AWS Marketplace
Best practices guide to successfully list your SaaS contract solution in AWS Marketplace
AWS Marketplace is a curated digital catalog that makes it easy for customers to find, test, buy, and deploy third-party software, data products, and services that customers need to build solutions and run their businesses.
In this post, I aim to help you create a SaaS contract product in AWS Marketplace. I will take the current SaaS pricing tiered model and match it with the specific AWS Marketplace SaaS contract pricing model. I’ll also explain the AWS Marketplace features that are relevant based on sales motions as well as best practices for structuring your product detail page.
I will also detail marketing best practices that you should think about as you approach listing in AWS Marketplace. Listing your solution in AWS Marketplace is the starting point, and how you promote the offering is a good predictor of how successful you will be.
Prerequisites
I assume you have registered as a seller in AWS Marketplace. If you have not, review the AWS Marketplace blog post, 7 Tips to Successfully Submit Your Product Listing in AWS Marketplace. Out of scope for this post is API integration with AWS Marketplace, which SaaS products in AWS Marketplace require.
Step 1: Define your pricing model
The first step in defining your pricing model for AWS Marketplace is to look at your current pricing model and match it with the AWS Marketplace pricing model that most closely matches it. The following screenshot shows the current tiered pricing model. It includes Standard, Pro, and Enterprise tiers. The Standard tier starts at $1,000 a month and offers up to 1,000 monthly API calls. The Pro tier starts at $2,500 a month and offers up to 10,000 monthly API calls as well as some advanced features. The Enterprise tier has custom pricing and offers unlimited API calls, full feature access, and premium support. A key item to note is that the Enterprise tier does not display pricing, and I will show how to address that in your AWS Marketplace product detail page.
Since the sample product I’m using today uses a tiered model with monthly and annual pricing, I match that with the SaaS Contract pricing model, by which customers may choose only one tier from the list of tiers you create in AWS Marketplace.
Step 2: Draft your product listing page in AWS Marketplace
A. Create SaaS contract product
- Navigate to the AWS Marketplace management portal.
- Select the Products tab dropdown menu and choose SaaS – Software as a service.
- On the right side of the page, select the Create saas product dropdown menu and choose New SaaS Contract.
- A new SaaS contract draft has now been created, and you can access this draft in the Requests tab of the AWS Marketplace management portal.
In the Create SaaS Contracts console, you see four tabs across the screen: Onboarding, General, Pricing, and Notes. We cover the tabs from left to right. It is a best practice to choose the Save button located in the bottom left of the tab section occasionally, as information you enter will not be saved automatically.
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- Onboarding tab: Select the appropriate radio buttons on the Onboarding tab based on the information you completed when you registered as a seller.
- Once completed, select the Next button.
- General tab: This is where you enter all the metadata for the product detail page, including items such as your product title, description, logo, and highlights.
- As a best practice, be sure you display the value propositions for your solution that address customer challenges, communicate the benefits, capabilities, and differentiation of your offering, and explain why customers should buy it in AWS Marketplace.
- Tiers without public pricing: AWS Marketplace products must have public-facing pricing on the listing pages. Since your pricing model has a tier (Enterprise) without public pricing, call out to your customer base that you offer custom terms and pricing (high-touch sales). This is best implemented at the end of the Product Description field. Your best practice would be to enter language like:
- We also offer custom pricing plans, so if one of the plans listed in our pricing section does not meet your needs, please contact us by email (sales@awsmptesting.com) or use our contact us page here: https://www.awsmptesting.com/contactus.
- You can use the AWS Marketplace feature Private offers to extend custom terms and pricing to your customers. Private offers enable you to implement the Enterprise tier of your product without listing it along with public-facing pricing.
- Free trials: SaaS offerings in AWS Marketplace do not natively support free trials due to low-touch sales. If you offer free trials, the Product Description is also a great place to call that out. We show how to offer free tiers in the pricing section.
- Once completed, select the Next button.
- Onboarding tab: Select the appropriate radio buttons on the Onboarding tab based on the information you completed when you registered as a seller.
B. Creating your pricing model
Pricing tab: This is where you map your tiered pricing model to how AWS Marketplace lists SaaS Contract products.
- To map your tiered pricing model, in the Pricing tab, choose your Target Customer geography. This enables only customers in targeted locations the ability to subscribe to your offering.
- Optionally enable US sales tax collection for your product by checking the box under Set Product Tax Code. To learn more about this feature, use the links provided in the management portal.
- If this product is only for AWS GovCloud (US) customers, you can select the checkbox under the Set Target Market. Be advised the entire SaaS solution must run in the AWS GovCloud Region.
- Set pricing is where you create the tiers for your product. These are called dimensions in AWS Marketplace.
- As discussed earlier, your product pricing structure offered either monthly or annual contracts.
- Select the checkboxes for Monthly and 1 Year.
- You can modify this at any time.
- Once you select the checkboxes for Monthly and 1 Year you wil now see the section, Complete fields to customize your pricing chart.
- Select the checkboxes for Monthly and 1 Year.
- As discussed earlier, your product pricing structure offered either monthly or annual contracts.
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- Your product offered multiple tiers that the customer could choose one from. So from the Choose the contract type you want to offer dropdown menu, choose Buyer can choose one tier from multiple tiers offered.
- Set the usage unit category for your product. This is how you charge your customer. In this case, I charge based on the number of API requests. API request is not an available option, so either choose Units or Requests. Units is the catch-all if the usage unit you charge by is not listed in the dropdown menu.
- From the dropdown menu, select Requests.
- Complete the dimensions or tiers for your product to match with the tiers you have today. Even though you have three tiers in your pricing structure, I only list two dimensions for the product. As discussed earlier in this post, public-facing pricing for each tier is required, and since your Enterprise tier does not have public-facing pricing, I omit that tier.
- Dimension 1: Enter the following details that align with your current pricing:
- Name: Standard
- Description: Up to 1,000 API requests per month
- API name: standard
- Price/month: 1000
- Price/1 year: 9600
- Dimension 2: Enter the following details that align with your current pricing
- Name: Pro
- Description: Up to 10,000 API requests per month
- API name: pro
- Price/month: 2500
- Price/1 year: 10000
- Optional: Offering free tiers (dimensions): You can offer a free tier, but the caveat to that is that you will need to monitor the customer’s usage and contact them before they breach your free tier. This is a good way to enable customers to try before they buy, but it is extra work on your end to monitor their usage. You can also extend a zero-dollar private offer to the customer instead of listing an actual free tier.
- Name: Free Tier
- Description: Up to 500 API requests per month
- API name: free
- Price/month: 0
- Price/1 year: 0
- Dimension 1: Enter the following details that align with your current pricing:
The following screenshot shows Dimension 1 with a name of Free Tier, a description of Up to 500 API requests per month, and API name of free, and prices per month and year of 0.
The following screenshot shows the dimensions created in step 2.B.4.
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- Enter the AWS account IDs you want to allow to view the listing while your team performs the required API integration work. When the listing is initially published, it will go into what we call a limited state, where only the allowed AWS account IDs can view the listing. It is a best practice to consult with your technology team who will be performing the API integration work and obtain any AWS account IDs they use to log in and view the listing page as they test it.
- Enter the AWS account IDs and select Next.
- Enter the AWS account IDs you want to allow to view the listing while your team performs the required API integration work. When the listing is initially published, it will go into what we call a limited state, where only the allowed AWS account IDs can view the listing. It is a best practice to consult with your technology team who will be performing the API integration work and obtain any AWS account IDs they use to log in and view the listing page as they test it.
C. Submitting your listing
Submit the listing for publishing into the limited state mentioned in step 2.B.5.
- Enter any additional notes and comments you have for the AWS Marketplace Managed Catalog Operations (MCO) team that will be publishing your listing.
- In the Contact information for this request, enter your email address and any other members of your organization as necessary.
- Select the Review button and review all your information for accuracy.
- Select Submit for Review.
Congratulations! Your product has been successfully submitted to the Managed Catalog Operations (MCO) team for publishing. You can view the status of your submission by viewing the Requests tab in the AWS Marketplace Management Portal.
Requests for listing review are typically processed within three to five business days, although additional time may be required if information submitted with your request is incomplete.
What’s next?
1. API integration
To start to complete the API integration, you have three routes today:
- Complete the full integration using our SaaS Integration guide. The estimated time to complete a full integration is between three to five weeks using two development engineers. The work can typically be completed in an engineering sprint.
- Use the AWS Quick Start, AWS Marketplace Serverless SaaS Integration. This Quick Start deploys AWS Marketplace Serverless Software as a Service (SaaS) Integration on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. Registered AWS Marketplace sellers can use it to deploy a lightweight serverless option for integrating new SaaS listings. The estimated time to complete the serverless integration is between 10 and 30 minutes using one development engineer or technical person.
- Use a third-party ISV enablement partner such as:
2. Marketing planning
Start to think about marketing activities to drive demand for your solution. Think of AWS Marketplace as a procurement channel for you to transact with AWS customers. It is critical that you have plans to market your solution. To do that, consider completing the following activities:
- Join the AWS Partner Network (APN), which is a program focused on providing members of the APN with programmatic, technical, business, and go-to-market support.
- If you are already part of the APN, begin to think about how you can start co-selling with AWS by participating in the APN Customer Engagement Program (ACE).
- Create a press release regarding your launch in AWS Marketplace.
- Consider authoring a blog post for the AWS Marketplace blog. These blog post should be a tutorial in nature and show how to solve a common customer challenge using your product and other AWS services.
- AWS Marketplace 180-day GTM Academy, an online portal that provides self-service go-to-market (GTM) resources to help you build, activate, and measure demand generation campaigns for your offerings in AWS Marketplace.
- To register for the 180-day GTM Academy portal, log into your AWS Marketplace Management Portal (AMMP).
- If you are a first-time user, register first.
- In the Marketplace Resources or the Announcements section, choose the 180-day GTM Academy link.
- Once registered, you can sign in at 180dayGTMAcademy.com.
3. Getting answers
If you have questions on listing and getting started, use the following resources:
- If you are a startup, check to see if you qualify for the AWS Marketplace Startup program.
- Get registered as a seller. In the management portal, use the Contact Us form to request to speak with a member of our Marketplace Business Development team.
- Contact your AWS Account Manager and have them get in contact with the AWS Marketplace Emerging Tech Business Development Team.
Conclusion
In this post, I showed how to successfully list your SaaS contract solution in AWS Marketplace to match your current pricing structure. I showed how AWS Marketplace can facilitate both low- and high-touch sales motions with free trials and tiers and private offers. I also touched on some of the marketing best practices you should consider, as well as the three different routes available to complete the SaaS API integration. Once you have defined your pricing model, log in to the AWS Marketplace Management Portal and follow the direction outlined in Step 2 of this post. If you have additional questions contact us using the channels listed in the Questions on listing or getting started section earlier.
About the author
Juston Salcido is a Technical Business Development Manager focusing on helping Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) understand how to list their solution in AWS Marketplace. In his role, he helps ISVs take their current solution, pricing, and sales motions and provide them with the best practices to build a successful listing in AWS Marketplace. Juston has over 10 years of experience working in the technology industry and five years of experience working at Amazon, four of which have been spent at AWS Marketplace. Juston is located in Bozeman, MT, and enjoys golfing, playing softball, and traveling to complete in amateur billiards competitions.