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Feb 20, 2025

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Cloud marketplace dynamics reshaping partner success today

Last updated on

Jan 30, 2026

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Samhita Suresh

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It is an exciting time for cloud marketplaces. From experimental channels to mainstream procurement platforms, and now ecosystem enablers for enterprise tech, the transformation has been remarkable.

Enterprises are embracing not just the agility, scalability, and cost efficiencies these SaaS marketplaces offer, but also the product innovation and solution completeness from partnering within the marketplace ecosystem.

Enterprise cloud commitments with the three hyperscalers have now surged past $380 billion.

Going forward, the landscape of cloud marketplace partnerships is poised for significant transformation. We spoke with Ashish Vora, a marketplace thought leader and former executive at Confluent and Google, to get his insights on how ISVs and hyperscalers can prepare for shifts that will redefine their collaboration.

TL;DR

Cloud marketplaces have become the default GTM channel. To win, ISVs must streamline marketplace ops, use data to guide decisions, and enable sales teams to lead with marketplace-first deals, while hyperscalers double down on better discovery, inclusive partner programs, and new co-sell models.

Leaders who invest early in marketplace expertise, automation, and partnerships will capture the next wave of cloud growth.

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The ISV Perspective: Embracing the marketplace as the default

Today, successful ISVs need to position cloud marketplaces as the primary vehicle for transactions rather than a last-minute procurement option. This paradigm shift will require a comprehensive strategy overhaul.

Here are three aspects of cloud GTM that ISVs must focus on:

1. Streamlining the marketplace experience

ISVs must systematically identify and eliminate friction points that get in the way of marketplace transactions. This involves a multi-faceted approach to ensure smooth operations.

First, sales compensation models need to be aligned to ensure neutrality between direct and marketplace transactions, or even incentivize marketplace sales. This will encourage sales teams to promote marketplace options more actively.

Diagram illustrating Clazar’s channel neutrality for cloud GTM, combining deal neutrality, attainment neutrality, and compensation neutrality.

Second, ISVs should address any product limitations that might force customers to procure directly instead of through the marketplace. This may involve re-engineering offerings to make them more marketplace-friendl
Lastly, developing dedicated Marketplace Operations teams will be crucial for managing and optimizing the entire process, from listing to transaction fulfillment. Marketplace operations will need to have defined ownership and cross-functional synergy. To facilitate this, GTM leaders are increasingly leveraging cloud sales automation platforms to automate, track, manage, and execute cloud sales operations.

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2. Data-driven decision making

To justify the investment in marketplace operations, ISVs need to leverage accurate data insights. This requires a comprehensive approach to data collection and analysis.

ISVs should ensure their CRM and revenue systems can capture detailed data on deal win rates, sales cycle times, and revenue/consumption growth for both direct and marketplace scenarios. This granular level of data will help ISVs understand the true impact of marketplace transactions beyond just the surface-level metrics.

This could mean examining customer lifetime value, cross-sell opportunities, and the effect on customer acquisition costs. This will also help partnership and alliance leaders obtain and customize the right KPIs to present to each functional head, making it much easier to drive alignment.

Table mapping business roles to their goals and metrics across sales, customer success, marketing, product, finance, and operations. — *The metrics that matter, by function - courtesy Nelson Wang, Head of Worldwide Partnerships, Airtable*

3. Seller enablement

ISV sales teams need to become marketplace experts to drive success in this new landscape. This involves a comprehensive training and enablement program, with these objectives and elements:

Sales reps should be trained to position marketplace transactions as the default option from the outset of sales cycles. This involves understanding the benefits of marketplace transactions for ISVs and their customers, and being able to articulate these advantages convincingly.
They need to be enabled with the tools and knowledge to navigate marketplace processes efficiently. This may range from understanding marketplace pricing models and procurement processes to knowing how to address common customer concerns.

Framework outlining Educate, Enable, and Engage as key pillars for building a successful cloud marketplace sales motion. — The 3Es of preparing your sales team for cloud marketplace sales

The hyperscaler perspective: Balancing growth and inclusivity

Hyperscalers face the challenge of maintaining marketplace growth while ensuring a diverse ecosystem of ISV partners. Here's what we can expect:

1. Addressing marketplace stratification

As cloud marketplaces grow, we'll likely see increased stratification among ISVs. A handful of ISVs characterized by specific traits will dominate marketplace revenue.

It's likely that these ISVs will:

Offer solutions that are significantly differentiated even from the hyperscaler's first-party solutions, appealing to a broad base of the hyperscaler's customers.
Command high average selling prices (ASPs), making them especially valuable to the marketplace ecosystem.
Demonstrate a strong commitment to marketplace alignment, fully embracing the platform as a core part of their go-to-market strategy.

To counter this trend and maintain a diverse ecosystem, hyperscalers are taking proactive steps. AWS, Azure, and GCP have begun to develop strategies to make marketplace investment attractive for smaller ISVs, offering additional support, resources, or incentives to these partners.

From AWS’ Business Outcomes Xcelerator (BOX) Program to GCP’s AI start-up program, efforts are underway to democratize the marketplaces – and ISVs need to grab the opportunity now.

2. Enhancing discovery and user experience

One of the consistent challenges across marketplaces remains their very basic capabilities to foster discoverability and trial of third-party offerings. Marketplaces still primarily operate as the equivalent of a digital shopping mall, and the marketplace discovery experience is not much more sophisticated than the average "mall directory" poster.

There is an immense opportunity for hyperscalers to enhance and streamline discovery capabilities within customers' typical buying journeys: Awareness -> Education -> Trial -> Purchase.

Awareness:

Leverage AI-powered recommendation engines to analyze customers' infrastructure environments and recommend relevant third-party solutions, increasingly contextualized and personalized discovery
Improve natural-language search capabilities that allow customers to describe business problems and be intelligently matched to relevant ISV offerings

Education and Trial:

Integrate ISV solutions tightly into learning platforms such as AWS GameDays or Google Cloud's Qwiklabs, enabling prospects to experience third-party software in realistic environments before making purchase decisions.

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3. Fostering innovation in partnership models

To stay competitive, hyperscalers may explore new partnership models that go beyond traditional marketplace relationships. Here are some possible approaches:

Co-development initiatives that combine hyperscaler infrastructure with ISV expertise, creating unique, tightly integrated solutions that leverage the strengths of both parties.
Revenue-sharing models that incentivize both parties to drive the adoption and usage of ISV solutions on the marketplace. This aligns the interests of the hyperscaler and the ISV more closely, encouraging collaborative growth. ‍
Joint go-to-market strategies that leverage the strengths of both hyperscalers and ISVs to present a unified value proposition to customers, through combined sales efforts, shared marketing campaigns, or co-branded solution offerings.

Strategic considerations for alliance and partnership leaders

As marketplace momentum continues, alliance and partnership leaders should consider preparing their org not just for strategy and operations, but also for mindset.

Here are the five steps leaders should prioritize:

1. Invest in marketplace expertise

Build a team with deep knowledge of marketplace dynamics, pricing strategies, and technical integration requirements. This will be crucial for success in the evolving cloud marketplace landscape.

This team should be able to navigate the complexities of different cloud marketplace platforms and maintain close relationships with hyperscaler partners.

2. Develop a data strategy

Implement systems to track and analyze marketplace performance metrics to inform decision-making. As we saw above, this involves not just collecting data, but also developing the capability to derive meaningful insights from it to inform decision-making around resource allocation and partnership priorities.

3. Align internal stakeholders

Work with sales, product, and finance teams to ensure cloud marketplace alignment across the organization. This also includes developing an internal education program to build marketplace literacy. This could involve:

Regular training sessions
Creation of internal knowledge bases
Certification programs for all relevant teams

4. Cultivate strategic relationships

For a competitive advantage, build deep relationships with key hyperscaler partners to gain early access to new marketplace features and co-innovation opportunities..

You can also explore partnerships with complementary ISVs to create bundled offerings or integrated solutions. These partnerships can lead to unique value propositions that stand out in the marketplace and appeal to customers looking for comprehensive solutions.

5. Embrace flexibility

Design partnership strategies that can adapt to changing marketplace dynamics and customer preferences. This involves creating flexible partnership agreements, being open to new business models, and maintaining the agility to pivot strategies as needed.

Execute your cloud marketplace strategy with Clazar

The future of cloud marketplace partnerships is bright, but it will require strategic foresight, continuous adaptation, and a commitment to collaboration. Those who can navigate these changes effectively will find themselves at the forefront of the next wave of cloud innovation.

Partnering with a cloud marketplace specialist like Clazar can help accelerate your marketplace journey. Request a demo today.

Top FAQs

1. Why must ISVs treat cloud marketplaces as the default transaction path today?

Enterprise buyers increasingly want:

Speed (no new vendor onboarding)
Contractual leverage (use of cloud commits)
Simpler procurement

Since cloud marketplaces offer all three, they are becoming the preferred, not the alternative, route. ISVs who don’t adapt risk lower win rates and slower cycles.

2. How can ISVs streamline their cloud marketplace transaction experience?

ISVs can streamline their cloud marketplace transaction experience by removing friction across listing, pricing, private offers, and co-sell operations, so deals move as fast as direct sales (or faster). Here’s how:

a. Align sales compensation: Make direct vs. marketplace sales neutral—or even favor marketplace—to ensure rep encouragement.

b. Remove product gaps: If product packaging or licensing forces direct procurement, fix it. Marketplace-friendly SKUs and deployment models are essential.

c. Embed co-sell into your GTM motion: Make hyperscaler reps part of your sales team:

Use deal registration and opportunity sharing by default
Run joint account mapping
Provide hyperscaler-friendly pitch decks & ROI stories

d. Automate marketplace operations: Manual workflows don’t scale. Use marketplace automation and co-sell tools (e.g., for AWS ACE, Azure co-sell, GCP Partner Advantage) to: