In the world of cloud solutions, focusing on the benefits of transitioning to the cloud is a common sales approach. However, there’s another strategy that can significantly boost your business growth: co-selling with cloud providers. This partnership not only enhances your offerings but also opens up new opportunities for business expansion. Let’s explore how co-selling with a cloud provider can help you drive new business and increase your customer pipeline.
What Is Cloud Co-Selling?
Cloud co-selling is a go-to-market motion where an ISV (Independent Software Vendor) partners with a hyperscaler — AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud — to jointly pursue enterprise deals. The cloud provider brings its existing customer relationships and field teams; you bring your software. When a deal closes through the marketplace, both parties benefit.
Unlike reselling, co-selling is collaborative: you remain the primary vendor, but you gain access to cloud field teams, co-sell programs (AWS ACE, Microsoft MPN Co-Sell, GCP Partner Advantage), and in some cases, committed spend drawdown through contracts like MACC or EDP.
Key Benefits of Co-Selling with Cloud Providers
Co-selling consistently outperforms direct sales for ISVs at scale. Here’s why the model works — and what most analyses miss:
| Benefit | What it means in practice | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access to committed spend | Enterprise customers draw down pre-committed cloud budgets through your listing, reducing procurement friction dramatically | EDP | MACC | CUD |
| Field team referrals | Cloud field sellers refer your product to their accounts when you’re co-sell eligible — essentially a warm intro network at scale | ACE Program | MPN Co-Sell | Partner Advantage |
| Shortened sales cycles | Procurement through marketplace removes legal and security reviews that typically add 60–90 days to enterprise deals | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Expanded market reach | Tap into millions of active cloud customers who are already in a buying mindset on the marketplace | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Co-marketing support | IP Co-Sell status (Azure) and ISV Accelerate (AWS) unlock joint webinars, case studies, and event co-presentation | ISV Accelerate | IP Co-Sell | Build with Google |
| Revenue attribution | Deals attributed to the cloud partner’s ecosystem count toward their revenue targets, making field teams highly motivated to refer you | ACR | ACR | GCR |
Why Co-Selling Is Important for Cloud Service Providers
Co-selling isn’t just good for ISVs — it’s central to how hyperscalers grow their ecosystems. Cloud providers measure a metric called Attributed Cloud Revenue (ACR): every dollar a customer spends on your SaaS product that runs on their cloud counts toward their revenue targets.
This creates a genuine mutual interest. When an AWS field rep refers your product to an enterprise account and that deal closes through AWS Marketplace, the sale counts toward the field rep’s quota. You get the customer; they get the attributed revenue. This is why co-sell programs have real internal momentum at hyperscalers — it’s not just partner-relations goodwill, it’s tied to compensation.
For cloud service providers specifically (MSPs, GSIs, and VARs), co-selling with a hyperscaler amplifies their own value proposition: they become the entity that makes both the ISV’s software and the cloud platform work together for the enterprise customer.
What Most ISVs Get Wrong About Cloud Co-Selling
After working with dozens of ISVs entering cloud marketplace co-sell programs, the same mistakes appear repeatedly. None of them are technical — they’re operational:
1. Treating co-sell as a one-time listing exercise
Getting listed on AWS Marketplace and applying for ACE is week one. Actually co-selling — sharing opportunities, accepting referrals, updating deal stages, attending field team calls — is a continuous motion that requires dedicated operational attention. ISVs who list and disappear generate almost no co-sell revenue.
2. Not responding to referrals fast enough
Cloud field teams share opportunities through their partner portals (ACE, Partner Center, Partner Advantage). If you don’t accept and update those referrals within 48–72 hours, field teams stop sending them. Speed of response directly determines how many referrals you receive over time.
3. Siloing marketplace from the CRM
Most ISVs manage cloud marketplace deals in a separate workflow from their CRM. This means opportunities get duplicated, reps don’t know a lead came from a cloud referral, and attribution is lost. Integrating marketplace data directly into Salesforce or HubSpot is not optional at scale — it’s how you measure co-sell ROI.
4. Pursuing all three clouds simultaneously from day one
Spreading across AWS, Azure, and GCP before you’ve built operational muscle in any of them dilutes your effort. Start with the cloud your ICP already uses most, build momentum and ACR attribution there, then expand. A focused co-sell motion on one platform outperforms a scattered presence across three.
5. Underestimating the operational overhead
Responding to referrals, submitting opportunities, maintaining co-sell eligibility status, and producing the joint collateral that field teams need (battle cards, joint one-pagers, pricing explainers) takes real time. ISVs who don’t resource this adequately consistently underperform their marketplace potential.
How to Automate Your Cloud Co-Selling Motion
Automation is what separates ISVs generating consistent marketplace revenue from those who treat co-selling as a manual side project. The key workflows to automate:
- Opportunity sync: Automatically push referrals from ACE/Partner Center/Partner Advantage into your CRM as new leads, with cloud-source attribution, so your sales team works from one system.
- Stage updates: When a deal moves in your CRM, automatically update the corresponding opportunity in the cloud partner portal — this is what keeps referrals flowing.
- Entitlement management: Automate customer provisioning when a purchase lands on the marketplace so fulfillment doesn’t create a bottleneck.
- Reporting: Consolidate co-sell KPIs (referrals accepted, pipeline influenced, ACR generated) into a single dashboard so you can optimize the motion.
Platforms like Automatum handle this end-to-end across AWS, Azure, and GCP — so your team focuses on closing deals rather than managing portal workflows.
Getting Started with Co-Selling
The fastest path to co-sell revenue:
- List your product on the marketplace of the cloud your ICP uses most
- Apply for the co-sell program (ACE for AWS, IP Co-Sell for Azure, Partner Advantage for GCP)
- Submit your first 3–5 opportunities through the partner portal to establish a track record
- Integrate marketplace referrals with your CRM so ops runs cleanly from day one
- Assign a dedicated owner for co-sell operations — even 0.25 FTE beats zero
Ready to accelerate your cloud marketplace motion? Talk to the Automatum team to see how ISVs are cutting time-to-revenue on AWS, Azure, and GCP.
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