Plan a SaaS offer for Microsoft Marketplace

This article explains the different options and requirements for publishing software as a service (SaaS) offers to Microsoft Marketplace. SaaS offers let you deliver and license software solutions to your customers through online subscriptions. As a SaaS publisher, you manage and pay for the infrastructure required to support your customers' use of your offer. This article can help you prepare your offer for publishing to Marketplace with Partner Center. Marketplace includes the new AI Apps and Agents category, which helps customers discover AI apps and agents alongside other cloud solutions.

Listing options

As you prepare to publish a new SaaS offer, decide which listing option to choose. The listing option you choose determines what additional information you need to provide as you create your offer in Partner Center. Define your listing option on the Offer setup page as explained in How to create a SaaS offer in Microsoft Marketplace.

The following table shows the listing options for SaaS offers in Microsoft Marketplace.

* Publishers are responsible for supporting all aspects of the software license transaction, including but not limited to order, fulfillment, metering, billing, invoicing, payment, and collection.

For more information about these listing options, see Microsoft Marketplace transact capabilities.

After your offer is published, the listing option you chose for your offer appears as a button in the upper-left corner of your offer's listing page. For example, the following screenshot shows an offer listing page in Microsoft Marketplace with the Get it now button.

Technical requirements

The technical requirements differ depending on the listing option you choose for your offer.

The Contact me listing option has no technical requirements. When a customer expresses interest in or deploys your product, you receive a lead in the Referrals workspace in Partner Center. You can also connect a customer relationship management (CRM) system to your offer to manage customer leads. This article describes that process in the section: Customer leads.

The Get it now (Free), Free trial, and Sell through Microsoft listing options have the following technical requirements:

• You must enable both Microsoft Accounts (MSA) and Microsoft Entra ID for authenticating buyers on your site. You must let buyers with a Microsoft Entra account sign in to your application by using Microsoft Entra ID with single sign-on (SSO).
• You must create a landing page that offers a seamless sign-in and onboarding experience for a customer who purchased your offer. The landing page helps them complete any other required provisioning or setup. For guidance on creating the landing page, see these articles:
  • Build the landing page for your transactable SaaS offer in Microsoft Marketplace
  • Build the landing page for your free or trial SaaS offer in Microsoft Marketplace

These additional technical requirements apply to the Sell through Microsoft (transactable) listing option only:

• Your app must use the SaaS Fulfillment APIs to integrate with Microsoft Marketplace. Your app must expose a service that can interact with the SaaS subscription to create, update, and delete a user account and service plan. Critical API changes must be supported within 24 hours. Noncritical API changes are released periodically. Diagrams and detailed explanations describing the usage of the collected fields are available in documentation for the APIs.

• Free trials configured on transactable SaaS are part of the Sell through Microsoft listing option and must meet the same technical requirements, including integration with the SaaS Fulfillment APIs and the required landing page and webhook configuration.

  Tip

  If you enable auto activation for a plan, the subscription activates and billing starts immediately at purchase. You don't need to call the Resolve or Activate APIs for auto-activated plans. Instead, you receive a Subscribe webhook notification with the subscription details.

• If you choose Microsoft License Management Service, you must integrate with Graph API to verify customer eligibility so customers can manage their licenses on Microsoft Admin Center. For details on how to integrate, see Integrate your SaaS offer with Graph API for License Management.

• You must create at least one plan for your offer. You price your plan based on the pricing model you select before publishing: flat rate or per-user. More details about plans are provided later in this article.

• The customer can cancel your offer at any time.

Technical information

If you're creating a transactable offer, gather the following information for the Technical configuration page.

• Landing page URL: The SaaS site URL (for example: https://contoso.com/signup) that users are directed to after acquiring your offer from Microsoft Marketplace. This URL triggers the configuration process from the newly created SaaS subscription. This URL receives a token that you can use to call the fulfillment APIs to get provisioning details for your interactive registration page.

  This URL is called with the Marketplace purchase identification token parameter that uniquely identifies the specific customer's SaaS purchase. You must exchange this token for the corresponding SaaS subscription details by using the resolve API. Use those details and any others you wish to collect as part of a customer-interactive web page to kick off the customer onboarding experience. The experience must eventually conclude with an activate call on the API for starting the subscription period. On this page, the user should sign up through one-click authentication by using Microsoft Entra ID.

  This URL with marketplace purchase identification token parameter is also called when the customer launches a managed SaaS experience from the Azure portal (Marketplace within Azure portal) or Microsoft 365 Admin Center. You should handle both flows: when the token is provided for the first time after a new customer purchase, and when the token is provided again for an existing customer managing their SaaS solution.

  The landing page you configure should be running 24/7. This is the only way you get notified about new purchases of your SaaS offers made in Microsoft Marketplace, or configuration requests for an active subscription of an offer.

• Connection webhook: For all asynchronous events that Microsoft needs to send to you (for example, when a SaaS subscription is canceled), provide a connection webhook URL. Microsoft calls this URL to notify you about the event.

  The webhook you provide should be running 24/7. This is the only way you get notified about updates to your customers' SaaS subscriptions purchased via Microsoft Marketplace.

  Note

  You need to create and register your SaaS application with Microsoft Entra. Use the app registration details to authenticate your solution when calling the Marketplace APIs.

• Microsoft Entra tenant ID: (also known as directory ID). To find the tenant ID for your Microsoft Entra app, go to the App registrations panel in Microsoft Entra ID. In the Display name column, select the app. Then look for the Directory (tenant) ID number listed (for example, aaaabbbb-0000-cccc-1111-dddd2222eeee).

• Microsoft Entra application ID: To find the application ID, go to the App registrations panel in Microsoft Entra ID. In the Display name column, select the app. Then look for the Application (client) ID number listed (for example, 00001111-aaaa-2222-bbbb-3333cccc4444).

Use the same tenant ID and application ID that you registered in your Partner Center account when calling the SaaS Fulfillment APIs.

Customer leads

Microsoft Marketplace collects leads with customer information so you can access them in the Referrals workspace in Partner Center. Leads include information such as customer details along with the offer name, ID, and online store where the customer found your offer.

You can also choose to connect your CRM system to your offer. Microsoft Marketplace supports Dynamics 365, Marketo, and Salesforce, along with the option to use an Azure table or configure an HTTPS endpoint using Power Automate. For detailed guidance, see Customer leads from your Microsoft Marketplace offer.

You can add or modify a CRM connection at any time during or after offer creation. For detailed guidance, see Customer leads from your Microsoft Marketplace offer.

Selecting an online store

When you publish a SaaS offer, it appears in Microsoft Marketplace. Microsoft Marketplace is a single web destination that serves both business and IT customers. Categories and subcategories surface your offer to the right audience. Your offer type, transact capabilities, and categories determine how and where your offer is presented to customers across Microsoft Marketplace and, in some scenarios, the Azure portal (Marketplace within Azure portal).

If your SaaS offer targets both IT and business customers, select categories and subcategories that apply to both audiences. Offers available to both audiences should have a value proposition that addresses each group's needs.

* The private plan of the offer is only available via the Azure portal.

For example, customers purchase an offer with metered billing and a private plan only (no public plan) in the Azure portal (Marketplace within Azure portal). To learn more, see Private plans in Microsoft Marketplace. A SaaS offer with Microsoft managed License Management option enabled is available in Microsoft Marketplace. For detailed information about listing options supported by Microsoft Marketplace, see Introduction to listing options. For more information about categories and subcategories, see Categories and subcategories in Microsoft Marketplace.

Legal contracts

To simplify the procurement process for customers and reduce legal complexity for software vendors, Microsoft offers a standard contract you can use for your offers in Microsoft Marketplace. When you offer your software under the standard contract, customers only need to read and accept it one time, and you don't have to create custom terms and conditions.

If you choose to use the standard contract, you can add universal amendment terms and up to 10 custom amendments to the standard contract. You can also use your own terms and conditions instead of the standard contract. You'll manage these details in the Properties page. For detailed information, see Standard contract for Microsoft Marketplace.

Microsoft 365 integration

Integration with Microsoft 365 enables your SaaS offer to provide connected experience across multiple Microsoft 365 App surfaces through related free add-ins like Teams apps, Microsoft 365 add-ins, and SharePoint Framework solutions. You can help your customers easily discover all facets of your E2E solution (web service plus related add-ins) and deploy them within one process by providing the following information.

• If your SaaS offer integrates with Microsoft Graph, provide the Microsoft Entra App ID used by your SaaS offer for the integration. Administrators can review access permissions required for the proper functioning of your SaaS offer as set on the Microsoft Entra App ID and grant access if advanced admin permission is needed at deployment time.

  If you choose to sell your offer through Microsoft, this Microsoft Entra App ID is the same one that you registered to use on your landing page to get basic user information needed to complete customer subscription activation. For detailed guidance, see Build the landing page for your transactable SaaS offer in Microsoft Marketplace.

• Provide a list of related add-ins that work with your SaaS offer you want to link. Customers can discover your E2E solution on Microsoft Marketplace. Administrators can deploy both the SaaS and all the related add-ins you linked in the same process via Microsoft 365 admin center.

  To link related add-ins, you need to provide the Microsoft Marketplace link of the add-in; this requirement means the add-in must be first published to Microsoft Marketplace. Supported add-in types you can link are: Teams apps, Microsoft 365 add-ins, and SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions. Each linked add-in must be unique for a SaaS offer.

For linked products, search on Microsoft Marketplace returns a single result that includes both SaaS and all linked add-ins. Customers can navigate between the product detail pages of the SaaS offer and linked add-ins. IT admins can review and deploy both the SaaS and linked add-ins within the same process through an integrated and connected experience within the Microsoft 365 admin center. To learn more, see Test and deploy Microsoft 365 Apps - Microsoft 365 admin.

Microsoft 365 integration support limitations

If you encounter problems linking Microsoft 365 add-ins, make sure that the Microsoft Marketplace links point to valid and live Microsoft 365 add-ins, Teams apps, or SharePoint framework solutions. Linking isn't supported for classic SharePoint add-ins.

When linked products have problems deploying as an E2E solution in the Microsoft 365 admin center, make sure that you entered a valid Microsoft Entra App ID for Graph API integration if your SaaS offer integrates with Microsoft Graph API. The Microsoft 365 admin center uses this ID to fetch related permissions and prompts the admin for permission if your SaaS offer requires advanced permissions. An invalid Microsoft Entra App ID results in deployment failure. Choose the No option if your SaaS offer isn't integrated with Microsoft Graph API.

Microsoft Marketplace supports discovery as a single E2E solution for all cases. Simplified deployment of the E2E solution, as described previously in the Microsoft 365 admin center, isn't supported for the following scenarios:

• The "Contact me" list-only offers.
• The same add-in is linked to more than one SaaS offer.
• The SaaS offer is linked to add-ins, but it doesn't integrate with Microsoft Graph and no Microsoft Entra App ID is provided.
• The SaaS offer is linked to add-ins, but Microsoft Entra App ID provided for Microsoft Graph integration is shared across multiple SaaS offers.

Offer listing details

When you create a new SaaS offer in Partner Center, enter text, images, optional videos, and other details on the Offer listing page. Customers see this information when they discover your offer listing in Microsoft Marketplace, as shown in the following example.

Call-out descriptions

1. Logo
2. Categories
3. Industries
4. Support address (link)
5. Terms of use
6. Privacy policy
7. Offer name
8. Summary
9. Description
10. Screenshots/videos
11. Documents

The following example shows an offer listing in the Azure portal (Marketplace within Azure portal).

Call out descriptions

1. Title
2. Description
3. Useful links
4. Screenshots

To help create your offer more easily, prepare some of these items ahead of time. The following items are required unless otherwise noted.

• Name: This name appears as the title of your offer listing in Microsoft Marketplace. The name can be trademarked. It can't contain emojis (unless they're the trademark and copyright symbols) and must be limited to 200 characters.

• Search results summary: Describe the purpose or function of your offer as a single sentence with no line breaks in 100 characters or less. This summary is used in Microsoft Marketplace listing search results.

• Description: This description displays in the Microsoft Marketplace listing overview. Consider including a value proposition, key benefits, intended user base, any category or industry associations, in-app purchase opportunities, any required disclosures, and a link to learn more.

  This text box has rich text editor controls that you can use to make your description more engaging. You can also use HTML tags to format your description. You can enter up to 5,000 characters of text in this box, including HTML markup. For additional tips, see Write a great app description.

• Getting Started instructions: If you choose to sell your offer through Microsoft (transactable offer), this field is required. These instructions help customers connect to your SaaS offer. You can add up to 3,000 characters of text and links to more detailed online documentation.

• Search keywords (optional): Provide up to three search keywords that customers can use to find your offer in the online stores. You don't need to include the offer Name and Description: that text is automatically included in search.

• Privacy policy link: The URL for your company's privacy policy. You must provide a valid privacy policy and are responsible for ensuring your app complies with privacy laws and regulations.

• Contact information: You must provide the following contacts from your organization:

  • Support contact: Provide the name, phone, and email for Microsoft partners to use when your customers open tickets. You must also include the URL for your support website.
  • Engineering contact: Provide the name, phone, and email for Microsoft to use directly when there are problems with your offer. This contact information isn't listed in Microsoft Marketplace.
  • CSP Program contact (optional): Provide the name, phone, and email if you opt in to the CSP program, so those partners can contact you with any questions. You can also include a URL to your marketing materials.

• Useful links (optional): You can provide links to various resources for users of your offer. For example, forums, FAQs, and release notes.

• Supporting documents: You can provide up to three customer-facing documents, such as whitepapers, brochures, checklists, or PowerPoint presentations.

• Media – Logos: Provide a PNG file for the Large logo. Partner Center uses this file to create a Small and a Medium logo. You can optionally replace these images later.

  • Large (from 216 x 216 to 350 x 350 px, required)
  • Medium (90 x 90 px, optional)
  • Small (48 x 48 px, optional)

  These logos are used in different places in the online stores:

  • The Small logo appears in Microsoft Marketplace search results and on Microsoft Marketplace main page and search results page.
  • The Medium logo appears when you create a new resource in Microsoft Azure.
  • The Large logo appears on your offer listing page in Microsoft Marketplace.

• Media - Screenshots: You must add at least one and up to five screenshots with the following requirements, that show how your offer works:

  • 1280 x 720 pixels
  • PNG file type
  • Must include a caption

• Media - Videos (optional): You can add up to four videos with the following requirements, that demonstrate your offer:

  • Name.
  • URL: Must be hosted on YouTube or Vimeo only.
  • Thumbnail: 1280 x 720 PNG file.

You can send invites to Microsoft Account (MSA) or Microsoft Entra ID email addresses. Add up to 10 email addresses manually or import up to 20 with a .csv file. If your offer is already live, you can still define a preview audience for testing any changes or updates to your offer.

Plans

Transactable offers require at least one plan. A plan defines the solution scope and limits, and the associated pricing. You can create multiple plans for your offer to give your customers different technical and pricing options. If you choose to process transactions independently instead of creating a transactable offer, the Plans page isn't visible. If so, skip this section and go to Additional sales opportunities.

For general guidance about plans, including pricing models, free trials, and private plans, see Plans and pricing for Microsoft Marketplace offers. The following sections discuss additional information specific to SaaS offers.

SaaS pricing models

SaaS offers can use one of two pricing models with each plan: either flat rate or per user. All plans in the same offer must use the same pricing model. For example, an offer can't have one plan that's flat rate and another plan that's per user.

Flat rate – Enable access to your offer with a single monthly or annual flat rate price. This pricing model is sometimes referred to as site-based pricing. By using this pricing model, you can optionally define metered plans that use the Microsoft Marketplace metering service API to charge customers for usage that isn't covered by the flat rate. For more information on metered billing, see Metered billing for SaaS using Microsoft Marketplace metering service. Use this option if usage behavior for your SaaS service is in bursts.

Per user – Enable access to your offer with a price based on the number of users who can access the offer. By using this user-based model, you can set the minimum and maximum number of users supported by the plan. You can create multiple plans to configure different price points based on the number of users. These fields are optional. If you leave them unselected, the number of users is interpreted as not having a limit (min of 1 and max of as many as your service can support). You can't edit the min or max number of users as part of an update to your plan.

SaaS contract durations and billing frequencies

Software partners publish SaaS offers with plans that include one or more contract durations each with a defined billing frequency. This table shows the options currently available for SaaS offers in Microsoft Marketplace.

For contract durations with equal payments, payment collection is enforced for the entire term and the standard refund policy applies. For more information about SaaS subscription management, see SaaS subscription lifecycle management.

Free trial

SaaS offers can include free trials. How you configure a trial depends on the listing option you choose.

For SaaS offers that aren't sold through Microsoft, select the Free trial listing option on the Offer setup page and provide a trial URL. You manage the trial experience, fulfillment, billing, and customer lifecycle outside Microsoft commerce.

For transactable SaaS offers sold through Microsoft, configure a free trial on each plan on the plan's Pricing and availability page. Free trials are available for flat rate, per user, and metered pricing monetization models, and you can configure them for 1 to 180 days.

Plan-level free trials have the same technical requirements as other transactable SaaS plans. Your offer must integrate with the SaaS Fulfillment APIs, provide a landing page URL, configure a connection webhook, and support Microsoft Entra ID single sign-on for customers who are redirected to your landing page.

During a free trial, customers can use the plan at no charge. Customers can cancel before the trial ends to avoid converting to a paid subscription. Customers can also upgrade to paid before the trial ends, which starts billing for the selected paid plan and ends the trial immediately. If customers change from one trial-enabled plan to another trial-enabled plan within the same offer, the trial period doesn't restart. If they change to a plan without a free trial, the trial ends immediately and billing starts for the selected paid plan.

SaaS billing

For SaaS apps that run in your (the publisher's) Azure subscription, you pay directly for infrastructure usage, so customers don't see actual infrastructure usage fees. To cover the cost of the infrastructure you deployed to run the solution, bundle Azure infrastructure usage fees into your software license pricing.

SaaS app offers that you sell through Microsoft support one-time upfront, monthly, or annual billing frequencies based on a flat fee, per user, or consumption charges by using the metered billing service. Microsoft Marketplace operates on an agency model, whereby publishers set prices, Microsoft bills customers, and Microsoft pays revenue to publishers while withholding an agency fee.

The following example shows a sample breakdown of costs and payouts to demonstrate the agency model. In this example, Microsoft bills $100.00 to the customer for your software license and pays out $97.00 to the publisher.

Preview audience

A preview audience can access your offer before it's published live in the online stores. They can see how your offer looks in Microsoft Marketplace and test the end-to-end functionality before you publish it live.

On the Preview audience page, you can define a limited preview audience. This setting isn't available if you choose to process transactions independently instead of selling your offer through Microsoft. If so, you can skip this section and go to Additional sales opportunities.

Test offer

Before you publish your offer, use the preview functionality to develop your technical implementation and test different pricing models. You can use the customer-ready offer or a separate dev offer for testing, but make sure you do all testing in the preview stage with nominal test amounts. Don't test on a published offer.

To develop and test your SaaS offer with the lowest amount of risk, create a test and development (DEV) offer for experimentation and testing. The DEV offer is separate from your production (PROD) offer.

For information about the benefits of a DEV offer, and the configuration difference between a DEV and production offer, see Plan a test and development (DEV) offer.

Additional sales opportunities

You can choose to opt into Microsoft-supported marketing and sales channels. When creating your offer in Partner Center, you see two tabs toward the end of the process:

• Resell through CSPs: Use this option to allow Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers (CSP) partners to resell your solution as part of a bundled offer. For more information about this program, see Cloud Solution Provider program.

• Co-sell with Microsoft: This option lets Microsoft sales teams consider your IP co-sell eligible solution when evaluating their customers' needs. For details about co-sell eligibility, see Requirements for co-sell status. For detailed information on how to prepare your offer for evaluation, see Co-sell option in Partner Center.

Related content

• Plan a test SaaS offer
• Offer listing best practices
• Create a SaaS offer

Video tutorials

• SaaS offer overview
• SaaS Offer Technical Overview
• Publishing a SaaS offer
• Configuring SaaS Pricing in Partner Center: Publisher Overview
• Configuring SaaS Pricing in Partner Center: Publisher Demo
• A SaaS Accelerator Hands-on Tour - The Basics
• SaaS Accelerator Architecture
• Installing the SaaS Accelerator With the Install Script
• Invoking Metered Billing with the SaaS Accelerator
• Configuring Email in the SaaS Accelerator
• Custom Landing Page Fields with the SaaS Accelerator