Azure co-sell, in Microsoft's own vocabulary.
How Microsoft co-sell actually works
A referral is a lead or a co-sell opportunity
Partner Center's Referrals workspace holds both. The deal type — Azure IP co-sell, services co-sell, partner-to-partner, solution assessment, partner-led, or private — follows from what help you ask Microsoft for and whether Microsoft sellers can see the deal.
Status is earned by the solution, not the deal
In market → co-sell ready → Azure IP co-sell eligible. That last tier takes USD 100,000 of Azure Consumed Revenue or Marketplace Billed Sales over a trailing year, technical validation, a reference architecture, and a transactable Marketplace offer.
Sellers have fourteen days
Microsoft sellers get 14 days to decide on participation, and inbound opportunities that go unactioned for 14 days expire. Sales stages map to MCEM: created/accepted at 10% through to won at 100%.
Registration comes after the win
Deal registration for Azure IP co-sell is a post-win step: a won deal of at least USD 25,000, on a Microsoft-managed account, carrying an eligible solution — with at least 72 hours between creating the deal and marking it won.
Referral Confidence Score
Microsoft scores your referrals too.
Partner Center attaches a confidence score to referrals — Microsoft calls it a quality snapshot that shows sellers which referrals stand out and what makes them strong. Outbound opportunities are rated High, Medium, or Low by a machine-learning model, and partners get real-time guidance on missing detail while a referral is being created.
Partner Center also flags suspicious data passively — a customer email domain matching your own, unusually high or low deal values, a close date inside seven days — and since March 2026 all inbound co-sell referrals are checked automatically for completeness and quality at submission.
The pattern is the same one AWS partners met with the Opportunity Quality Score: both clouds now assess partner-shared pipeline consistently and at scale. Both scores are set by what you built before the opportunity existed.
What changed for FY27
Marketplace-first co-sell
Microsoft has said that in FY27, PRACR no longer operates as a broad co-sell mechanism and Marketplace becomes the primary path for co-sell at scale, with credit recognised through Marketplace Billed Sales.
QRP is retired
The Qualified Referral Program retired at the end of March 2026. Shared referrals now arrive as SMB opportunities in the Leads tab, and CRM integrations built against QRP must move to the Partner Center Referrals APIs.
Frontier Accelerate for Marketplace
Announced July 2026 and arriving September 2026, it combines ISV Success, Marketplace Rewards, Azure IP co-sell, and certified software designations into one offering, with existing partners transitioning at renewal.
Sources: Microsoft Partner Center documentation and the March and July 2026 Partner Center announcements. Microsoft controls these programs and their naming — this page is reviewed quarterly.
Same motion, different vocabulary
Partners who run both ecosystems trip on the words more than the mechanics. The concepts map closely; the terms do not.
| Concept | AWS | Microsoft |
|---|---|---|
| Partner portal | AWS Partner Central | Partner Center |
| Sharing a deal | Share an opportunity with AWS (ACE) | Create a co-sell opportunity / share a referral |
| Quality signal | Opportunity Quality Score | Referral Confidence Score (High / Medium / Low) |
| Commit drawdown | Committed spend via Marketplace | MACC — 100% of pretax purchase, conditions apply |
| Co-sell API | Partner Central API for Selling | Referrals REST API + Salesforce and Dynamics connectors |
One trap worth naming: Partner Central is AWS, Partner Centeris Microsoft. And in Microsoft's model, deal registration happens after the win — it is not the act of sharing.
Where Wyra is on Azure
Live on AWS. In preview on Azure.
Gil, Wyra's AWS agent, is generally available with two-way AWS Partner Central sync. Lex, our agent for the Microsoft ecosystem, is in Private Preview: ecosystem intelligence and outreach grounded in Microsoft program mechanics, with every prospect qualified in writing — or excluded with the reason written out — before anything sends. There is no Partner Center integration today.
What carries across ecosystems is the part that decides quality anyway: the pipeline you create before an opportunity exists. Microsoft scores what you share; the score is set by the work done upstream.
We're working with a small group of Microsoft partners to shape what Lex should do about Partner Center. If you run an Azure practice and have opinions about referrals, IP co-sell status, or what the FY27 shift does to your motion, we want the conversation.
Microsoft co-sell: common questions
What is Microsoft co-sell, in Microsoft's own vocabulary?
The umbrella noun is a referral, which Partner Center classifies as either a lead or a co-sell opportunity. Whether a deal is co-sell comes down to two questions in Partner Center: what help you need from Microsoft, and whether Microsoft sellers may view the deal. Answer no to both and it is private; no help but visible is partner-led; help requested and visible is co-sell.
What does 'Azure IP co-sell eligible' require?
Four things, per Microsoft's published requirements: USD 100,000 in Azure Consumed Revenue or Marketplace Billed Sales at org level over a trailing 12 months (Azure credits don't count); Microsoft technical validation that the solution is primarily platformed in Azure; a reference architecture diagram (not required for Azure Application, Container, or VM offer types); and a transactable Marketplace offer. It sits above 'co-sell ready' in Microsoft's status ladder, which runs In market → Co-sell ready → Azure IP co-sell eligible.
Is 'deal registration' the same as sharing a co-sell opportunity?
No — and conflating them is a common mistake. In Microsoft's model, deal registration is a narrow post-win step for Azure IP co-sell. It requires the deal to be won, an Azure IP co-sell eligible solution on it, a partner-led or co-sell deal type, a value of at least USD 25,000, and a Microsoft-managed customer account. Microsoft also advises leaving at least 72 hours between creating a deal and marking it won, or registration may be rejected.
Does Microsoft score the quality of what partners share?
Yes. Partner Center applies a Referral Confidence Score to referrals — Microsoft describes it as a quality snapshot that helps sellers see which referrals stand out, with an explanation of what makes them strong. Outbound opportunities are scored High, Medium, or Low by a machine-learning model, partners get real-time guidance on missing detail while creating a referral, and since March 2026 inbound co-sell referrals are automatically checked for completeness and quality at submission.
What changed for FY27?
Microsoft has said that in FY27, PRACR — Partner Reported Azure Consumed Revenue — no longer operates as a broad co-sell mechanism, and that Marketplace becomes the primary path for co-sell at scale, with credit recognised through Marketplace Billed Sales. Separately, the Qualified Referral Program retired at the end of March 2026: shared referrals now arrive as SMB opportunities in the Leads tab, and CRM integrations built against QRP need to move to the Partner Center Referrals APIs.
Can Wyra sync with Partner Center today?
No. Wyra's live co-sell integration is AWS Partner Central, where Gil is generally available with two-way sync. Lex, Wyra's agent for the Microsoft ecosystem, is in Private Preview: it brings ecosystem intelligence and outreach grounded in Microsoft program mechanics, with every prospect qualified in writing before anything sends. Partner Center integration is not part of that today.
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