Frequently asked questions about ISV-to-customer private offers

Private offers let you transact private deals with your customers in the commercial marketplace. This new feature supports many new capabilities and addresses limitations associated with private plans. You can use it to:

• Create a private deal with up to 10 offers or plans; for example, software as a service (SaaS) and virtual machine (VM).
• Give a time-bound discount for consumption-based (VM) offers.
• Give a deal at the customer organization level (by using the billing account) instead of the customer tenant or subscription level.
• Specify custom terms and conditions associated with the private deal with a simple PDF upload.
• Stop requiring the customer to redeploy VMs with new private offers just because the price changes (for consumption-based products like VMs).
• Close the private deal within 15 minutes.
• Specify an expiration date (accept-by date) to help close the private deal with the customer.

* Requires a publicly transactable offer in the marketplace.

You can create private offers for all transactable offer types: SaaS, Azure VM, and Azure application. Private offers aren't currently available in Microsoft AppSource.

On the Private offers dashboard, you can:

• Use the Customers tab to create a private offer for a customer to buy through the Azure portal. You also manage all your existing private offers on this tab.
• Use the CSP Partners tab to create a discount to incentivize Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners to drive adoption for your offers in the marketplace.
• Use the Multiparty tab to create an offer that includes a channel partner and is transacted through the Azure portal.

To offer your employees free access to your products by using the marketplace:

1. Sign in to Partner Center, and then select Marketplace offers.
2. On the left menu, select Private offers to open the dashboard.
3. Select +New private offer.
4. Choose the duration for which you want to extend the free products to your employees.
5. Enter your independent software vendor (ISV) billing account as the customer's billing account.
6. Assign a 100% discount for consumption-based products, or a $0 charge for entitlement-based products.
7. Use your customer account to accept and purchase the offer.

After you finish these steps, Microsoft charges only the infrastructure cost for any usage or subscription on that billing account.

To create a private offer, you need the billing account ID of your customer. Billing account information is available only to customers. Publishers can't access it.

Customers can find the billing account information in the Azure portal by going to Cost Management + Billing > Settings > Properties. Or, if a customer knows the subscription that they plan to use for the purchase, they can find their billing account information in the Azure portal by selecting Subscriptions, selecting the relevant subscription, and then going to Properties (or Billing Properties).

To access this information, the customer must be an owner or contributor on the billing account. If a customer doesn't have a billing account, they can create one by signing up on Azure.com. See Billing account scopes in the Azure portal.

With the private offer applied at the level of the billing account ID, if new subscriptions are added to the customer's Azure plan, the private offer automatically applies to those subscriptions. You don't need to make edits to the private offer.

While you're creating a new private offer, select Accepted date as the start date to make the price available for the customer to transact as soon as the private offer is accepted.

Choose Specific month to make the private price available in a future calendar month. For example: If you create a private offer on May 15 and want the private price to be available to the customer on June 1, select June. The private offer starts on the first day of the month and ends on the last day. You can't select specific start and end dates. If the customer purchases the public offer or plan before June 1, they won't receive the private offer price for any transactions before June 1. The time zone for the start date is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The Accept by date is the private offer's expiration date. Your customer must accept the private offer before the end of this date or the private offer expires. End date specifies the date on which the private price and terms end.

The time zone for the accept-by date and the end date is UTC.

You can document and upload custom terms and conditions that you and the customer agreed upon as part of the private deal. The customer is required to legally accept these terms and conditions as part of accepting the private offer.

Uploading custom terms and conditions is optional in a private offer. You can upload only one document, and it must be in PDF format.

Custom terms and conditions between you and the customer shouldn't violate any terms in the Microsoft Publisher Agreement.

It depends. If you want to use the public terms of use for the private offer with no changes, you can skip uploading any custom terms and conditions to the private offer. Public terms of use are presented to the customer during purchase of the private offer.

If you want to amend the public terms for the private offer, you need to upload custom terms and conditions to the private offer. Custom terms and conditions are presented to the customer during purchase of the private offer.

You can use a discounted price to provide a percentage-based discount on top of a publicly listed plan. You can specify a discounted price only when the private price is lower than the publicly listed plan price.

You can use an absolute price to specify a price point that's higher, lower, or equal to the publicly listed plan price. You can apply an absolute price only at a plan level. You can't apply an absolute price for VM offer types or any plans that have a trial enabled.

The clone option creates an editable copy of an existing private offer that you can publish as a new private offer. You can use cloning on any private offer, regardless of its status.

You can upgrade an existing private offer that a customer accepted. The marketplace supports upgrades only at renewal. For example, the upgraded offer's start and end date can't overlap with the existing private offer.

You can edit only pricing, dates, terms, and notification contacts for the upgraded private offer. If you need other changes, create a new private offer.

You can't change a private offer in a Pending Acceptance state. If the customer hasn't accepted the private offer, you can withdraw the offer from the customer to make changes. After you withdraw a private offer, your customer can't access it unless you resubmit it to the customer.

If you publish multiple private offers to the same customer with the same offers or plans and the customer accepts them, the customer's price is determined as follows:

• If you have overlapping percentage-based discounts and absolute pricing for the same plan, the absolute price applies.
• If you have overlapping percentage-based discounts for the same plan, the customer gets the best price (highest percentage discount).
• If you have overlapping absolute pricing for the same plan, the customer gets the best price (lowest absolute price).

Partner Center uses the Notification Contacts information to notify you of changes to the private offer status. The notification email is sent when the private offer status changes from In Progress to Pending Acceptance, Pending Acceptance to Accepted, or Pending Acceptance to Expired.

No, Microsoft doesn't send any notifications to the customer. You should copy the private offer link and send it to the customer for acceptance.

No. You're notified via the SaaS fulfillment API that a SaaS offer is activated but not that it has an associated private offer. You can see if the customer accepted a private offer in the Insights reporting.

You can't upgrade a private offer during the offer's term. You can create an upgrade at any time and a customer could accept it, but the upgrade takes effect only at the end of the existing private offer.

Use the Upgrade feature to extend the start and end date and to include revised custom terms and conditions associated with the private offer. To add or remove offers and plans, create a new private offer.

Any user within the customer's organization can see the details of a private offer. To accept a private offer, the user in the customer organization needs to be an owner, contributor, or admin on the billing account. Without appropriate permissions, the user can't accept the private offer.

To get access to the billing account, the user should contact the admin or owner. A red notice at the top of the page indicates three people in the customer's organization who have the appropriate permissions.

After a private offer is accepted, it's a legal agreement between you and the customer, so it can't be changed.

If the private offer is due to begin on the accepted date, the customer can go to the Azure portal to subscribe to the offer by using any Azure subscription associated with the billing account. The customer must use an Azure subscription associated with the configured billing account to get the private price. If the private offer includes pay-as-you-go offers (virtual machines) and was extended to an existing customer, the customer is charged at the private price as soon as the private offer is accepted.

For a private offer that includes SaaS, the customer must subscribe to the SaaS product and then configure the product within 30 days of subscribing to it.

If you configured the private offer to begin at a future date, your customer could accept the private offer before the accept-by date but should not complete the purchase until after the private offer's start date.

After the customer accepts the private offer, it can take up to 15 minutes for the private price to appear in the marketplace on the product details page. If the customer transacts within these 15 minutes, the marketplace still charges the customer correctly by using the private price.

Accepting a private offer doesn't initiate billing. To complete the purchase, customers must subscribe to the SaaS product or deploy the virtual machine or Azure application product within the private offer in the Azure portal.

For a private offer that includes a SaaS product, the customer must also configure the product within 30 days of subscribing to it.

If the customer chose automatic renewal, and you don't create a new private offer that the customer accepts, the customer is charged the list price of the public plan.

Yes. Customers who have a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment can decrement it for benefit-eligible purchases through customer private offers. Customers can't decrement their Azure Consumption Commitment for product purchases through CSP private offers.

There are no changes in the payout experience for private offers. After a customer transacts by using private offers, the transaction details appear on the Earnings page in Partner Center.

In the Insights workspace, you can filter the Orders and Usage reports by private offers and public offers.

You should use private offers for your negotiated deals on Azure Marketplace. Private plans continue to be supported and can be used for specific scenarios. For example, you can use a private plan if you want to use a private (custom) VM image for your customer as part of the private deal or if it meets requirements for their specific use case.

To use private offers, ISVs must have publicly transactable plans published to Azure Marketplace.

We don't recommend that you have both a private plan and a private offer for the same customer, product, and time period. Private plans can continue to exist for existing deals, and you can use private offers for new deals.

Move customers to private offers as each customer's private plan term comes up for renewal or expiration. You can create a private offer that will begin at the end of the current subscription term for the private plan. After your customers accept the private offer, they need to subscribe to the plan that your private offer contains.

You can also move your customers to private offers in the middle of a private plan term. If a customer paid for the full term of the original private plan, create a private offer and set the customer price to $0 or apply a 100% discount to your retail price. Your customer then needs to accept the private offer terms and subscribe to the products within the private offer.

Private offers support monthly, annual, two-year, or three-year terms. If your customer has a remaining duration that's different from these terms, it's best for the customer to complete the private plan term before subscribing to a private offer. For example, if your customer is in year two of a three-year private plan term and is due to pay for a third year, you can create a private offer for a one-year duration to charge the customer's final year via a private offer. Your customer then needs to cancel the original subscription to the private plan to avoid being charged as part of renewing the private plan. You can then stop-sell the private plan.

Related content

• Create a private offer for a customer