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The people making software buying decisions today grew up buying everything else on Amazon. They expect to evaluate, compare, and transact fast, with minimal back-and-forth. The traditional enterprise procurement process, built for a different era, doesn't match that expectation anymore.
Cloud marketplaces do.
Cloud marketplaces such as AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace, and Google Cloud Marketplace are powerful commercial conduits for buyers, sellers, and channel partners (service providers, SIs, GSIs, resellers, and more).
Over the years, they’ve also evolved beyond just product listings. Enterprise software sales through hyperscaler cloud marketplaces are projected to reach $163 billion by 2030.
Buyers are moving there because procurement gets faster. Sellers are following because deals close up to 40% faster than direct channels.
Here's how it works, and why it matters for both sides of the transaction.
TL;DR
- Today’s digital native buyers are moving from traditional to cloud marketplaces
- Traditional B2B marketplaces connect buyers and sellers. Cloud marketplaces support the entire procurement lifecycle, including vendor pre-qualification, contracts, budget drawdown, deployment, and partner involvement in a single transaction
- Buyers benefit from faster vendor evaluation, standardized contracts, the ability to use pre-committed cloud spend, and one-click deployment into their existing environment
- ISVs see higher win rates and deal sizes, and lower costs of customer acquisition. They also benefit from the bundling and packaging of solutions
- Enterprise software sales through cloud marketplaces are projected to grow from $30 billion in 2024 to $163 billion by 2030 (Omdia, 2025)
Cloud marketplaces vs. traditional B2B marketplaces: What’s different?
Most B2B marketplaces don’t solve for the entire value chain for software commerce. They give buyers a searchable catalog, the ability to compare vendors, and a place to transact. That's useful, but it doesn't reflect how enterprise software is bought.
Unlike consumer purchases, B2B software deals involve multiple stakeholders, rounds of legal review, procurement cycles tied to annual budgets, and a web of channel partners (resellers, SIs, and GSIs) who influence or facilitate the deal.
A marketplace that only connects buyers and sellers doesn't account for any of that. Cloud marketplaces were built with this complexity in mind.
Rather than just enabling the buyer-seller interaction, hyperscaler marketplaces support the entire value chain. They solve three problems simultaneously:
- Meeting buyer needs
- Ensuring more efficient go-to-market for sellers
- Building natural partnerships to reduce indirect channel friction
Why cloud marketplaces are different from traditional B2B marketplaces
Also Read: The state of cloud marketplace and co-sell today
How are cloud marketplaces speeding up software procurement for modern buyers?
McKinsey found that most customers are willing to pay a reasonable premium for faster access to products. We’re living in a world of rapid commerce.
For businesses, convenience is no longer just about price and access.
In B2B buying, this takes the form of:
- Faster evaluation
- Faster vendor onboarding, and
- Faster deployment
This lends a significant advantage to the proposition of cloud marketplaces.
1. Faster software evaluation through pre-qualified vendors
Cloud marketplaces go the extra mile of pre-qualifying ISVs against multiple factors like technical compatibility, security, and compliance standards. This saves procuring organizations significant time in the post-selection stage of vendor authentication.
Buyers still have access to the tools they'd expect, such as reviews, ratings, and filtering by use case and industry. But pre-qualification means they're evaluating from a shortlist that's already been screened.
Vendor qualification is also a top priority in vendor evaluation for software buyers, according to a Gartner study. This makes this pre-screening one of the most tangible advantages cloud marketplaces offer.
2. Faster vendor onboarding through cloud marketplaces
Not only do cloud marketplaces simplify commercial transactions between the buyer and the seller, they also ensure faster vendor onboarding.
Standard enterprise procurement can involve multiple rounds of legal review, custom MSA negotiations, and invoicing cycles that stretch for weeks.
Cloud marketplaces accelerate the process with standardized contracts. They also help customers reduce back-and-forth on finance by allowing them to use their committed budget with the cloud provider.
A simple quote-to-cash process in AWS Marketplace helps buyers save 66% of the time in processing invoices, according to a Forrester report.
3. Quicker software integration through one-click deployments
Every solution listed on a cloud marketplace is built to run natively within that cloud environment. For buyers already operating on AWS, Azure, or GCP, this means no custom integration work or extended implementation timelines, and no rewiring of existing infrastructure to accommodate a new tool.
Deployment happens in the same environment the buyer already works in, so time-to-value starts from day one, not after a months-long implementation cycle.
By offering a confluence of simpler evaluation, immediate infrastructural compatibility, and easier procurement logistics, AWS is able to deliver >$2 million in efficiency savings over a three-year period (for an enterprise buyer), according to a Forrester report.
How are cloud marketplaces equipping ISVs to close deals faster?
As digital enablement drives up awareness and competition, the balance of power in software commerce is increasingly shifting from vendors to buyers. In response, vendors have had to work harder to outshine their competitors and appeal to changing buyer needs.
Cloud marketplaces give ISVs a structural advantage in this environment, offering capabilities that help them keep pace with demand.
1. Conversion rate improvement through partner-influenced deals
Most modern methods of procurement (cloud marketplaces included) offer buyers more ways to qualify solutions without ever speaking with a direct seller. And as competition intensifies, most push methodologies of selling are gradually offering diminishing returns.
ISVs are increasingly leveraging partners for warm introductions with prospects and to help drive conviction across a prospect’s buying cycle. In fact, 92.9% of sales leaders now report that their reps are collaborating with partners to close deals. Partner-attached deals are also at least 26-50% more likely to be won than average.
Cloud marketplaces are built to support this.
Firstly, cloud providers are invested in ISVs' success on their marketplaces, as this also drives cloud consumption. In order to promote sales, cloud providers align field sellers to high-value partners to swing deals in their favor, offer more context about a prospect, and/or provide access to a more powerful economic buyer within the prospect organization.
Secondly, sellers can also onboard channel partners, offer subsidized rates for them to distribute their product, and engage the full force of their partnership distribution network through private offer customization.
Instead of the marketplace acting as a competing force against indirect sales, it becomes an accelerator, with the same added sales operation benefits.
As a result, ISV transactions on the AWS Marketplace have a 27% greater win-rate than deals transacted outside.
2. Lower cost of acquisition with sales process optimization
Heightened customer awareness, a cautious market, and inflated competition have made it more difficult to acquire new customers. This makes the economics of customer acquisition on direct (marketing-assisted) channels less lucrative than before.
Cloud marketplaces change that equation. AWS alone has hundreds of thousands of active customers (growing at 28% year over year), many of whom are actively looking to apply their committed cloud spend.
Couple that with the credibility ISVs earn by associating with AWS, and customers’ locked-in cloud commits with the provider, and sellers find themselves closing high-intent deals 40% faster than direct channels.
These efficiencies offer compounding benefits over time, and have already resulted in over 2.5 million active subscriptions on AWS Marketplace.
3. More comprehensive solution packaging
Buyers procure solutions to solve a business problem, not plug a feature gap. Because of complex business use cases, this often means assembling a mesh of complementary tools that work together inside the same environment.
On cloud marketplaces, the barriers to ISV partnerships are negligible. Any listed vendor can identify complementary solutions, build joint packages, and go to market together, with the hyperscaler relationship as the connective tissue.
For buyers with complex use cases, this kind of pre-integrated solution packaging is significantly more compelling than evaluating standalone products in isolation.
At the same time, sellers (whether individual or partnered) also have the flexibility to offer customers different commercial structures like subscriptions, usage-based pricing, free trials, and more.
Buyers procure solutions to solve a business problem, not plug a feature gap. Because of complex business use cases, this often takes the form of building a mesh of multiple solutions.
On cloud marketplaces, the barriers to ISV partnerships are negligible. Any ISV can effectively use their relationship with the hyperscaler to identify complementary software and build a comprehensive solution packaging to tackle a high-value customer more meaningfully.
Ultimately, this helps sellers cut closer to the buyer’s needs even in instances where a standalone product might not have been recognized.At the same time, sellers (whether individual or partnered) can charge their customers across a myriad of dimensions like subscriptions, usage-based pricing, free-trials, and more.
Read More: A Complete Guide To Cloud GTM
Discover how Rootly navigated the marketplace landscape and streamlined their sales process to close deals faster.
Cloud marketplaces are bringing today’s buyers and sellers together
Cloud marketplaces today are a living, breathing ecosystem where seller capabilities meet buyer needs and are enriched by two-way interactions with channel partners.
For buyers, procurement is made faster, more cost-effective, and less litigious through vendor insights, purchase order management, standard contracting, and one-click deployments.
For sellers, software go-to-market becomes faster, more cost-effective, and delivers more value through unlocked buyer procurement budgets, standardized sales operations, and partner-led selling.
Today, ISV partners are closing 80% larger deal sizes with AWS Marketplace than in their traditional direct sales processes.
Enterprise software sales through hyperscaler marketplaces are projected to grow 5X by 2030, driven by companies building procurement strategies around them. As more digital native customers seek to reduce procurement complexity, cloud marketplaces will increasingly become their first choice.
To see how you can prepare for this future, speak to a Clazar expert today.
Top FAQ's
1. What makes cloud marketplaces different from traditional B2B marketplaces?
Cloud marketplaces are designed to support the entire software commerce lifecycle, not just product discovery. Unlike traditional B2B marketplaces, they solve for multi-stakeholder buying, complex approvals, partner involvement, compliance checks, deployment, and billing—making them a complete commercial ecosystem for software.
2. How do cloud marketplaces benefit software buyers?
Cloud marketplaces compress the time, cost, and complexity of enterprise software procurement.
- Vendor pre-qualification built in: Every listed ISV has been vetted for technical compatibility, security, and compliance, eliminating weeks of post-selection authentication
- Faster onboarding: Standardized contracts reduce legal back-and-forth; buyers apply pre-committed cloud spend directly, skipping separate budget approvals
- 66% less invoice processing time: According to Forrester, AWS Marketplace's quote-to-cash process cuts procurement admin significantly
- One-click deployment: Software runs natively in the buyer's existing cloud environment with no custom integration or implementation lag
- $2M+ in efficiency savings: Forrester estimates this for a typical enterprise buyer over three years
3. How do cloud marketplaces benefit software vendors?
Cloud marketplaces give ISVs faster deal velocity, higher win rates, and better deal economics than direct channels.
- 27% higher win rate: ISV transactions on AWS Marketplace outperform deals closed outside it, according to AWS
- 26–50% more likely to close: Partner-attached deals consistently outperform average across the board
- 40% faster deal cycles compared to direct sales channels
- 80% larger deal sizes vs. traditional direct sales
- Built-in buyer pool: Hyperscalers like AWS have hundreds of thousands of active customers, many with committed cloud spend they're actively looking to deploy
- Hyperscaler credibility: Being listed on AWS, Azure, or GCP signals pre-approval to buyers, shortening the trust-building stage of every deal
4. How do cloud marketplaces help companies evaluate software faster?
They provide built-in discovery, reviews, technical compatibility information, and vendor pre-qualification for security and compliance. This helps buyers shortlist solutions before ever talking to a sales rep, cutting down weeks of evaluation time.
5. How do cloud marketplaces accelerate vendor onboarding?
Marketplaces streamline vendor onboarding through standardized contracts, simplified quote-to-cash workflows, and the ability for buyers to use existing cloud budgets. This eliminates long procurement cycles and reduces finance/legal back-and-forth.
6. Why do deployments happen faster when buying through cloud marketplaces?
Solutions listed on cloud marketplaces are built to run natively in the customer’s cloud environment. This allows one-click deployments without complex implementation work, making time-to-value almost immediate.
