Private offers overview

Private offers allow Microsoft partners to sell products in Microsoft Marketplace with time-bound pricing and customized terms. This article explains the requirements and steps to create a private offer in Microsoft Marketplace.

Partner workflow

1. Create private offer in Partner Center

   • Partner creates a private offer for a specific customer using the customer's Azure billing account ID.
   • Partner includes in the private offer one or more product plans.

2. Share private offer with customer

   • Partner submits the private offer in Partner Center.
   • Partner shares the private offer link with the customer for acceptance.

     Tip

     The customer may also access the private offer by logging into the Azure portal and navigating to private offer management.

3. Receive payment after customer purchase

   • Partner receives payment from Microsoft after the customer completes the purchase. Learn more about payout and tax policies.

Next step: Get guidance for creating private offers

Customer workflow

1. Accept private offer

   • Customer opens link shared by the partner or navigates to Private offer management in the Azure portal.
   • Customer reviews details including product plans and pricing.
   • Customer accepts the private offer by the accept-by date.

2. Purchase included products

   • Customer purchases included products through the Azure portal.
   • The purchase workflow may be repeated for each included product plan.

3. View pricing

   • Customer may view private pricing for each product purchased within Azure Cost Management.

4. Receive invoice

   • Customer receives an invoice from Microsoft reflecting the private price for the purchased products.

Next step: Get guidance for accepting a private offer and purchasing

Benefits of private offers

Private offers provide new deal-making capabilities to Microsoft Marketplace that you can't achieve with private plans:

• Time-bound discount: Specify a start and end date for the discounted price. When the private offer ends, customers fall back to the publicly listed price.
• Custom terms and contract upload: Extend unique terms to each customer privately. By accepting your offer, the customer is accepting your terms. Attaching a PDF of your contract to the private offer is easy; no more plain text or amending the Microsoft Standard Contract.
• Offer sent in email: Rather than coaching customers on where to find their offer in the Marketplace within Azure portal, email customers a link directly to their private offer. Save time by sending this email to anyone in the customer's company who's responsible for accepting the offer.
• Deal expiration: Add urgency to the sales process by specifying the date by which the customer must accept the offer or it expires.
• Faster arrival: Private offers are available for purchase within 15 minutes. (Private plans take up to 48 hours to arrive.)
• Bundled discounts: Select multiple products or plans to receive a discount. Customers can accept the private offer for all of them at once.
• Targeted companies: Private offers are sent to an organization, not a tenant.

Supported offer types

You can create private offers for the following transactable Microsoft Marketplace offer types: software as a service (SaaS), professional service, Azure virtual machine, Azure container, and Azure application. Microsoft Marketplace does not support the sale of hardware by policy.

Private offers dashboard

Create and manage private offers from the Private offers dashboard in Partner Center. You open the dashboard by selecting Private offers on the left menu of the Marketplace offers workspace. For more information about the capabilities, see Manage private offers.

This dashboard has three tabs:

• Customers: On this tab, you can:
  • Create new private offers.
  • View the status of all your private offers.
  • Clone existing private offers.
  • Upgrade private offers.
  • Withdraw private offers.
  • Delete private offers.
  • View the purchase status of the products in a private offer.
• CSP Partners: Create a private offer for a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner. See CSP partner private offers.
• Multiparty: Create a private offer that includes a channel partner and is transacted through Microsoft Marketplace. See Multiparty private offers.

The Customers tab looks like this example:

Video tutorials

For more information, see the following video tutorials:

• Private offers overview
• Creating private offers
• Customer acceptance of a private offer
• Customer purchase of plans included in a private offer

Related content

• Manage private offers
• Frequently asked questions about configuring private offers