5 Hard Questions Every Cloud GTM Leader Is Asking, Answered From the Data

Marketplace GTM

A post by

Roman Kirsanov

Sep 8, 2026

min read

Cloud GTM

16 companies have crossed $1B through AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud marketplaces. On Tuesday we launch the report on how they reached the milestone, what they built to get there, and what other teams can apply. Here are 5 hard questions every Cloud GTM leader asks, answered from our research.

Is Marketplace incremental, or does it re-route deals we'd close anyway?

WWT: "40% of our marketplace business is actually net new" (Joshua Bushman, March 2025)
Dynatrace: Marketplace deals ~2x the size of direct (Feb 2025)
Salesforce: 2 of its top 5 deals in a quarter came through AWS Marketplace, as it was ramping up in mid-2025
In our broader research last year, 62% of respondents reported net-new deals from Marketplace

Does Marketplace cannibalise the channel?

Not where the channel was designed in. CrowdStrike moves "the vast majority" of its AWS Marketplace business through resellers and integrators (July 2024).

Palo Alto Networks runs channel private offers through distributors with incentives neutral across routes. Two of the sixteen members of $1B Club are channel partners themselves - Presidio and WWT.

What share of revenue should we target?

That may be the wrong question.

Snowflake's 2025 AWS Marketplace sales were equivalent to ~45% of product revenue.

Salesforce added ~$3B in under a year on AWS — if this TCV is compared with its $41B ARR, it’s ~7%.

Both are at different stages and have different operating models.

The numbers that truly show direction are the growth rates.

Here, Marketplace TCV growth rates range from 2X to 4X+ the company-wide revenue or ARR growth rates:

Okta: AWS Marketplace TCV +45% vs revenue +12% (FY2026)
CrowdStrike: AWS Marketplace TCV +50% vs ARR +24% (FY2026)
Zscaler: all-cloud TCV more than doubled (i.e., >100% growth) vs ARR +25% (9 months FY2026)

How do we pay sellers and partners?

Route-neutral. Dynatrace rebuilt its GTM in April 2024 around partner-neutral compensation and hyperscaler co-sell; by Feb 2025 partner-originated new logos went from 30% to 50%+.

Okta had a "fighting year" internally, ending it with AWS Marketplace adoption as a major channel with its own revenue target — then came the growth year and now it’s a $1B Club member.

Expand to a second cloud now, or double down on the first?

Win one deeply first. CrowdStrike’s team picked one marketplace, reached top partner status, then expanded. It grew 3X faster on second marketplace: $150M+ of Google Cloud Marketplace deal value in year one (May 2025), and two seven-figure deals within five months of launching on Microsoft Marketplace (Aug 2026).

Is Marketplace incremental, or does it re-route deals we'd close anyway?

WWT: "40% of our marketplace business is actually net new" (Joshua Bushman, March 2025)
Dynatrace: Marketplace deals ~2x the size of direct (Feb 2025)
Salesforce: 2 of its top 5 deals in a quarter came through AWS Marketplace, as it was ramping up in mid-2025
In our broader research last year, 62% of respondents reported net-new deals from Marketplace

Does Marketplace cannibalise the channel?

Not where the channel was designed in. CrowdStrike moves "the vast majority" of its AWS Marketplace business through resellers and integrators (July 2024).

Palo Alto Networks runs channel private offers through distributors with incentives neutral across routes. Two of the sixteen members of $1B Club are channel partners themselves - Presidio and WWT.

What share of revenue should we target?

That may be the wrong question.

Snowflake's 2025 AWS Marketplace sales were equivalent to ~45% of product revenue.

Salesforce added ~$3B in under a year on AWS — if this TCV is compared with its $41B ARR, it’s ~7%.

Both are at different stages and have different operating models.

The numbers that truly show direction are the growth rates.

Here, Marketplace TCV growth rates range from 2X to 4X+ the company-wide revenue or ARR growth rates:

Okta: AWS Marketplace TCV +45% vs revenue +12% (FY2026)
CrowdStrike: AWS Marketplace TCV +50% vs ARR +24% (FY2026)
Zscaler: all-cloud TCV more than doubled (i.e., >100% growth) vs ARR +25% (9 months FY2026)

How do we pay sellers and partners?

Route-neutral. Dynatrace rebuilt its GTM in April 2024 around partner-neutral compensation and hyperscaler co-sell; by Feb 2025 partner-originated new logos went from 30% to 50%+.

Okta had a "fighting year" internally, ending it with AWS Marketplace adoption as a major channel with its own revenue target — then came the growth year and now it’s a $1B Club member.

Expand to a second cloud now, or double down on the first?

Scale to $100M+
via Cloud Marketplaces

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Scale to $100M+
via Cloud Marketplaces

Join 5,000 GTM leaders

Weekly Newsletter

Scale to $100M+
via Cloud Marketplaces

Join 5,000 GTM leaders

Weekly Newsletter

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16 companies have crossed $1B through AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud marketplaces. On Tuesday we launch the report on how they reached the milestone, what they built to get there, and what other teams can apply. Here are 5 hard questions every Cloud GTM leader asks, answered from our research.