An offer is a proposal a buyer can accept. An entitlement is the contract that exists once they have. Every marketplace models both, they have different owners and different lifecycles, and treating them as one thing is why a customer sometimes has access to a product they never bought — or the reverse.
New marketplace operations hires meet these two words in their first week and are usually told they are “basically the same thing at different stages.” That is almost true, and the gap is where the incidents come from.
An offer can be revised, expire, or be ignored. An entitlement cannot — it either exists or it does not, and while it exists your product owes somebody access. One is a sales artefact; the other is a fulfilment obligation. They are owned by different teams, watched by different systems, and fail in opposite directions.
Here is the distinction properly, the vocabulary each marketplace uses for it, and the places the two get confused.
What is the difference between an offer and an entitlement?
An offer is the commercial proposal; an entitlement is the accepted agreement. Suger’s data model states it in one line each:
- Offer — “The private or public offer that the buyer can accept in the marketplace. It must be connected with one Product.”
- Entitlement — “The contract that one buyer has purchased your product in the marketplace.”
An entitlement comes into existence when a buyer accepts an offer. Before acceptance, an offer is a document with terms and an expiry that may never be used. After acceptance, an entitlement carries a start date, an end date, and a set of rights your product must honour.
The two other objects in that model matter for the same reason: a Product is your listed product or service on the marketplace, and a Buyer is “the client who has purchased your product in the marketplace.” An offer connects to exactly one product. An entitlement connects a buyer to what they bought.
The lifecycle, in one direction
| Offer | Entitlement | |
|---|---|---|
| Exists because | You created it | The buyer accepted an offer |
| Can be edited | Yes, before acceptance | No — you amend it with a new offer |
| Can expire unused | Yes, routinely | No |
| Obligates you | No | Yes — access, support, and an SLA |
| Owned by | Deal desk and sales | Product, engineering, and finance |
| Failure looks like | Nothing happens | A customer is locked out, or never billed |
| Watched by | Pipeline reporting | Provisioning and revenue systems |
The asymmetry in the “can be edited” row is the operationally important one. Offers are drafts until accepted; entitlements are facts. Changing what a customer is entitled to means issuing another offer — an amendment — which they accept, which produces the changed entitlement. There is no editing an entitlement directly, on any marketplace.
That is also why offer hygiene matters more than it looks. An offer with the wrong end date does not produce a wrong offer; it produces a wrong contract, and correcting it requires the buyer’s procurement team to accept something a second time.
The same two things, three vocabularies
Every marketplace models the offer/entitlement split. None of them uses the same words.
| Concept | AWS | Microsoft | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| The proposal | Public or private offer | Private offer, or a private plan on an offer | Private offer |
| The accepted contract | Agreement, exposed to your product as an entitlement | Order and subscription | Entitlement / order |
| How your product reads it | GetEntitlements after ResolveCustomer | Subscription APIs and Partner Center | Producer Portal APIs and reporting |
| Change mechanism | Amendment offer (ABO) | New private offer or plan change | Offer amendment |
Two vocabulary traps come up constantly.
Microsoft’s “private plan” is not a private offer. A private plan is a plan on a listing restricted to specific customers; a private offer is a separately negotiated commercial instrument. Different constructs, different deal shapes — Azure private offers vs private plans covers which to use when.
“Agreement” and “entitlement” are the same object seen from two sides on AWS. The agreement is the commercial record; the entitlement is what your software queries to decide whether to let someone in. Finance talks about agreements, engineering talks about entitlements, and they are frequently discussing the same row.
Add a reseller and a third party enters the offer, but not the entitlement’s obligation — CPPO vs MPO covers how the money and the paperwork split.
Where teams get it wrong
Provisioning on the offer instead of the entitlement. The most expensive one. A buyer clicks through, your landing page grants access, and payment later fails — so you have a customer using the product with no contract behind them. On AWS the discipline is explicit: wait for the subscribe-success message before allowing consumption. When a buyer pays but provisioning never happens covers the whole event flow.
Treating an expired entitlement as a renewal conversation rather than an access decision. When an entitlement ends, the customer’s right to use the product ends with it. If nothing in your product reacts, you are giving software away and it will not appear in any report. AWS Marketplace renewals covers the process side.
Counting offers as pipeline and forgetting they expire. An issued offer is a proposal with a clock. Offers sent and not accepted are the leading indicator of a stalling motion, and most teams never report on them at all.
Assuming an amendment replaces the entitlement. Amendments layer. Reading only the newest record without reconciling it against what it amends is how a customer ends up billed for both the original and the change.
Forgetting that offers can be accepted by someone you have never met. Procurement accepts; the champion may not even know when. If your process assumes you will be told, it will be wrong — what buyers see when you send a private offer covers the acceptance flow from the other side.
A quick test
If you are unsure which record you are looking at, ask one question: does it obligate you to do anything right now?
If no, it is an offer. If yes — provide access, support, invoice, recognise revenue — it is an entitlement. That test also tells you who should be on the alert when it changes.
Frequently asked questions
What is a marketplace offer? A public or private proposal a buyer can accept, connected to exactly one product. It carries pricing, terms, and an expiry, can be revised before acceptance, and may never be used.
What is a marketplace entitlement? The contract created when a buyer accepts an offer. It records who bought what, for how long, and with what rights — and it is what your product should check before granting access.
How does an offer become an entitlement? The buyer accepts it. Acceptance is the event that converts a proposal into a contract, and on most marketplaces it also triggers the notification your product uses to provision.
Can you edit an entitlement? No. You change what a customer is entitled to by issuing an amendment offer, which they accept, which produces the changed entitlement. There is no direct edit on any marketplace.
Is an AWS agreement the same as an entitlement? Effectively yes — two views of one object. The agreement is the commercial record finance works with; the entitlement is what your software queries to decide access.
Should my product provision on the offer or the entitlement? The entitlement, always. Provisioning on the offer means granting access before payment is confirmed, and a failed payment then leaves you supporting a customer with no contract.
Takeaways
- An offer is a proposal with an expiry; an entitlement is a contract with an obligation. One can be edited, the other cannot.
- Acceptance is the event that converts one into the other, and it is usually performed by procurement rather than your champion.
- Every marketplace models both, with different names. On AWS, “agreement” and “entitlement” are one object seen by finance and by engineering.
- Provision on the entitlement, never on the offer. Access granted before payment confirmation is support you are giving away.
- An entitlement that ends is an access decision, not just a renewal conversation.
- The test: if the record obligates you to do something right now, it is an entitlement.
Offers and entitlements are managed in different consoles on every marketplace, which is why they drift apart. See how agreements in Suger hold both — the offer that was sent and the contract it became — as one connected record across every marketplace you sell on.
Sources
Primary sources for the platform rules cited above. Last verified August 10, 2026. Cloud providers change fees, eligibility, and program terms without notice — check the source before relying on a figure.
- Suger: core resources — The definitions of Product, Offer, Entitlement, and Buyer
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