Introduction to listing options

When you create an offer, select the appropriate listing options. These options determine how customers interact with your solution through the buttons displayed on your offer's listing page. The right listing options significantly impact customer engagement and your solution's marketplace success.

The three listing options are Free Trial, Contact Me, and Get It Now.

Tip

If you're publishing an AI agent solution, see Publishing AI agents to the Microsoft marketplace for specialized guidance on choosing the right offer type and listing approach for your AI agents.

Listing options by offer type

The following table shows which listing options are available for each offer type:

Offer type Free Trial Contact Me Get It Now
Azure Application (Managed app) 1
Azure Application (Solution template) 1
Azure Container 1
Azure Virtual Machine 1
Professional service See note
Dynamics 365 Business Central 1
Dynamics 365 apps on Dataverse and Power Apps 1,2
Dynamics 365 Operations Apps 1
Managed Service 1
Power BI App 1
Software as a service 1

1 The Get It Now option includes multiple models: Get It Now (Free), Bring Your Own License (BYOL), Subscription, and Usage-based pricing. See Get It Now for details.

2 Customers see a Get it now button on the offer listing page in Microsoft Marketplace for offers configured for ISV app license management. Customers can select this button to contact you to purchase licenses for the app.

Note

You can sell professional services through Private Offers. For more information, see Plan a professional service offer.

Changing your offer transaction type

Changing your offer type might require a simple edit and republish, or it might require you to create a new offer, as listed in the following table.

Current type Target type Required action
Contact Me Trial Republish the offer
Contact Me Transact • SaaS offers: Update listing option and republish
• All other offer types: Create a new offer
Trial Transact • SaaS offers: Update listing option and republish
• All other offer types: Create a new offer

Important

To set up your payouts and tax profiles, see Set up Microsoft Marketplace payout and tax profiles.

Request Private offer

The Request Private offer selection during offer setup enables customers to request customized pricing or terms for your marketplace offer directly from the listing page. This feature is disabled by default. To participate, turn on the Request Private Offer toggle for an eligible transactable offer. Customer requests are captured as marketplace leads in referrals workspace, allowing your sales team to engage with interested buyers and create tailored private offers.

Free Trial

The free trial option enhances discoverability and automates provisioning of your solution's trial experience. This feature enables prospective customers to use your software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or Microsoft in-app experience at no cost for a limited time. Trial duration varies by offer type:

Offer Type Available Trial Duration
Software as a service (SaaS), transactable through Microsoft 1 to 180 days
Azure virtual machine 1, 3, or 6 months
Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dynamics 365 apps on Dataverse and Power Apps, and Power BI visuals One month

Customers access trials through the product's listing page. For multi-plan offers, customers can switch between plans during trial without restarting the trial period. For virtual machine offers, customers are charged Azure infrastructure costs during the trial. Upon trial expiration, customers are automatically charged for the last plan they tried based on standard rates unless they cancel before the end of the trial period.

Note

For SaaS offers, configure free trials either as a listing-only option for offers that aren't sold through Microsoft or as a plan-level configuration for transactable offers sold through Microsoft. The behavior described in this section applies only to free trials for SaaS offers sold through Microsoft, not listing-only free trials.

Contact Me

This option creates a simple listing for your application or service, allowing customers to request direct communication with you. Customers use the Contact Me button to request that you connect with them. They can write notes to express their needs, so make sure to read them and to get back to valid leads. For lead management details, see Lead management in Microsoft Marketplace.

Get It Now

This listing option includes transactable offers (subscriptions or user-based pricing), bring your own license (BYOL) offers, and Get It Now (Free). Transactable offers are sold through the Microsoft Marketplace. Microsoft is responsible for billing and collections. Customers use the Get It Now button to get the offer.

Note

Customers will see a Get it now button on the offer listing page in Microsoft Marketplace for offers configured for ISV app license management. Customers can select this button to contact you to purchase licenses for the app.

Get It Now pricing options by offer type

The following table shows which offer types support the various pricing options available with the Get It Now option:

Offer type Get It Now (Free) BYOL Subscription Usage-based pricing
Azure Application (Managed app)
Azure Application (Solution template)
Professional service
Azure Container 1 1
Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamics 365 apps on Dataverse and Power Apps 3
Dynamics 365 Operations Apps
Managed Service
Power BI App
Azure Virtual Machine 2
Software as a service

1 The Pricing model column of the Plan overview tab shows Free or BYOL, but it's not selectable.

2 Priced per hour and billed monthly.

3 Applies to offers configured to be sold outside of Microsoft Marketplace and to use ISV app license management.

Get It Now (Free)

Use this option to offer your application for free to customers, who can acquire it using the Get It Now button.

Important

Get It Now (Free) offers aren't eligible for Marketplace Rewards benefits for transactable offers. Because there's no transaction through the storefront, these are categorized as Trial. See Marketplace Rewards.

Bring Your Own License (BYOL)

The BYOL option allows customers to deploy your offer using a license purchased directly from you, outside Microsoft Marketplace. This option is ideal for on-premises-to-cloud migrations.

Important

BYOL offers aren't eligible for Marketplace Rewards benefits for transactable offers. Because these require a customer to acquire the license from the partner and there's no transaction through Microsoft Marketplace, these are categorized as List. See Marketplace Rewards.

Subscription

With subscriptions, you charge a flat fee for your solution:

  • Azure Application (Managed app) offers support monthly subscriptions
  • SaaS offers support both monthly and annual subscriptions

Usage-based pricing

Usage-based pricing models let you charge customers based on their actual usage:

Offer type Supported pricing models
Azure Application (Managed app) Metered billing (Learn more)
SaaS offers • Metered billing
• Per user (per seat) pricing
(Learn more)
Azure virtual machine • Free, Flat rate
• Per vCPU, Per vCPU size
• Per market and vCPU size
(All priced per hour, billed monthly)
Dynamics 365 apps on Dataverse and Power Apps Per user (per seat) pricing (Learn more)

Important

When creating a transactable offer, carefully consider pricing, billing, invoicing, and payout details before selecting an offer type. For more information, see Changing prices in active Microsoft Marketplace offers.

Offer appearance in Microsoft Marketplace

After your offer is published, the listing options you selected appear as buttons in the upper-left corner of your listing page in the Marketplace.

Marketplace Rewards

Your Marketplace Rewards benefits depend on the listing option you choose. To learn more, see Your Microsoft Marketplace benefits.

  • If your offer is transactable, you will earn benefits as you increase your billed sales.
  • Non-transactable offers earn benefits based on whether or not a free trial is attached.

For more information about the benefits available to you, see Your Microsoft Marketplace benefits.

Next steps