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Multiparty private offers (for channel partners)

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Multiparty private offers empower partners to come together, create personalized offers, and sell directly to Microsoft customers with simplified selling through the marketplace. For customers that have a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), every dollar of the sale counts toward their MACC commitment when they purchase solutions that are Azure IP co-sell and MACC eligible.


Overview of the multiparty private offers experience:

  1. The independent software vendor (ISV) creates a private offer and sends it to the channel partner.
  2. The channel partner finalizes the offer and extends it to the customer.
  3. The customer buys through the commercial marketplace.
  4. Microsoft invoices the customer according to their billing terms with Microsoft.
  5. Microsoft pays the ISV and the channel partner.

Customers in markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are supported for multiparty private offers.

Channel partner prerequisites to sell a multiparty private offer

You must meet these prerequisites to create a multiparty private offer for customers:

Review this table for the geo-specific requirements that channel partners must meet for supported tax profile countries:

Tax profile country Geo-specific requirements
US Filed your resale certificates.
UK Claimed tax treaty benefits. Tax treaty benefit status must be valid and not expired.

Note

To sell multiparty private offers, you must have a completed US or UK tax profile in Partner Center for the marketplace associated with your seller ID. You can verify this information in Partner Center under the Account settings > Payout and tax profiles > Tax profiles tab. The tax profile country/region associated with your seller ID must be the United States or the United Kingdom. If you don't see Payout and tax profiles on the left menu, contact your marketplace owner role within your company for permissions or to complete this step.

File resale certificates (United States)

Channel partners with a tax profile in the United States must provide your resale certificates to Microsoft via a support request at least five business days before the sale of any multiparty private offer. Your resale certificates must be on file at Microsoft before you sell multiparty private offers, or sales tax might be charged on your purchase as required by various tax laws.

  • Resale certificates must be provided for each seller ID used to sell multiparty private offers and must be provided even if your company already provided them for other programs, such as the Cloud Solution Provider program.
  • Your certificates must be accurately completed and signed and must include the state where your company is headquartered at a minimum.
  • Each state has different exemption certificates for resale in addition to state-approved multi-jurisdictional certificates issued by some organizations. Work with your tax advisor to decide what's relevant for your legal address and registered states.
  • Depending on your location, your local government might govern your resale certificates in addition to, or in lieu of, your state Department of Revenue (or similar department), and they must be managed accordingly.
  • Although many locations have blanket certificates that are renewed annually, some locations can renew at two or more years. Verify this timing and other information by checking your certificate or contacting your local tax authority.

To file your tax exemptions, request support through Partner Center. Provide your marketplace seller ID, a tax contact for your company, and your resale certificate as an attachment.

Note

You can locate your seller ID in Partner Center under Account settings > Identifiers > Publisher within your organizational profile. Your company must have a completed US tax profile in Partner Center for the marketplace associated with your seller ID. You can verify this status in Partner Center under Account settings > Payout and tax profiles > Tax profiles tab. The tax profile country/region associated with your seller ID needs to be the United States. If you don't see the Payout and tax profiles in the left menu, contact your marketplace owner role within your company for permissions or to complete this step.

Claim tax treaty benefit (United Kingdom)

Channel partners with a tax profile in the United Kingdom must claim tax treaty benefits on the W-8BEN form in your tax profile setup before the sale of any multiparty private offer. You must have a valid tax treaty benefit status on your tax profile before you're eligible to participate in a multiparty private offer. To claim a tax treaty benefit in your tax profile, in the Tax Treaty Benefits section of your W-8BEN form, select "Yes" to the question on claiming a reduced rate of withholding under a tax treaty.

Configure your multiparty private offers

Configure your multiparty private offers from the Private offers dashboard on the left menu of the Marketplace offers workspace in Partner Center.

  1. Sign in to Partner Center by using the account associated with the marketplace seller ID you provided to ISVs to add you to the multiparty private offer.
  2. Select Marketplace offers from the home page.
  3. Select Private offers from the left menu to open the dashboard.
  4. Select the Multiparty tab.
  5. Multiparty private offers with the status Pending partner action are ready for you to update and send to customers for acceptance and purchase. Select the name of the multiparty private offer you're ready to action.

The ISV that created the multiparty private offer and sent it to you is the originator of the multiparty private offer.

Offer setup

On the Offer setup page, verify that the customer information, products, pricing, and terms associated with the multiparty private offer are correct. Adjust the pricing and optionally add your terms. If there's an issue with the information included in the multiparty private offer, request that the originator withdraws it, updates it, and resubmits it to you. Before any sales, provide your resale certificates to Microsoft if you have a US tax profile. Or claim a tax treaty benefit on your W-8BEN form if you have a UK tax profile.

  • Customer terms and conditions: Optionally, upload a PDF copy of the terms and conditions that you want your customer to accept as part of the multiparty private offer. Your terms and conditions aren't visible to the ISV, just to your customer. You can upload a total of five attachments between you and the ISV.

    1. Select + Add terms and conditions.
    2. Attach the PDF copy of the terms and conditions your customer must accept as part of the multiparty private offer.
    3. Enter a unique Customer-facing document name for each customer term and condition you upload. This document name is visible to your customer in the Azure portal.

    Note

    Your terms and conditions must adhere to Microsoft-supported billing models, offer types, and the Microsoft Publishers Agreement.

  • Customer renewals: ISVs indicate if this customer is a renewal or a new customer. Learn more about this benefit for your ISVs.

  • Notification contacts: Provide up to five email addresses for the people within your company as Notification contacts to receive email updates on the status of the multiparty private offer. These emails are sent when your offer status changes to Pending partner action, Pending acceptance, Accepted, or Expired.

  • Prepared by contact: You must also provide a Prepared by email address, which appears to the customer in the private offer listing in the Azure portal.

  • Product offers: Review the partner price set by the ISV, and then set the price increase to the customer as a percentage. Enter your customer adjustment % with up to eight decimal digits to achieve more precision. The adjustment % you enter is used to calculate the estimated price to the customer and applies uniformly to both the product pricing and custom meter pricing. Other factors that might apply to your customer's organization can affect the final price for your customer.

    Example 1: This example illustrates how you can apply a customer adjustment % on top of your partner price to calculate the customer price.

    • Partner price: $100.00.
    • Customer adjustment %: Enter 10%.
    • Customer price: $110.00.
    • Calculation: $100 + ($100 x 10%) = $110.00 plus applicable taxes.

    Example 2: This example illustrates how you can apply a customer adjustment % to achieve the customer price that you want from the partner price that you received.

    • Partner price: $95.00.
    • Desired customer price: $105.00 plus applicable taxes.
    • Customer adjustment %: Enter 10.52631579%.
    • Calculation: ($105.00 - $95.00)/$95.00 = 10.52631579%.
    • Confirmation: Verify that this customer adjustment % will generate the customer price you want. Calculate $95.00 + ($95.00 x 10.52631579%) = $105.00 to confirm, and edit the customer adjustment % as needed.

    For customers outside of the United States, you can export the pricing data sheet to review the partner price in the market currency of the customer. You can't change the exchange rate applied. If the partner price in the customer's market currency isn't as expected, contact the ISV to withdraw the offer and adjust the price as appropriate. For products that support absolute price configuration, you can request the ISV to override the targeted market price via the import pricing data sheet capability to bypass the exchange rate managed by Microsoft. To further understand how exchange rates work in the marketplace, review the Commercial marketplace foreign exchange FAQ.

    If the ISV configured a discounted partner price to you, the customer price adjustment % you enter can't exceed the discount that the ISV provided to you. If you need to configure a customer price adjustment that exceeds the discount the ISV provided to you, request the ISV to withdraw the multiparty private offer and configure an absolute partner price to remove this limitation.

    Note

    Multiparty private offers don't support the sale of professional services to customers. Sales of software offers can't include professional services or hardware in the software price by policy. The customer adjustment % you enter must not include the sale of these items. To sell your professional services to customers in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Canada, create a customer private offer by using the transactable professional service offer type.

  • Sales notes: Optionally, include up to 60 characters of text as a sales note. The information entered here isn't visible to your customer or the ISV. It only appears in your marketplace reporting within the download exports for the orders, usage, and revenue dashboards and through programmatic API access to marketplace analytics. Don't include any personal data like names or email addresses.

Review and submit

On the Review and submit page, view the estimated customer price as either a calculated price or a net discount, and edit your customer adjustment % if needed. Other factors that might apply to your customer's organization can affect the final price for your customer.

After the offer is submitted, the multiparty private offer is locked for edits. You can still withdraw the multiparty private offer while it's in a Pending customer acceptance state. The ISV is unable to withdraw the multiparty private offer after you submit it and it's in a Pending acceptance state.

When you're ready, select Submit. You're returned to the dashboard where you can view the offer status. Your multiparty private offer is available within 15 minutes. After the acceptance link is available, select the multiparty private offer, and then under Action, select Copy link to share it with your customer for acceptance. The customer must be an owner, contributor, or signatory on the billing account to accept the offer. The notification contacts that you specified on the multiparty private offer are emailed after the offer is ready to be shared with your customer.

Note

Microsoft won't send an email to your customer. You can copy the private offer link and share it with your customer for acceptance. Your customer can see the multiparty private offer on the Private Offer Management pane in the Azure portal, assuming that they have the correct permissions. To learn more, see Purchase a private offer.

View private offers status

To view the status of your multiparty private offer:

  1. Select Private offers from the left menu.
  2. Select the Multiparty tab.
  3. Check the Status column.

Private offer status descriptions:

  • Draft: You started to create a multiparty private offer but haven't yet submitted it.
  • In progress: The multiparty private offer that you submitted is currently being published. This step can take up to 15 minutes.
  • Pending partner action: The multiparty private offer you submitted is now available for your channel partner to update and send to the customer for acceptance.
  • Pending acceptance: The multiparty private offer is pending customer acceptance. Because you are the ISV, you can't withdraw it.
  • Accepted: Your customer accepted the multiparty private offer. After the offer is accepted, the multiparty private offer can't be changed.
  • Expired: The multiparty private offer expired before the customer accepted it. You can request your channel partner to withdraw the multiparty private offer. After your channel partner withdraws it, you can withdraw the multiparty private offer to make changes and submit it again.
  • Ended: The multiparty private offer passed its end date.

Purchase status

You can track if your customer subscribes to the software as a service (SaaS) products that are contained within the multiparty private offer after they accept the SaaS offer. Private offer purchase has two steps: Accept and Purchase. For SaaS offers, customers must activate the subscription and configure their account. For more information on the customer purchase process, review the documentation to purchase or subscribe to the private offer and share this information with your customers.

Currently, this functionality applies only to SaaS offer types.

To see the multiparty private offer purchase status, under Purchase status, select the View status link on the Private offers dashboard. The View status link only shows for multiparty private offers that were accepted by the customer or that ended. After you select View status, you get a view of any subscriptions that the customer set up for the products contained within the multiparty private offer, and the state of those subscriptions. If there are no entries within this view, then either:

  • The customer hasn't yet purchased the SaaS product within the multiparty private offer. Follow up with the customer directly to help them purchase and activate the product (assuming that the start date already passed).
  • The multiparty private offer contains only Azure application or Azure virtual machine offer types.

Purchase status can be:

  • Subscribed: The customer subscribed to the product and configured the SaaS service, and you activated the subscription. No further action is required by you or the customer.
  • PendingFulfillmentStart: Possible reasons:
    • The customer subscribed to the product but has yet to configure the SaaS service. Follow up with the customer directly and ask them to complete the step to configure the SaaS service.
    • The customer subscribed and completed the configuration step but the ISV hasn't activated the subscription yet. Follow up with the ISV and ask them to activate the subscription so that billing can occur.
  • Suspended: The subscription was suspended because a customer's payment wasn't received. Microsoft gives the customer a 30-day grace period before automatically canceling the subscription.
  • Unsubscribed: Possible reasons:
    • The ISV didn't activate the subscription by the 30-day deadline since the customer purchased and configured the SaaS service. Advise the customer directly to subscribe to the product again. The ISV should activate it within the 30-day deadline.
    • The subscription was canceled either because a customer requested to cancel the subscription or because of nonpayment.
    • The subscription expired.

Withdraw a multiparty private offer

Withdrawing a multiparty private offer means that your customer can no longer access it. A multiparty private offer can be withdrawn by a channel partner only if the status is Pending acceptance. An ISV can't withdraw a multiparty private offer if the status is Accepted by the customer.

To withdraw a multiparty private offer:

  1. Select Private offers from the left menu to open the dashboard.
  2. Select the Multiparty tab.
  3. Select the multiparty private offer that you want to withdraw, and then select Withdraw.
  4. Select Request withdraw.
  5. Your offer status is updated to Pending partner action (Draft), and you can now edit it. You might also need the ISV as the originator of the multiparty private offer to make edits. Request the ISV to also withdraw the multiparty private offer, update it, and submit it again to you to update and send to your customer for acceptance.

Upgrade a multiparty private offer

With this option, you can upgrade an existing accepted multiparty private offer. The offer applies to multiparty private offers in either an accepted or ended state. Upgrades are supported only at the time of renewal. For example, the upgraded offer start date and end date can't overlap with the existing multiparty private offer. Through upgrade, ISVs can edit their partner pricing, customer private offer dates, customer terms and conditions, notification contacts, and sales note for the upgraded multiparty private offer. They can't change the product plan or product terms. Channel partners can edit their customer adjustment percentage, prepared-by contact, customer terms and conditions, notification contacts, and sales note. If other changes are required, create a new multiparty private offer. To finalize the upgrade:

  1. Select Private offers from the left menu to open the dashboard.
  2. Select the Multiparty tab.
  3. Select the multiparty private offer that your ISV initiated to upgrade and submitted to you.
  4. Edit the details on the Offer setup page as needed.
  5. Select Submit.

Cancel an accepted multiparty private offer

After the customer accepts the multiparty private offer, channel partners can no longer withdraw or edit the multiparty private offer. If the multiparty private offer was created with incorrect details like incorrect pricing, an incorrect public plan, or incorrect terms or dates, work with the customer and ISV to submit a marketplace support request to cancel the multiparty private offer.

To do so, you or the ISV can create a support ticket in Partner Center and request that the multiparty private offer is canceled. To cancel the private offer, there must be either no purchases made by the customer for the products within the private offer or the customer must unsubscribe to the products purchased within the private offer before it can be canceled.

Provide the following information:

  • The private offer ID.
  • The customer billing account ID.
  • The reason for cancellation.
  • A confirmation of whether a refund is needed if the customer has already made the purchase. More purchase information is required if a refund is needed.
  • A screenshot with written confirmation from the other partner involved in configuring the multiparty private offer that they agree to the cancellation.

Upon cancellation, the multiparty private offer is removed from your Multiparty private offer dashboard view in Partner Center. The offer is also removed from the customer's Private Offer Management pane in the Azure portal. After the cancellation is processed, the multiparty private offer price is no longer applied if the customer was expected to purchase the plan that was contained in the canceled multiparty private offer.

Payout and reporting on multiparty private offers

The payout amount is based on the partner price that you received and the customer adjustment % you applied to the product prices. For more information about the marketplace payout process and policies, see Payout schedule and processes.

  • Payouts: Sales through multiparty private offers are in Earnings, specifically under Earnings and Reports.
  • Analytics: Sales through multiparty private offers are available on the commercial marketplace Insights dashboards and reports and through programmatic access.

Related content

For more information, see the following articles and videos.

Further reading

Video tutorials (YouTube)