When software became consumption-based, the partner economics flipped. The partner who used to refer the deal once now influences the recurring usage forever.
That changed who the cloud cared about, what they paid them for, and how the partner ecosystem organized itself around joint revenue rather than channel transactions.
Three downstream consequences: cloud-marketplace transaction (now ~60% of hyperscaler partner-routed business), private offer mechanics replaced traditional channel discounting, and consumption pricing made partner influence directly measurable in usage telemetry — not just at deal close.
What practitioners ask
“What is the consumption era in software?” “How did pay-per-use change partner economics?” “Why are cloud marketplaces becoming the new channel?”
The answer
The consumption era is the structural shift from perpetual licenses and seat-based SaaS to pay-per-use pricing — where revenue is recognized against actual usage rather than booked commitments. Forrester frames it bluntly: “SaaS as we know it is dead”, and seat-based contracts are giving way to consumption and outcome-based pricing as AI agents enter the stack. The economic center of gravity moves from the deal close to ongoing customer adoption.
That reorganizes partner economics from the ground up. Jay McBain’s framing is that channel programs must shift from “recognizing/paying at the point of sale to recognizing/paying at the point of (partner) value” — across the entire customer journey, not just at deal close. The partner who used to earn a one-time referral fee now influences recurring usage forever, and gets paid against that influence. By McBain’s own later work, 89% of sellers now use partners every day, and the average enterprise customer touches seven partners on its way to value — heading toward seventeen.
The cloud marketplaces are where this gets transacted. Hyperscaler marketplace sales are projected to grow from $30 billion in 2024 to $163 billion by 2030, a 29% CAGR, against roughly $470 billion of customer-committed cloud spend. Partners facilitate nearly 60% of those marketplace transactions through partner private offers, distributor models, and co-sell motions — the marketplaces are not displacing the channel; they are routing it.
The downstream effect: consumption telemetry makes partner influence directly measurable in usage data — not just at deal close. The partner who keeps a customer dancing all night long is now visible in the same dashboard as the partner who got them on the dance floor.
Related concepts
- 80t-ecosystem — the addressable economic surface that consumption pricing unlocked
- subscription-shift — the precursor pricing change that set up the consumption era
- cosell-convergence — the partner motion the consumption era forced
- co-keeping — partner role redefined around recurring usage, not deal close
- Marketplace as a sales floor — the routing layer for consumption-era transactions