AWS ACE (APN Customer Engagements) is the program and system ISVs use to co-sell with AWS — sharing sales opportunities and leads with AWS field teams so both sides work the same deal toward a marketplace close.
For an independent software vendor (ISV) selling on AWS, the fastest path to a bigger deal is rarely a better cold email. It’s an AWS account executive who already has the customer’s trust and a number to hit. Co-sell is how you get in that room.
The mechanism has a bureaucratic name — APN Customer Engagements, or ACE — and a reputation for living inside a portal nobody enjoys. But the payoff is real: shared pipeline, AWS field alignment, and funding that direct selling never unlocks. Here’s how ACE works, and how to run it without your alliances team living in Partner Central.
What is AWS ACE?
AWS ACE (APN Customer Engagements) is the co-sell system inside AWS Partner Central where partners and AWS share opportunities and leads. A partner submits a deal it’s working; AWS validates and routes it to the right field team; and from there both sides collaborate toward a close — usually a transaction on AWS Marketplace.
ACE is the operational layer of the AWS Partner Network (APN). Membership gets you in the door; ACE is where the actual co-selling happens, deal by deal — a shared pipeline between your company and AWS, with a validation step in the middle that keeps both sides honest about who’s really engaged. An opportunity is a deal you’re already working and want AWS to help close; a lead is a prospect surfaced to you that you can choose to pursue. Most ISV co-sell value comes from opportunities.
How opportunity and lead sharing works
Co-sell through ACE follows a consistent loop. You submit an opportunity, AWS validates it, and both sides work it once it’s accepted.
- Submit. You share an opportunity with AWS — customer, use case, deal stage, expected value, and what you need from the AWS team.
- AWS validates. An AWS reviewer checks the opportunity for completeness and legitimacy, then accepts or returns it for more detail.
- Route and align. Accepted opportunities are routed to the relevant AWS account team, who can now see the deal alongside their own account plan.
- Co-sell. Both sides collaborate — introductions, technical validation, next steps — and update status as the deal moves.
- Close. The deal transacts, increasingly as an AWS Marketplace private offer, and the co-sell record reflects the outcome.
The validation step is the part ISVs underestimate. A thin, half-filled opportunity gets returned or ignored; a complete one gets an AWS seller’s attention. Quality of submission is the single biggest lever on whether co-sell works for you.
Eligibility: who can co-sell through ACE
To co-sell through ACE you need to be an APN member in good standing, with your organization’s AWS Partner Central account set up for co-sell. Beyond membership, the practical gate is opportunity quality — AWS validates each engagement, so a well-formed opportunity is what actually moves.
Progress in APN — reaching validated partner stages and earning relevant competencies — expands what you can do: more field engagement, better funding access, stronger co-sell standing. The requirements shift over time, so treat AWS’s current Partner Central documentation as the source of truth. The point for an ISV: co-sell eligibility isn’t a one-time checkbox. It grows with your APN investment, and the partners who put in that work get more from the AWS field.
Why co-sell and marketplace work together
Co-sell and marketplace are two halves of one motion, not separate programs. Co-sell aligns the AWS field team behind your deal; AWS Marketplace is where that deal actually transacts. The ACE opportunity gets the AWS seller engaged, and a private offer closes the co-sold deal.
This matters because a marketplace transaction can count toward the customer’s committed AWS spend — a strong reason for the buyer to say yes, and for the AWS account team to help. When your co-sell record and your marketplace transaction are the same deal seen from two angles, the field has every incentive to push it over the line. If you’re new to the selling side of that transaction, our AWS Marketplace for sellers guide covers listings and private offers end to end.
The manual-entry problem — and how CRM-to-ACE sync fixes it
The most common way co-sell fails isn’t strategy. It’s data entry. Your deals live in Salesforce or HubSpot; ACE lives in Partner Central; and keeping the two in sync means an alliances manager re-typing opportunities into a portal, then re-typing status back into the CRM. That double entry is where opportunities quietly stop getting submitted.
| Manual Partner Central entry | CRM-to-ACE sync | |
|---|---|---|
| Where deals originate | Re-typed by hand into the portal | Flow from the CRM your reps already use |
| Status updates | Two systems, updated separately | One update, reflected on both sides |
| What gets submitted | Whatever someone had time to enter | Every qualifying opportunity |
Syncing your CRM to ACE removes the copy-paste tax. Opportunities originate where your reps already work, submissions happen automatically, and AWS field updates flow back without anyone living in the portal. This is exactly the friction Suger’s co-sell automation removes for alliances and partnerships teams — across all three hyperscalers, not just AWS.
Partner funding programs
AWS offers funding programs that help partners de-risk co-sold deals — support for proof-of-concept work, migration, and marketing-development-style activity that moves a specific opportunity forward. The programs and their requirements change, and eligibility often ties back to your APN stage and the strength of the underlying opportunity.
The practical takeaway: funding follows well-run co-sell, not the other way around. A clean, validated ACE opportunity with an engaged AWS account team is the context in which funding requests get approved. Check AWS’s current program documentation for what’s available to your partner tier — and treat a disciplined co-sell process as the prerequisite.
Frequently asked questions
What is AWS ACE? AWS ACE (APN Customer Engagements) is the co-sell system in AWS Partner Central where partners and AWS share sales opportunities and leads. Partners submit deals, AWS validates them, and both sides collaborate toward a close — usually an AWS Marketplace transaction.
What’s the difference between an opportunity and a lead in ACE? An opportunity is a deal you’re already working and want AWS to help close. A lead is a prospect surfaced to you that you can choose to pursue. Most ISV co-sell value comes from sharing opportunities you already own.
Do I need to be an APN member to use ACE? Yes. ACE co-sell requires APN membership in good standing and a Partner Central account configured for co-sell. Reaching validated partner stages and earning competencies expands your field engagement and funding access over time.
How does ACE relate to AWS Marketplace? They’re two halves of one motion. ACE aligns the AWS field team behind your deal; AWS Marketplace is where it transacts, often as a private offer. The co-sell record and the marketplace transaction are the same deal seen from two sides.
Why do co-sell opportunities get missed? Usually manual entry. Deals live in your CRM, ACE lives in Partner Central, and re-typing between them means opportunities go unsubmitted. Syncing your CRM to ACE removes the double entry so every qualifying deal reaches AWS.
Can I automate co-sell across more than one cloud? Yes. Suger automates co-sell across three hyperscalers — AWS ACE, Microsoft Partner Center, and the Google Cloud Partner Network — from one system, so alliances teams run the same motion everywhere instead of one portal at a time.
Takeaways
- ACE is the operational layer of APN — membership gets you in, but validated, well-formed opportunities are what actually move the AWS field.
- Submission quality is the biggest lever. A complete opportunity gets an AWS seller’s attention; a thin one gets returned or ignored.
- Treat co-sell and marketplace as one deal. The ACE opportunity engages the field; the private offer closes it against committed AWS spend.
- The most common co-sell failure is data entry. Sync your CRM to ACE so every qualifying opportunity gets submitted without portal work.
Suger’s co-sell automation syncs opportunities from Salesforce and HubSpot into AWS ACE — and into Microsoft and Google Cloud co-sell — so your team runs pipeline from the CRM they already use instead of living in Partner Central. See how it fits your alliance motion, and where marketplace close comes next.
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