Your team is listed on AWS, Azure, and GCP — but reps still default to direct. Here's how to build a marketplace sales motion that actually closes.
Your product is on cloud marketplace. Your partnerships team has a co-sell motion underway (if you haven't read our Partnerships 101 guide, start there — it covers the alliances side).
On the sales floor, most AEs are still running every deal direct.
Here's what's actually happening: reps hear "marketplace" and think fulfillment — an alternate billing rail, not a selling advantage. When a buyer asks to transact through marketplace, it's a fire drill. Someone Slacks alliances. Someone logs into a portal. The deal stalls while everyone figures out ownership.
58% of companies say their sales teams are either unwilling or unprepared to engage in marketplace deals. The problem isn't the channel — it's that the selling motion hasn't been designed for how reps work.
This guide covers the sales execution side of Cloud GTM. If Partnerships 101 is the playbook for alliances leaders building co-sell, this is the playbook for sales leaders and AEs closing through it.
When CrowdStrike scaled its marketplace presence, transactions came in 140% larger than direct deals. The company has since crossed $1 billion transacted through AWS Marketplace. AppDynamics sees 5× higher average subscription prices. Forrester confirmed marketplace partners close deals 50% faster.
The driver is committed spend.
Software purchased through marketplace burns down that commitment — pre-approved budget, no new procurement cycle, and a buyer financially motivated to close. Co-selling amplifies the advantage: the cloud provider's field rep works your deal because your transaction drives their consumption targets, giving you an internal champion with existing buyer relationships and budget visibility.
The commission concern? Best-in-class orgs are comp neutral. Many go comp positive (1.1–1.25×) to drive adoption.
Cloud marketplace deals vs. direct sales:
| Metric | Marketplace Performance | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Deal size | Up to 140% larger | CrowdStrike |
| Average subscription price | Up to 5× higher | AppDynamics |
| Close speed | 27–50% faster | Forrester |
| Revenue growth (co-sell) | 51% higher | Canalys 2024 |
| Close rate (co-sell) | 65% higher | Canalys 2024 |
| Net-new revenue | 62% of companies | Partner Insight 2025 |
The friction doesn't show up in a strategy deck. It shows up mid-deal. Walk through a marketplace transaction chronologically and the failure points become clear — each one compounds the next.
Here are the most common problems teams face while selling on cloud marketplaces such as AWS Marketplace, Microsoft Marketplace (Azure), or Google Cloud Marketplace (GCP).
Most reps consider marketplace only when the buyer brings it up. Without buyer intent signals in the CRM — a mix of cloud-provided engagement scores (like AWS ISV Accelerate metrics) and proprietary propensity indicators — there's no data-driven way to prioritize marketplace during territory planning. Reps default to direct because it's familiar, not because it's faster.
Co-selling isn't a referral mechanism. When it works, the hyperscaler's field rep provides intelligence you can't get from discovery alone — which stakeholder controls the cloud budget, whether there's a consolidation initiative underway, how urgently the customer needs to draw down commitment this quarter.
Most reps never access this. They don't know the cloud sales rep for their target account or whether their company has an active co-sell relationship with a CSP. When co-sell activity does happen, the signals — referral status, partner engagement, hyperscaler feedback — don't flow back in time to act on.
This is inseparable from trust. When reps don't see value coming back from co-sell, and when comp plans don't explicitly address marketplace deals, they disengage. Marketplace revenue flatlines — not because the channel doesn't work, but because reps have no reason to believe it works for them.
Your partnerships team is building hyperscaler relationships and account mapping. The gap is getting that intelligence into the AE's hands — in the CRM, at the right moment, with context to act.
The buyer agrees to transact through marketplace. Now the rep waits — for alliances or ops to log into a portal, configure pricing, attach terms, and publish the offer. If it's end of quarter, there's a queue. If there's a data mismatch, the cycle restarts. The rep didn't create the bottleneck, but the rep's deal stalls.
Once the offer is out, marketplace deal stages don't always sync to the CRM in real time. Reps can't follow up with the right urgency, and leaders can't accurately forecast. The information exists — it just doesn't reach the rep fast enough to act on.
Every stage compounds. A rep who can't identify marketplace-fit accounts, can't access co-sell intelligence, can't self-serve an offer, and can't track its status has four reasons to route the deal direct. Fix the motion, and the channel works.
The companies generating real marketplace revenue haven't just deployed a tool — they've redesigned the selling motion.
Below is an actionable plan on how to sell effectively on cloud marketplaces such as AWS Marketplace, Microsoft Marketplace (Azure), or Google Cloud Marketplace (GCP).
If marketplace deals create any ambiguity about quota retirement, commission timing, or fee absorption, reps default to direct.
Comp neutral is table stakes. Go comp positive (1.1× retirement, spiffs) for two to four quarters. If deals close 40% faster and run 80% larger, paying 110% commission is a net gain. By quarter three, reps choose marketplace because the results are self-evident.
Reps need to see — on the CRM record — which accounts show marketplace buying signals. This means surfacing cloud-provided engagement scores alongside proprietary intent indicators that answer: should I pitch marketplace on this deal?
Keep CRM and marketplace data in sync so deal status is always current. Use real-time pipeline visibility to make marketplace deals as forecastable as direct ones.
The highest-impact change: reps create and send private offers from Salesforce or HubSpot in minutes. No Slack request. No handoff. The offer auto-populates from CPQ data, publishes to the right marketplace, and notifications via Slack and email keep reps informed at every stage — viewed, accepted, expiring.
This frees alliances and ops teams for strategic work.
Platforms like Suger bring this execution into the CRM so reps control the deal end-to-end.
Co-sell becomes valuable when it delivers intelligence that helps close — not just a referral receipt.
The impact: a cloud partner tells your rep "you're talking to the wrong stakeholder — the budget sits with their VP of Infrastructure." Or co-sell data surfaces a commitment expiring next quarter, adding urgency the rep didn't know existed.
Reps should create co-sell opportunities from Salesforce with auto-filled data. Automate registration through CRM triggers. Track shared opportunity performance — not referrals submitted, but deals where the partner actively engaged.
What changes for the rep — before and after:
| Rep Action | Before (Manual) | After (CRM-Native) |
|---|---|---|
| Decide to pitch marketplace | Gut feel, or buyer asks first | Buyer intent signals on the opp record |
| Create a private offer | Slack alliances → portal entry → 24–48hrs | Click in Salesforce → auto-populates from CPQ → minutes |
| Register co-sell | 10–15 min per deal in partner portal | Auto-triggered at deal stage, data pre-filled |
| Track offer status | Log into portal or ping ops | Slack/email alert on view, accept, expiry |
| Get cloud partner intel | Ask alliances if anyone knows the AWS rep | Partner rep name + engagement history in CRM |
| Forecast the deal | Marketplace stage lives outside CRM | Same pipeline, same stages, same visibility |
1. Treating marketplace as fulfillment. If reps only use it when the buyer asks, you're capturing a fraction of the opportunity. Use buyer intent signals to identify marketplace-fit accounts proactively.
2. Letting marketplace ops stall deal execution. Every handoff is a stall point. Self-serve from the CRM or accept that every marketplace deal carries a delay direct deals don't.
3. Leaving comp ambiguous. If reps don't know how marketplace deals count toward quota, they default to direct. Spell it out before the quarter starts.
4. Keeping co-sell intelligence siloed. Your alliances team is building hyperscaler relationships. If deal intelligence doesn't flow to the AE, it's wasted effort.
5. Forecasting marketplace separately. Same CRM pipeline. Same stages. Same visibility. Otherwise your forecast is wrong and reps don't get credit.
62% percent of companies now generate net-new revenue through cloud marketplaces. The buyer demand and committed budgets are there. The listing, offers and co-sell infrastructure is there.
The gap is the sales motion — whether reps can identify marketplace-fit accounts, access deal intelligence from cloud partners, self-serve offers, and forecast with confidence.
The best reps won't avoid this channel. They'll choose it — because it's where the budget already is and the path to quota is shorter.
We've created the Cloud Marketplace Cheat Sheet for Sales - a single-page reference Sales teams can use for any marketplace deal!