AWS Marketplace procurement: $7.3M over three years.

The customer had grown its AWS Marketplace spend organically over four years. Individual lines of business had purchased ISV products through the Marketplace as needed, and procurement had never aggregated the contract terms across the portfolio. By the time we started the engagement, the company had 38 separate ISV agreements running through Marketplace plus another 11 ISV agreements that were still on direct purchase orders — the same vendors, in some cases, with both Marketplace and direct contracts.

The total Marketplace and direct ISV spend was $8.5M annually. EDP eligibility for Marketplace spend had been set at 25% in the customer's original Enterprise Discount Programme, which meant only $2.1M of the Marketplace spend was counting toward the EDP commitment. The other $4.5M of direct ISV spend was outside the Marketplace entirely and had no relationship to the EDP at all.

None of the 38 Marketplace contracts had private-offer pricing. They were all on standard public Marketplace list rates, which the ISVs offered to any buyer. Two of the largest ISVs (a SIEM platform and a data observability platform) had quietly been offering 30% private-offer discounts to comparable insurance customers and the customer had never asked.

What the customer needed

• Aggregated ISV portfolio view across Marketplace and direct contracts
• Private-offer pricing on the top 12 ISV agreements by spend
• Migration of the 11 direct ISV agreements onto Marketplace where the ISV supported it
• EDP Marketplace eligibility raised from 25% to 80%+ in an EDP amendment
• Channel partner pricing (CPPO) where appropriate to capture an extra discount layer

This engagement had two parallel negotiation tracks. Track A was the EDP amendment to raise Marketplace eligibility, which had to happen with AWS sales operations. Track B was 38 separate ISV negotiations to secure private-offer pricing, which happened directly with each ISV. The complexity was in sequencing — the ISVs would only offer private-offer terms once they knew the spend would route through the Marketplace, and AWS would only raise EDP Marketplace eligibility once the private-offer commitments were in writing.

Phase 1 — Portfolio aggregation and ISV outreach (weeks 1-4)

The first four weeks built the unified view of all 49 ISV relationships, including spend, renewal date, contract structure, and current Marketplace status. The aggregated view alone produced a useful artifact for procurement: it showed that three different lines of business were paying three different rates to the same observability vendor, and the rates were not aligned to volume.

We then opened the private-offer conversation with the top 12 ISVs by spend. The framing was simple: the customer is consolidating ISV procurement through the AWS Marketplace, and is willing to commit to three-year terms in exchange for private-offer pricing. ISVs typically respond well to this because Marketplace private offers improve their AWS co-sell economics and provide visible commercial commitment.

Phase 2 — EDP amendment conversation (weeks 5-9)

With seven private-offer term sheets in hand, the EDP amendment conversation opened with AWS. The opening ask was Marketplace eligibility at 90%, the existing EDP discount tier preserved, and a CPPO override that would allow the customer to use a designated channel partner for two of the larger ISV contracts.

AWS's initial counter was Marketplace eligibility at 60%, with the existing EDP discount tier preserved. We had expected this. The gap is generally about what AWS sales operations is willing to approve without escalation versus what the AWS Marketplace strategy team will approve when looped in. We escalated the conversation to the Marketplace team and presented the full $26M three-year ISV commitment view, including the private-offer term sheets.

Phase 3 — Close, with parallel ISV closes (weeks 10-14)

The final agreement landed Marketplace eligibility at 85%, the EDP discount tier preserved, CPPO approval for the two designated agreements, and a Marketplace credit allocation that allowed accumulated EDP credit balance to offset Marketplace charges. In parallel we closed 36 of the 38 ISV negotiations (two ISVs declined to offer private offers and were left on standard Marketplace pricing). The 11 direct ISV agreements were migrated onto Marketplace where the ISV supported it — eight of the 11 successfully migrated; the other three remained on direct purchase orders for structural reasons.

The restructured Marketplace procurement program produced $7.3M in three-year savings against the pre-engagement trajectory. The savings represent 28% of the projected three-year ISV spend and come from four distinct buckets.

Where the savings came from

• Private-offer pricing — $3.4M from the 36 ISV agreements that converted from public Marketplace rates to private-offer terms
• Direct-to-Marketplace migration — $1.9M from rolling eight previously-direct ISV contracts into Marketplace, which made them EDP-eligible
• EDP discount cascade — $1.5M incremental EDP discount earned by raising the customer's qualifying spend above the next EDP tier threshold
• CPPO channel discount — $530K from routing two large ISV agreements through a channel partner that offered an additional procurement-side rebate

The structural changes that lasted

Beyond the dollar savings, the engagement produced three structural changes. The first is a centralized ISV procurement function that aggregates ISV spend before renewal and tests every renewal against the private-offer benchmark. The second is an updated EDP amendment that automatically scales Marketplace eligibility as the customer's Marketplace spend grows. The third is a relationship-level commitment with the AWS Marketplace team to participate in the next Marketplace strategy review — which gives the customer early visibility into program changes that would otherwise be discovered at renewal time.