Selling where a marketplace bills
How a sale through a cloud marketplace or an app store works: the marketplace charges the buyer, pays you later, and each sale lands in your books.
Some buyers spend only through a bill they already have: a cloud marketplace, an app store. There the marketplace charges the buyer and pays your Startup later, and every sale still lands as an Order in your books.
Who does what
| Part | On your own checkout | Through a marketplace that bills |
|---|---|---|
| Charges the buyer | Your Stripe account | The marketplace |
| Seller of record | Your Startup | Your Startup on cloud marketplaces; the store itself on App Store and Google Play |
| Collects sales tax | Your Startup, calculated on Stripe | The marketplace, where it collects |
| Pays you | On your payout schedule, less Stripe's fee | On the marketplace's schedule, less its fee |
| Accepts its terms | Not needed | The Contracts Manager, within its signing Limit |
| A chargeback | Your Startup answers it | The marketplace's terms decide it |
The buyer gets the same Entitlements either way, because the listing sells your existing Offer. The platform moves no money in this path; the marketplace pays you directly.
Where it works
| Where | Buyers who pay there |
|---|---|
| AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace, Google Cloud Marketplace | Buyers spending a committed cloud budget; private offers carry a negotiated price |
| App Store, Google Play | Anyone buying a phone app or an in-app plan |
| Shopify App Store, Salesforce AppExchange | Merchants and sales teams adding to the tool they run on |
Each connects as an Integration on Billing, with the marketplace as its venue.
How a sale reaches your books
Each sync imports the marketplace's new sales and payout statements. A sale becomes an Order with collectedBy set to the marketplace, and the buyer becomes a Customer holding the Offer.
A payout statement posts ledger Entries: the full sale as revenue, the marketplace fee as an expense, and the payout against what the marketplace owed. The revenue counts as outside revenue, the same as a card payment on your own checkout.
When to list
List where your buyer's money already sits. A company with unspent cloud commitment buys a $24,000 plan there in a week. Through its own procurement, the same plan takes a quarter.
Skip it for self-serve buyers who already pay by card. The marketplace fee buys you nothing they were not going to do on your pricing page.
Next
- Sell on AWS Marketplace: the ask.
- Enterprise deals: private plans, quotes and invoices on your own rail.
- Revenue counting: what counts as outside revenue.