In the rapidly evolving world of cloud solutions, businesses are constantly seeking innovative strategies to drive growth and increase their customer pipeline. One such strategy that has gained significant traction is co-selling with a cloud provider. This approach involves partnering with a cloud provider who can offer complementary services to your own. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the benefits of co-selling with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and how to make the most of this partnership to drive business growth.

Understanding the AWS Co-Selling Model

AWS co-selling is a go-to-market partnership where ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) collaborate with AWS field teams to jointly pursue enterprise opportunities. When structured properly, both parties benefit: you close more deals faster, and AWS generates Attributed Cloud Revenue (ACR) on the workloads your software runs.

The AWS co-sell model operates through the ACE (AWS Customer Engagements) program, which is the central system where ISVs share opportunities, accept referrals from AWS, and track co-sell pipeline. Acceptance into ACE, and progression through its tiers, directly determines how much support you get from AWS field teams.

How to Collaborate with AWS for Co-Selling Opportunities

Effective AWS co-selling is less about the technology and more about operational discipline. Here’s the collaboration model that drives results:

Step 1: Achieve and maintain co-sell eligibility

To receive referrals from AWS field teams, your product must be listed on AWS Marketplace and your company must be accepted into the ACE program. The baseline requirements include:

• A live AWS Marketplace listing (SaaS, AMI, or container)
• AWS-integrated architecture (your product runs on or integrates with AWS services)
• A go-to-market plan reviewed by your AWS Partner Development Manager (PDM)
• Submission of at least a few initial opportunities to demonstrate pipeline intent

Step 2: Submit your own opportunities through ACE

Co-sell is bidirectional. You submit opportunities you’re already pursuing where AWS involvement could accelerate the deal (e.g., accounts that have large AWS spend or existing AWS EDP commitments). AWS field teams then decide whether to co-sell alongside you, bring in additional resources, or simply acknowledge the opportunity.

The more consistently you submit quality opportunities and update their stages, the more referrals AWS sends back to you. This is the core feedback loop of the co-sell model.

Step 3: Accept and act on AWS referrals quickly

AWS field teams share inbound leads through the ACE portal. Response time is critical: teams that accept referrals within 24–48 hours and update deal stages regularly receive significantly more referrals over time. Teams that go quiet see their referral flow dry up.

Every referral you accept should be:

• Logged in your CRM with the AWS-source attribution tag
• Updated in ACE when the deal stage changes
• Marked as “Won” in ACE when closed (this is how AWS tracks ACR and your co-sell performance)

AWS Co-Selling Teams: Who to Work With

One of the most common questions from ISVs entering the AWS ecosystem is: who exactly are you co-selling with? There are several distinct teams involved, each playing a different role:

The relationship with your PDM is foundational. If you don’t have an active PDM relationship, everything else in the co-sell motion is harder to unlock. Prioritize this above all else in the first 90 days.

The AWS ACE Program: Tiers and What They Unlock

The ACE program has tiered participation levels that determine the volume and quality of AWS co-sell support you receive:

Automating Co-Selling on AWS Marketplace

As your co-sell motion scales, manual management of ACE becomes the primary bottleneck. ISVs working 10+ active co-sell opportunities simultaneously cannot keep every deal stage updated in ACE, CRM, and their internal pipeline systems without automation.

The workflows that benefit most from automation:

Opportunity bidirectional sync

When a deal is created or updated in your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), the corresponding ACE opportunity should update automatically — and vice versa. Without this sync, reps update one system and the other falls out of date, breaking the co-sell data loop that AWS uses to measure your program performance.

Referral acceptance and routing

AWS referrals that sit unaccepted in the ACE portal for more than 72 hours signal disengagement to the AWS team. Automation that alerts your sales team in Slack or email the moment a referral lands — with one-click acceptance — eliminates this lag entirely.

Marketplace transaction fulfillment

When a purchase lands on AWS Marketplace (SaaS subscriptions, private offers), customer provisioning should trigger automatically. Manual fulfillment workflows introduce delays that damage the customer experience and create churn risk from the very first interaction.

ACR and pipeline reporting

Consolidate AWS ACE pipeline data, marketplace transaction data, and CRM data into a single dashboard so leadership can measure co-sell ROI without pulling data from three systems every quarter.

Automatum automates all of these workflows natively for AWS Marketplace, including ACE opportunity sync, referral routing, entitlement management, and co-sell reporting. See a demo to understand how ISVs cut their co-sell operations overhead by 70%+ while increasing referral acceptance rates.

Measuring Co-Sell Success: The Metrics That Matter

AWS co-selling should be measured on a defined set of KPIs that map to business outcomes, not just activity:

• Referrals received per quarter — the volume of inbound leads from AWS field teams
• Referral acceptance rate and time — how quickly and consistently you accept AWS opportunities
• Co-sell influenced pipeline — total dollar value of deals where AWS had involvement
• Marketplace transaction volume — deals closed through AWS Marketplace vs. direct contract
• Attributed Cloud Revenue (ACR) — the AWS-facing metric that determines your program tier advancement
• Win rate on co-sell deals — co-sell deals should close at higher rates than direct deals; if they don’t, something is off in the qualification or collaboration model

Getting Started

The fastest path to AWS co-sell traction is a focused 90-day sprint:

1. Ensure your AWS Marketplace listing is live and accurate
2. Request an AWS PDM assignment through Partner Central
3. Submit 5 qualified opportunities through ACE in the first 30 days
4. Connect your CRM to ACE so deal stages sync automatically
5. Schedule a monthly cadence with your PDM to review pipeline and request introductions

Want to see how this works end-to-end? Book a demo with Automatum and we’ll walk through your specific AWS co-sell setup.

Related Reading

• Connecting Your CRM to Cloud Marketplaces: Why It Matters
• Why Your Sales Team Should Care About Cloud Marketplace
• Marketplace Customer Success & Retention Guide for ISVs
• AWS ISV Accelerate Program: Everything You Need to Know
• AWS CPPO: How Channel Partners Sell Through Marketplace