Listing a product on AWS Marketplace
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Another question I often get from ISVs is- I have a product. I’m not sure how I get that listed on AWS Marketplace.
The problem is- when companies come to me with that question, it is usually when their customers have asked them to list their product on AWS Marketplace or else the deal is off. Starting the listing process at this stage might be too late.
Why customers insist on buying from AWS Marketplace?
There can be many reasons for it, but the most common I came across were either:
- The customer is a big enterprise- Going through procurement is a long process that can take months, while procuring through AWS Marketplace is immediate.
- The customer does not wish to share it, budget allocation is either past due for this year/ term/ quarter, or closed until further notice. The only available budget is the one allocated to AWS.
- Customer has committed to AWS for a discount, and every AWS Marketplace purchase is counted against this commitment, so Procurement are directing all vendors to go through AWS Marketplace.
Can I list my product on AWS Marketplace?
It depends- the list of requirements is available in the documentation, but I also got some unusual questions. So I’ll try to add to it:
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The product must be a software product or service- I had someone that asked if they can sell keyboards or IoT devices on AWS Marketplace. As I’m writing this lines this is not an option. It can be a software product, professional services for AWS Marketplace product, Machine learning model or algorithm or a datasets, but not a hardware product.
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The customer must be an AWS customer. The payment is done through the AWS billing system, so your customer must also have an AWS account they can procure from. So if it’s a software product to consumers or to companies with no relation to AWS, or that have no clue what AWS is, it won’t work…
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The product should run on AWS.
Other questions I got:
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But my product competes with AWS, AWS would not approve it. AWS is customer obsessed, meaning that AWS wants customers to be able to find the best service for them. You can find on AWS Marketplace many many MANY services that compete with AWS services. It’s not a problem, it’s providing a variety of services.
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But my product is not an Operating system/ My product is not a SaaS, my products requires agents, my product requires an entire infrastructure deployment. Yes, there are listing types for that. It’s not an issue.
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What about Amazon Marketplace Web Services? So, funny as it may sound- it’s a whole different thing and not at all related ot AWS. Amazon Marketplace Web Services (MWS) is the name of the API for the stores running on Amazon.com. it is not related at all to AWS or to Amazon Web Services Marketplace, which is the Marketplace for services on AWS.
What type of listing should I choose for my product?
So this depends on your product: Let’s start with an easy question- Where is you product deployed? Is the customer deploying your product in their AWS Account? Is the product deployed on your account and the customer access it on your account? It is on both ends, some is deployed on your account and some on your customer’s account?
My product is deployed in the customer’s account
If your product deploys in your customer’s account it can be:
- An EC2 AMI
- An EC2 AMI with CloudFormation
- A container
- A container with CloudFormation
My product is deployed in my account
In this case, your listing method is SaaS. No, it doesn’t matter if your actual product is not multi-tenant. It only means that AWS MArketplace would charge your customers based on the activity on your account.
For example. Let’s say your product is a database. If the Database is deployed in your customer’s account- It’s an AMI listing. If you deploy it in your account (regardless if you deployed a database for each of your customers in your account or not) it is a SaaS listing.
Both
“My product is deployed in my account and also in my customer’s account.”
This can be agents running in your customer’s account and reporting to your backend. Or it can be AMIs running on your customer’s account and reporting to your backend. In this case you can create a SaaS listing, and either let your customers download agents from your website, or create in addition BYOL AMI in AWS Marketplace that would work together with your SaaS listing. So your customers would be billed from the SaaS listing, and install the AMI from AWS Marketplace using the license from the SaaS registration.
Neither
“My product is not deployed in my account and also not deployed in my customer’s account”
This is specifically for Machine learning algorithms or models. The reason is- Vendors don’t want to provide their models to the customers to protect their IP (Intellectual property), and customers don’t want to expose their data to the vendors. So when a vendor list the model on AWS Marketplace, the model is deployed on AWS Marketplace and the customer only gets an endpoint to the model, and they can use it in Sagemaker without exposing their data to the vendor. Win-win.