Mythbusters: A "Contact me" listing lets me transact

Updated 10 Nov 2026 · FY27 (1 October 2026 to 30 June 2027)

The short answer. A Contact me listing does not let you transact. It is only a form, and no money moves through Microsoft. To sell through Microsoft, you need an offer with a price. Microsoft calls it transactable: Microsoft bills your customer, collects the money and pays you.

Watch the episode

Recorded before Microsoft's July 2026 program changes. For current amounts, see our FY27 guide.

Myth and reality (FY27)

Myth: A Contact me listing lets me transact on Microsoft Marketplace.

Reality: A Contact me listing is a form. You sell outside Microsoft entirely, so it does not count as billed sales. A Get it now offer with a price is transactable: Microsoft bills the customer, collects the money and pays you.

With a transactable offer, Microsoft sends the invoice for you. Your customer buys on the Microsoft agreement they already have. Microsoft keeps a 3% service fee and there is no listing fee.

That is also how a customer's Azure commitment (MACC) comes in. A purchase can count toward it only if the offer is Azure benefit eligible and the purchase is made in the Azure portal. A form cannot do that.

What the guest said

• A Contact me listing started as a way to show your solution and collect leads. It does not let anyone buy.
• Buyers can see your product, but they cannot buy it and pay inside the marketplace.
• Without a transactable offer, you miss out on easy buying, resale by cloud solution providers (CSPs) and a customer's pre-committed cloud budget.
• Microsoft's marketplace used to be a catalog. Today it is about listings that customers can buy directly, like a modern procurement process.
• A transactable offer can be self-serve, or it can be a negotiated private offer.
• A free trial lets a customer try the product, then convert to a paid plan in the marketplace.
• Bring your own license means deployment happens through the marketplace, while you handle billing yourself.
• Going transactable takes preparation, but he said it is typically smoother than most partners expect and worth the investment.

Does this apply to you?

• Yes, if your only Marketplace listing is "Contact me".
• Yes, if buyers ask to pay through Microsoft and you cannot offer that.
• Not yet, if you have no listing at all. Start with one offer.
• Not sure? Open your offer in Partner Center. If the listing option says Contact me, this episode is for you.

Full transcript

In the video, "ISV" (independent software vendor) means a software company. Microsoft's FY27 partner pages also say software development company (SDC).

Juan Castiblanques (host): Marketplace Mythbusters. Hello everyone, very welcome to another episode of the Marketplace Mythbusters. Today with me I have a very special guest, which is Johan Torfs. If you want to introduce yourself, Johan.

Johan Torfs (guest): Hello everyone. Happy to do so, and thanks for having me here. Excited to be here really, and looking forward to busting some myths today.

My name is Johan Torfs. I'm the ISV sales and startup lead at Microsoft Belgium. Prior to Microsoft, over 12 years, I was also a serial entrepreneur myself and ran some start-ups and scale-ups in cloud SaaS applications, data centers and virtualization. So happy to be here.

Juan: Very good. Thank you, Johan. So today we will debunk a new myth that has been around for a very long time, and many of you probably know about it. Are you ready for it? Are you ready, Johan?

Johan: Oh yes. Let's go for it.

Juan: Awesome. Myth of the day: a Contact me listing allows me to make transactions on the marketplace.

So Johan, what do you think about this? Is it true?

Johan: Well, it's a classic misconception. Let's maybe dig into why it is just a myth.

A Contact me listing started out as a way for Microsoft partners to showcase their solutions and gather new leads, but it doesn't enable an actual purchase or true transaction over the commercial marketplace of Microsoft. So in other words, buyers can see your product, they can see your service, but there's no way to purchase it directly and pay for it within the marketplace.

With the right marketplace experience, that actually means that you're missing out on the true marketplace benefits. First of all, the frictionless purchasing. There's no instant buying experience.

There is, of course, no Microsoft co-sell support. A Contact me offer is just a marketing listing, and it doesn't qualify.

There is also the commission structure for cloud solution providers, so partners cannot resell your solution. And finally, also the access to pre-committed enterprise cloud budgets, the so-called MACC. Customers cannot use the marketplace to fund your solution and buy it.

Juan: Right. So a Contact me listing might give a bit of visibility, but from what I've gathered, it's not how you close deals. Can you elaborate on why Microsoft is shifting away from the Contact me listing style?

Johan: Sure. Historically, the Microsoft marketplace was more of a catalog of partner solutions, but that strategy evolved significantly over the years. Today the marketplace is all about transactable listings, solutions that customers can buy directly. You have to see it as a modern procurement process.

That's why Microsoft is pushing our partners to move toward transactable options. There are three. The first one is the free trial listing. As an ISV, as a customer, you can try a solution for free before you convert it to a paid solution.

The second option is bring your own license. Deployment then happens through the marketplace, but software licensing is handled separately.

The third one is the transactable listing, the so-called Get it now. For this one, customers can buy directly within the marketplace, streamlining their procurement and co-sell motions.

Juan: Very good definition. Thank you very much. That makes sense. Can you break down the differences between these four listing types, so our viewers and listeners understand why a Contact me isn't the best option?

Johan: Absolutely. Let me give you a breakdown, and stay with me.

First of all, the Contact me listing is the most basic listing type. Customers can see your solution, but they cannot buy it through the marketplace. It requires a separate outreach and negotiation with you as an ISV, and you do not get recognized for co-sell benefits or procurement automation. So that's just a listing, as it says, a Contact me listing.

Then the free trial listing is the second one. It allows potential customers to test it before they buy. [Passage removed: it covered Microsoft programs that changed in July 2026.] After the trial, customers can convert to a paid version directly on the marketplace, and it helps drive adoption and conversion.

Then there is bring your own license. That's a mix of marketplace deployment and direct selling. Customers can provision the solution through the marketplace but buy the license separately. The deployment is handled over the marketplace, but the billing is managed by you as an ISV.

And then, of course, the fourth one is the transactable listing, the Get it now offering. This is the best option for scaling and using the Microsoft commercial marketplace sales. Customers can purchase immediately, in a self-service way, with Get it now, or through negotiated private offers. So it doesn't have to be self-serve, it can just be negotiated. You can have it as a private offer or as a self-serve Get it now.

Then the Microsoft sellers and cloud solution providers, the CSPs as we call them, can resell your solution, and customers can use their pre-committed marketplace budgets to buy your solution directly.

Juan: Okay. So if I'm hearing correctly, if we rely as publishers, as software producers, as software creators, on the Contact me when we are listing on the marketplace, we are pretty much missing out on a huge slice of what the marketplace has to offer. What do you think?

Johan: Exactly. That's correct. [Passage removed: it covered Microsoft programs that changed in July 2026.]

Juan: Mhm. So what about partners who are worried about the technical complexity of setting up a transactable offer, a transactable listing?

Johan: It's a great question, and a question we get quite often. Yes, building a transactable offer does take some preparation, but Microsoft provides a lot of resources to make it easier, and there are actually three ways to do so.

[Passage removed: it covered Microsoft programs that changed in July 2026.]

The second one is implementation by partners. Let me refer here to WeTransact, where we have excellent references and which we really recommend to speed things up. You are experts in making transactable listings simple and seamless. You actually offer marketplace, as WeTransact, as a transactable offer as a service.

And then the third one is the marketplace playbooks and best practices. It's well documented as well. Within Microsoft's documentation, you can find step-by-step guidance on pricing, on how to set up metering, and on the setup of a marketplace offer.

So with this support, the implementation partners like WeTransact and the playbooks and best practices, going transactable is typically smoother than most partners expect, and it's absolutely worth the investment.

Juan: So the big takeaway is a Contact me listing won't actually let us close deals on the marketplace. But if you want real marketplace success, if you want to close deals on the marketplace, you need to move to a transactable listing.

Johan: Exactly. The shift from Contact me to a Get it now offer unlocks the real power of the marketplace. Co-sell support, procurement simplification and access to Microsoft's massive enterprise customer base is there.

Juan: Very good. Perfect, Johan. Thanks for shedding light on this myth and showing why a Contact me basically means no real deal. Now, before we wrap up, who would you like to nominate as our next Marketplace Mythbuster guest?

Johan: That's a difficult question, because there are so many people I can recommend who have great experience. What comes to mind first is one of my dear colleagues, Yan Alber, who is the ISV lead for Sweden. He has great insights on how to apply marketplace for metered offers, and I think he'd be a great fit for this series that you're handling. So that's the one I would nominate.

Juan: So definitely Johan Alber, we are coming after you in the next one. I know him as well, so I will be very happy to host him.

Johan: That sounds fantastic.

Juan: Okay. Thank you very much, Johan, for joining us on this Marketplace today. And thanks to all of you for watching and listening.

Johan: Yes. And remember, it's go for the Get it now offer. It's really a worthy investment. Thank you.

Juan: Very good. Thank you. Have a good day all. Bye.

Marketplace Mythbusters.

Frequently asked questions

Can I transact with a Contact me listing?

No. A Contact me listing is a form, and you sell outside Microsoft. To have Microsoft bill your customer and pay you, you need a transactable offer.

What is the difference between Contact me and Get it now?

Contact me collects a lead, and you sell outside Microsoft. Get it now with a price is transactable: Microsoft bills the customer, collects the money and pays you.

Does a Contact me listing count toward a customer's Azure commitment?

No. Only a purchase made through Microsoft can count. The offer must also be Azure benefit eligible, and the customer must buy it in the Azure portal.

Want the full picture?

Everything here is also in our complete guide to Microsoft FY27 Marketplace incentives, with plain-words notes for newcomers. Get the complete FY27 guide

Not sure which incentive fits your company?

Ask for your free Microsoft Incentives Assessment: a personalized report of every incentive your company can claim, what each is worth, and the order to claim them. Free, no obligation. No Partner Center login needed to start. Ask for your free Assessment

The other FY27 incentives

• Azure sponsorship
• AI Build & Publish for Marketplace
• AI Build & Publish for the Agent Store
• Customer Assessment & POV
• Customer Migrate & Modernize
• Co-selling with Microsoft

Based on Microsoft's FY27 Partner Investments material and the Frontier Accelerate for Marketplace pages on Microsoft Learn. Microsoft may change its programs at any time, and every payout needs Microsoft's approval. Amounts are in USD.