region where the customer is located. It can be used for VM or container offers. The publisher can select the markets where they want to sell their offer and set different prices for each market. Microsoft will do the currency conversion and tax remittance for some markets.
- Per vCPU: This is a price based on the number of CPU cores or hours that the offer uses. It can be used for VM or container offers. The publisher can set different prices for different CPU sizes or types. Microsoft will track and bill the customer based on the CPU usage.
- There are many resources and tools available to help you build, publish, and grow your transactable offer, such as the Mastering the Marketplace website, the Marketplace Community, the Marketplace Rewards program, and the ISV Success program.
Register to watch the recording! For more takeaways and more detailed info on those takeaways listed above, register to watch the recording.
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