Google Cloud said today it wants to transform its Cloud Marketplace into a “growth engine” for its customers and partners with a new economic model, simplified purchases and more incentives for everyone.

In a blog post, Google Cloud Marketplace Managing Director Dai Vu said the platform is an integral part of the go-to-market strategy of its partners, and extremely valuable for customers, offering a universal catalog of enterprise technologies.

But Google wants to make it even more important for its partners, and to that end it’s shifting to a new, variable revenue share model that Vu said should have the effect of increasing their earnings.

Google’s revenue share will range from a maximum of 3% to as low as 1.5% for some eligible partners, depending on the specifics of each deal. The new model, outlined in the table below, takes into account attributes such as the deal size, renewals, channel shift and migrations, and aims to help partners improve their deal economics and make more money.

Partners including the data streaming service provider Confluent Inc. have welcomed the changes. “We are increasingly seeing demand from customers to transact deals of all sizes on Google Cloud Marketplace,” said Confluent Chief Product Officer Shaun Clowes. “Google Cloud’s updated approach to variable and deal-level revenue share will help better align our go-to-market strategies and generate more revenue at scale.”

The second change involves a 100% commit drawdown for all qualifying software purchases through Google Cloud Marketplace Channel Private Offers, starting from June 9, Vu said.

The 100% commit drawdown will be tied to the final price on the private offer, he added, in a change that simplifies the company’s policy for purchases made via Google-authorized channel partners. It refers to Google’s Marketplace Channel Private Offers, a program that allows customers to purchase independent software vendor solutions through Google Cloud Marketplace via their chosen channel partner. It will enable the full qualifying amount of the private offer, up to an allowable 25% cap, to be applied to each customer’s minimum commitment obligation.

Vu explained that the change builds on Google Cloud’s commitment to supporting improved partner earnings and will enable companies to choose the best solutions to meet their needs.

Olav Østbye, chief executive of a security software partner called O3 Cyber AS, said his company sees greater value in Google’s Cloud Marketplace model. “Unlike with other cloud marketplaces, we quickly learned that with Google Cloud Marketplace, we would be able to recognize the topline revenue of the transaction, and not only the margin,” he said. “This has been a key differentiating factor for us and sets the scene for future engagements using Google Cloud Marketplace as a key strategic vehicle for us.”

The final update sees Google Cloud enhancing customer incentives with the launch of a new Marketplace Customer Credit Program in general availability. According to Vu, the incentives are designed to help partners to secure net new workloads by offering customers credits that can be applied to their purchases of first-party services on the marketplace.

He explained that customers can obtain up to 3% in Google Cloud credits when they purchase an eligible product for the first time, and believes this will help partners to attract more new deals and close on them faster.

The updates to Google Cloud Marketplace’s economics come about a month after Google introduced a new category specifically for artificial intelligence agents. The AI Agent Marketplace is a special section that’s dedicated to agentic AI offerings. Google said at the time it will make it easier for customers to discover, buy and deploy AI agents, which can automate various manual tasks on behalf of human users.

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