Seller requirements and fees
Check who can sell on Azion Marketplace, the business and pricing models a product can use, how usage is metered, and the tiered listing fees.
This page lists the requirements, business models, pricing models, and listing fees that apply when you sell a product on Azion Marketplace.
Roles
An Azion Marketplace customer has one of two roles:
- Buyer: a subscriber who uses Marketplace to install and deploy the software that it lists.
- Seller: a provider of ready-to-use software who uses Marketplace as a distribution channel. A seller is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV), an individual software developer, or an open-source community, with a product that works with Azion products and services.
Anyone with an Azion account can use Marketplace as a buyer. A buyer can then apply to become a seller.
Eligibility
To sell on Azion Marketplace, you must meet these requirements:
- Have an Azion account.
- Complete the sign-up and approval process to become a seller.
To list a product with an associated charge, you must also be able to receive payments from Azion. For a charged listing, your organization must meet two more requirements:
- Your organization has legal status in the United States.
- Your organization has a bank account based in the United States.
Sign-up
Azion curates every product before it is published on Azion Marketplace. To start, you apply to become a seller and register your product, then the Azion team reviews both and contacts you by the email that you registered. For more information, refer to Become a Marketplace seller.
Product types
A product on Azion Marketplace is either a Software as a Service (SaaS) product or an Azion Web Platform-based product. For the listing fee of each type, refer to Tiered listing fees. A product can take one of these forms:
- A software package that is instantiated and works with the underlying technologies of the Azion Platform.
- A function that specific events trigger and that runs specific tasks.
- A template with a preset of rules for any Azion product.
Business models
Azion Marketplace supports two business models:
- Free: buyers install the product and pay only when they use it, subject to the terms of use defined for the product.
- Bring Your Own License (BYOL): buyers bring their current license or credentials from the seller’s platform. They also provide valid credentials that authenticate their account and connect Azion with the seller’s platform.
In both models, Azion charges buyers for the Azion services that their usage generates. When a seller defines charges for a BYOL product, Azion adds those charges to the buyer’s bill and pays the seller after the buyer pays.
Every BYOL product must also have a paid option, for buyers who do not have a license and want to purchase the product. For the first 90 days after launch, Azion relaxes this requirement. During those 90 days, the Azion Marketplace account management teams work with you on the challenges, and determine if and how buyers can purchase the software on Azion Marketplace. For the paid options, refer to Pricing models.
Azion charges no service fee to publish and host a BYOL product or a free product on Azion Marketplace. Every seller’s product still incurs Azion charges for the services that it uses, and Azion defines and controls those rates and fees. After a subscription is in place, the buyer can copy the product to their account to manage how their organization accesses and uses it.
Pricing models
When you submit a product to Azion Marketplace, you define its price and its terms and conditions of use. A buyer who subscribes to the product offering agrees to that price and those terms and conditions. You can create a product with either of these offers:
- A standard price list with a general end-user license agreement (EULA).
- Private offers for individual customers, with special pricing and EULAs. Large enterprises and requests for proposals (RFPs) usually need private offers.
Each product uses one of two pricing models: Pay As You Go or Saving Plans.
Pay As You Go
In the Pay As You Go (PAYG) pricing model, Azion Marketplace bills your buyers from the metering records of their usage and the price that you set for that usage. PAYG has no commitment, and Azion calculates and bills the usage monthly.
Azion Marketplace offers these metering records:
- Number of deployed instances
- Number of registered users
- Requests
- Compute Time
- Data Transfer
The Azion Marketplace Metering Service requires your software to report usage every hour, with the buyer’s usage for that hour. If the transmission or the receipt of a metering record fails, Azion cannot bill that usage. You are responsible for the successful receipt of your metering records. You can use any metering record that suits your SaaS business model, provided that you set a price list for it and your SaaS reports the usage correctly.
A PAYG product can give buyers a free trial for a fixed period. At the end of the free trial, Azion Marketplace auto-enrolls the buyer in PAYG, unless the buyer cancels or opts out before then.
Saving Plans
In the Saving Plans pricing model, the buyer starts a purchase of your software and makes an agreement with you. Under the agreement, the buyer is entitled to a specified quantity of usage of your product. Azion Marketplace bills your buyers upfront, or on the payment schedule that you define, according to the Saving Plan between you and the buyer. After that point, the buyer is entitled to use your software.
For example, a buyer can purchase a quantity of requests for your product for a 1-month, 1-year, 2-year, or 3-year period. When the buyer’s usage goes above the Saving Plan, Azion Marketplace bills the overage at the Pay As You Go price that you set.
A buyer can also start a negotiation of the product pricing with you in a private offer. You negotiate the pricing and usage privately with the buyer, and the negotiated terms start when the buyer accepts the deal.
Tiered listing fees
Azion Marketplace charges a listing fee for your products on a tiered basis, called the Tiered Listing Fee (TLF). The value of a subscription to a product sets its tier. These rules apply to every TLF:
- TLF adjustments apply to all product types, whatever the deployment method.
- The value of each transaction is the dollar value of the payment that the buyer of your product makes.
- For a product that the Azion Marketplace Metering Service meters, the transaction value is the amount billed to the buyer each month.
- A reduction of the TLF from a higher transaction value applies month by month, and it is not retroactive.
SaaS products
For a Software as a Service (SaaS) product purchased on Azion Marketplace, the TLF depends on the value and the duration of the subscription. Azion Marketplace charges these listing fees on SaaS product transactions, by the duration and the dollar value of each transaction:
| Tier | SaaS TLF tiers | Monthly and Annual | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Subscriptions under $20,000 | 13% | 12% | 11% |
| 2 | $20,001–$99,999 | 11% | 10% | 9% |
| 3 | $100,000–$999,999 | 10% | 9% | 8% |
| 4 | $1,000,000+ | 9% | 7% | 6% |
Azion Marketplace calculates the dollar value of a SaaS TLF tier as follows:
- For metered subscriptions and monthly Saving Plans, the value is the amount that the buyer pays each month.
- For annual or multi-year subscriptions, the value for the full duration is the amount that the buyer pays upfront when the transaction starts.
Metered subscriptions, monthly Saving Plans, and 1-year Saving Plans receive the Monthly and Annual fee until the second year starts. Then the fee drops to the Year 2 value, and later to the Year 3 value. A multi-year purchase, billed upfront or on a set schedule, receives the fee of the last year of the subscription for the full transaction.
For example, a buyer subscribes to a SaaS product with a metered subscription:
- The buyer pays $19,000 per month. The listing fee is 13% for each monthly transaction (Tier 1, Monthly rate).
- In month 11, the buyer’s usage increases and Azion bills $21,000, so the listing fee drops to 11% (Tier 2, Monthly rate). In month 13, the buyer’s usage stays the same and Azion bills $21,000. The subscription is now in year 2, so the listing fee drops to 10% (Tier 2, Year 2 rate).
- In month 14, the buyer’s usage decreases to $19,000, and the listing fee increases to 12% (Tier 1, Year 2 rate).
Azion Web Platform-based products
For software that runs entirely on the Azion Web Platform, the TLF depends on the value of the subscription. Azion Marketplace charges these listing fees on Azion Web Platform-based product transactions, by the dollar value of each transaction:
| Tier | Software TLF tiers | Listing fee per tier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Below $20,000 | 20% |
| 2 | $20,001–$99,999 | 17% |
| 3 | $100,000–$249,999 | 15% |
| 4 | $250,000+ | 13% |
For example, a buyer uses an Azion Web Platform-based product:
- Azion bills the buyer $19,000 for 1 month of usage. The listing fee is 20% for that transaction (Tier 1).
- In month 2, the buyer’s usage increases and Azion bills $21,000. The listing fee drops to 17% for that transaction (Tier 2).