Microsoft Marketplace custom contract lengths let a publisher set a private offer’s term to any duration from 1 to 120 months — including nonstandard terms like 18 or 45 months — instead of being forced into a whole number of years.
Enterprise deals rarely fall on a clean anniversary. A buyer wants to co-term a new purchase with an existing agreement, or bridge to the start of a fiscal year, and the honest length is 18 months, not one year or two. Until recently, matching that on Microsoft Marketplace meant awkward workarounds — a public plan you didn’t want, or a term you rounded to fit the tooling.
As of July 6, 2026, you can just set the term. Here is what “custom contract lengths” actually covers, and the three things — billing frequency, renewal, and edits after acceptance — that decide whether a nonstandard term is clean or a headache later.
What are custom contract lengths on Microsoft Marketplace?
Custom contract lengths are the ability to define a private offer’s duration in months rather than only in whole years. Microsoft made the capability generally available on July 6, 2026, and the documented range is 1 to 120 months — equivalently, 1 to 10 years. Nonstandard durations such as 18 months or 45 months are supported.
It applies to SaaS and professional services private offers built through the absolute-pricing flow — the path where you create a new plan with its own pricing. The key operational win: you can match a negotiated length and still transact the full agreement as a single private offer, because the flow creates a new plan with a unique plan ID rather than requiring you to publish that odd term on a public plan for everyone to see.
How custom-length offers bill
The term you choose constrains how you can bill it, and this is the detail that catches teams out. Annual billing is available only for year-based terms or for month-based terms that are a multiple of 12. For everything else — a 7-month or an 18-month term — your options are one-time, monthly, or a flexible schedule.
A flexible schedule lets you place charges on specific dates, as long as each charge falls within the contract term; the customer is billed on their next invoice after each charge date. That is the tool for a deal with an unusual payment shape — an upfront amount plus milestones, say — inside a nonstandard term. Decide the billing frequency before you build the offer, because it follows from the term, not the other way around.
How custom-length offers renew
Renewal is a decision you make at offer-build time, not at expiry, and for SaaS auto-renew is off by default — the customer chooses whether to turn it on at purchase. When you do set renewal, there are two shapes:
- Renew into private offer — the agreement renews on the private-offer terms while that offer is active, then falls back to a selected public offer term after the private offer expires.
- Renew into public offer — the agreement renews directly to a selected public offer term.
Either way, a public fallback term has to exist, so a renewal always has somewhere to land. One constraint to plan around: a private offer using a flexible billing schedule can’t renew into its own private-offer term — it renews using the selected public offer term instead. If a clean renewal matters more than an exotic payment schedule, that trade-off should shape the offer.
The mechanics of transitioning an offer at renewal are the same ones covered in Azure Marketplace renewals and offer transitions — custom-length offers plug into that same machinery.
What you can’t change after acceptance
A private offer is not a document you keep editing. Once a customer accepts it, you can no longer edit it self-serve; changing anything means a Marketplace support request to cancel the offer. There is no documented mid-term amendment workflow specific to custom durations — the term you set is the term you live with for the length of the agreement.
That raises the cost of getting the length, billing frequency, and renewal right the first time. A rushed 24-month offer that should have been 18 is not a quick fix later; it is a support ticket and a re-issue. Treat the offer build as the commitment it is.
How Suger helps
Custom contract lengths add flexibility and, with it, more ways to get an offer subtly wrong — the wrong billing frequency for the term, a renewal shape that can’t do what the deal needs. Suger builds and manages Microsoft Marketplace private offers as a repeatable process rather than a console session your deal desk reconstructs each time, so the term, billing, and renewal choices are made deliberately and the same way on every deal.
Because Suger runs the same offer motion across AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud, a deal desk pricing an 18-month Azure term applies the same discipline it uses for a private offer on any other marketplace — and the resulting agreement syncs back to the CRM your team already works in, not a console someone has to remember to check.
Frequently asked questions
What is the maximum contract length for a Microsoft Marketplace private offer? The documented range is 1 to 120 months, or equivalently 1 to 10 years. Nonstandard durations such as 18 or 45 months are supported. The capability became generally available on July 6, 2026.
Which offer types support custom contract lengths? SaaS and professional services private offers, built through the absolute-pricing flow that creates a new plan with its own pricing and a unique plan ID. That lets you transact the whole term as a single private offer.
Can I bill a custom-length offer annually? Only if the term is year-based or a month-based term that is a multiple of 12. For other durations, you use one-time, monthly, or a flexible charge schedule with charges placed inside the term.
How does a custom-length private offer renew? Renewal is set at build time; for SaaS, auto-renew is off by default. You choose “renew into private offer” or “renew into public offer,” and a public fallback term must exist. Flexible-billing offers renew using the public term.
Can I edit a private offer after the customer accepts it? No. Once accepted, an offer can’t be edited self-serve — changing it requires a Marketplace support request to cancel. Set the term, billing, and renewal correctly before the customer accepts.
Takeaways
- Custom contract lengths (GA July 6, 2026) let you set a Microsoft Marketplace private-offer term to any duration from 1 to 120 months, including nonstandard terms like 18 months.
- The whole agreement transacts as one private offer — the absolute-pricing flow creates a new plan with a unique ID, so you don’t publish an odd term publicly.
- Annual billing needs a year-based term or a month count divisible by 12; otherwise use one-time, monthly, or a flexible schedule.
- Set renewal at build time — auto-renew is off by default for SaaS — and remember an accepted offer can’t be edited self-serve.
Price the nonstandard term without the console gymnastics: see how Suger builds Microsoft Marketplace private offers as a repeatable deal-desk motion, and book a demo.
Sources
Primary sources for the platform rules cited above. Last verified August 24, 2026. Cloud providers change fees, eligibility, and program terms without notice — check the source before relying on a figure.
- Microsoft Partner Center: July 2026 announcements — Custom contract lengths now available — Generally available 2026-07-06; custom contract term lengths up to 10 years for SaaS and professional services private offers.
- Microsoft commercial marketplace: Manage ISV-to-customer private offers — Term lengths of 1 to 120 months / 1 to 10 years; billing-frequency rules; renew-into-private-offer vs renew-into-public-offer; auto-renew off by default.
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