Know what you need to price your SaaS products and create listings for the Microsoft commercial marketplace. Once you have these prerequisites ready to go, manage (including edit) your Microsoft listings in Tackle.
Price your product
Microsoft commercial marketplace requires at least one public plan when publishing a product listing. The public plans you put on your listing will be the options you have when creating private offers. This means you will want to create public plans that reflect the way you sell your products. You can also create private plans for SKUs you do not want to show publicly but these have some limitations.
Pricing type
Once you select the pricing type for your listing, it can not be changed. Consider your pricing strategy when selecting this option.
Flat rate
Buyers are given a flat rate price on the SKU being offered.
Note
Flat rate pricing is recommended for most SaaS companies and is what the majority of Tackle ISVs use as their pricing type. Flat rate pricing is most suited to SaaS companies that want to transact primarily via private offers/private plans.
Per user
Buyers are given the option to select the quantity of the SKU being offered.
Note
Per user pricing is recommended for companies that want to set up auto-provisioning and accommodate pricing strategy for public orders.
Pricing strategy
Private offer pricing
Private offer pricing is recommended to sellers just starting their Marketplace journey. Managing public orders is an entire process on its own, so we recommend starting with private offers to see the quickest return on value. Private offer pricing uses public plans to display general offerings and directs customers to reach out for a private offer. The key is to make sure public plans are priced high enough to deter potential buyers from clicking to buy before talking to your sales team. You also want the product description to be flexible enough to accommodate creating private offers the way you sell.
In the Product Overview section of the listing, you can add the following phrase to direct potential buyers to your sales team before they purchase:
To talk with a <Company Name> sales representative, reach out to <Sale Email Alias>.
When you create a private offer from the public plans, you will have the opportunity to adjust the price of the public plan and attach any additional documents like a sales order and custom EULA.
Public SKUs for auto-provisioning
This strategy is recommended for sellers who are already putting deals through Microsoft commercial marketplace. This strategy is good for a product-led growth seller who is willing to spend engineering resources to set up auto-provisioning on the listing. Utilizing the “per user” pricing type will allow buyers to select the quantity of the product they want and allow them to upgrade as they need more units.
To set up auto-provisioning, you will need to set up webhooks🔗 and your Self-Hosted Registration Page.
There is a "free trial” option you can add to the plan that allows the buyer to get your product free for the selected duration.
Additional usage fees/metrics
If your product pricing is usage-based and you would like to charge your buyer during the contract term without having them accept a new private offer, you can set up some additional usage SKUs. The usage SKU can be used on each of your plans and you can set a specific SKU price for each plan you enable it on. You can always set a discount on the SKU price when creating private offers. For sellers setting up auto-provisioning, you may also want to use the Metering API as well to fully automate the provisioning and billing process.
Create a Microsoft product listing
When you are first using Tackle, you'll be guided to connect to the Microsoft commercial marketplace and create a new listing. You must publish at least one listing to make transactions on the marketplace.
In Tackle, go to the left menu and click Listings.
Click Click here to configure your listing.
Select Microsoft and then click Add new.
Important: You must already be connected to the Microsoft commercial marketplace to add a listing.
Click on each of the steps, enter all required information and be sure to click Save changes.
When you have completed all required fields, you will see a confirmation banner. Click Submit to send your listing for review by a Tackle Marketplace architect, make suggestions, and complete the next step in the listing process.
Edit Microsoft listings
After you create a Microsoft commercial marketplace listing in Tackle, you can edit information for that listing once it goes live. You can make changes based on the marketplace for that listing, listing status, and type of update.
Before you get started
Only listings with a Published status in Tackle can be edited.
Listings are locked once they are created and before they go live to prevent different parties from making changes at the same time, which could interrupt order flow.
Edits submitted must go through a review process before they go live. Before they are published, changes are reviewed by Tackle and approved by the cloud marketplace for the listing.
Listings often involve collaboration between multiple parties. Editing a listing could take anywhere from a couple of days up to a few months to complete depending on the changes. For example, changing the pricing on a live listing requires more touch points and conversations than making a marketing change.
Read the requirements for editing a marketplace listing (next section).
Requirements for editing a Microsoft listing
When editing a listing, make sure you know what to expect and what you can edit for each marketplace once a listing is live. Edits to a Microsoft listing may take up to 14 days to go live in the marketplace.
Pricing
Certain pricing edits have different implications.
These edits will take 90 days to be published:
Price plan increases
Price plan decreases
These edits will require you to create a new plan:
Price duration removal
Plan ID name changes
Usage SKU Dimension description changes
Usage SKU Dimension API name changes
Changes that require a re-list
What does it mean to re-list?
To complete certain edits, the marketplace may require you to re-list your product. Tackle, on your behalf, creates a new listing.
Implications of a re-list include:
Any private plans that have not been accepted will need to be recreated on the new offer.
All of your current subscribers will have to subscribe to the new offer at the end of their current subscription.
Subscribers on auto-renew will be able to stay subscribed until they cancel or disable auto-renew.
Azure IP Co-sell will need to be reconfigured, and Tackle will need permissions if the independent software vendor (ISV) needs any assistance with the setup.
Microsoft Azure consumption commitment (MACC) will need to be re-enrolled.
Reviews will not carry over from an old listing to a new listing.
Reasons to re-list:
If you change from flat-rate to per-user pricing
if you change from standard contract EULA to custom EULA
If you have more than 49 private plans
Edit a Microsoft listing
In Tackle, go to the left menu and click Listings.
Find the published listing you want to edit and click to open it.
Note: The listing must be in Published status to edit. If you need to edit a listing that’s locked or in the review process, contact Tackle Support🔗.Click Edit listing. The listing opens to edit mode.
A copy of the published listing is created to make your edits. The original listing remains as is until the edits are published (go live).
Complete your edits as needed.
When you’re done, click Submit for review. If you need to cancel your edits before submitting or after you submit while in review, click Cancel edits. You can also save your edited listing as a draft and exit and complete it at a later time.
Important: Once you submit your changes, the edited listing is locked for review. You can no longer make changes, but you can cancel your edits. If you need to make changes while in review, contact Tackle Support🔗.
To view all listings that are being edited, go to the Listings home page. The edited listings are under their the original listings as Edit Listing.
