Cloud sales made quicker: The complete guide to ‘Buy with AWS’

The modern B2B software buyer faces an interesting paradox. On the one hand, they expect software procurements to mimic their retail experiences—immediate, self-directed, and frictionless. On the other hand, they're bound by enterprise procurement policies, approval workflows, and budget constraints.

AWS's latest innovation directly addresses this paradox. 'Buy with AWS' lets software vendors embed a simple purchase button on their websites, enabling customers to instantly purchase solutions using their pre-approved AWS commits, right from the vendor's website.

The timing of this innovation is particularly significant, given the accelerating trend of enterprise cloud commitments. Organizations are increasingly shifting their software budgets into Enterprise Discount Programs (EDPs) with cloud providers, pre-negotiating significant savings in exchange for committed spend. These commitments represent pre-approved, readily available budgets—traditionally accessible through the AWS Marketplace.

For ISVs, this isn't just another checkout option—it's a strategic lever that aligns with how modern enterprises want to buy and manage their software investments. To understand how to leverage this opportunity, let's first explore how Buy with AWS transforms the traditional procurement experience.

What is Buy with AWS?

Traditional software procurement often involves navigating between vendor websites and cloud marketplaces, creating multiple accounts, and managing separate billing relationships. Buy with AWS fundamentally transforms this experience by bringing AWS Marketplace capabilities directly to vendor websites.

A suite of procurement options through a choice of four different Buy with AWS buttons

Buy with AWS represents more than just a single purchase button—it's a comprehensive suite of procurement options that cater to different stages of the buying journey:

The primary ‘Buy with AWS’ button enables immediate fixed-price purchases using AWS commits directly from your website. This streamlines the procurement process for customers who are ready to buy, eliminating the need to navigate to the AWS Marketplace listing.

For prospects earlier in their journey, the ‘Try free with AWS’ button facilitates instant access to free trials, while the ‘Request demo’ button connects interested customers directly with your sales team. When customers require custom pricing, the ‘Request private offer’ button initiates the private offer process—all without leaving your website.

Enhanced visibility into the buying process

One of the most significant advantages of Buy with AWS is its advanced analytics capabilities. While traditional AWS Marketplace listings offer limited visibility into customer interactions, Buy with AWS provides comprehensive point-of-sale marketing data. Every step of the customer journey—from initial button clicks to actions on the AWS-facilitated purchase page—is tracked and measurable.

How ‘Buy with AWS’ works

The process maintains enterprise-grade security while delivering consumer-grade simplicity:

1. Customers engage with their preferred Buy with AWS button on your website
2. They are taken to the purchase action page facilitated by AWS and authenticate using their existing AWS credentials
3. Based on their selection:
   
   • Fixed-price purchases are processed through their AWS account using available commitments
   • Trial requests are automatically provisioned
   • Demo and private offer requests are routed to your sales team
4. All interactions are tracked, providing valuable insights into customer behavior and procurement patterns

This integration creates a seamless connection between your direct sales channel and AWS Marketplace while providing the analytics needed to continuously optimize the buying experience.

Procurement analytics and buyer behavior tracking through Buy with AWS

Since Buy with AWS merges the convenience of marketplace-based procurement with the control that ISVs find within their native environment, leveraging conventional mechanisms to track point-of-sale buyer actions becomes a critical need. AWS now addresses this through comprehensive analytics capabilities that span the entire purchasing process, from initial button engagement to final transaction completion.

Every interaction in the procurement journey becomes a measurable touchpoint—when potential customers engage with Buy with AWS buttons, authenticate their credentials, and complete their purchases on AWS-facilitated pages. This creates a continuous thread of buyer intelligence that revenue teams can leverage for strategic decision-making.

This connected intelligence provides unprecedented visibility into the complete customer journey, from initial marketing touchpoints through to marketplace transactions. Revenue teams gain actionable insights into channel effectiveness, buyer engagement patterns, and procurement preferences, enabling data-driven optimization of the entire sales process.

‍Note: Point-of-sale (i.e. purchase page) analytics is only available through a custom integration between your Buy with AWS set-up and Amazon’s analytics feature.

Strategic implementation of Buy with AWS

Leading software companies are demonstrating innovative approaches to implementing Buy with AWS, each addressing specific business challenges while enhancing their marketplace strategy. Their experiences offer valuable insights for ISVs considering implementation.

‍Confluent's implementation illuminates the power of Buy with AWS for new customer acquisition. They identified a critical challenge in their marketing funnel: the disconnect between website traffic and marketplace purchases.

When prospects were directed from Confluent's website to the AWS Marketplace, tracking their journey became impossible, making marketing ROI calculations unreliable. By implementing the Try with AWS button, Confluent transformed this challenge into an opportunity.

The impact was significant in two ways:

• First, prospects could initiate trials directly from Confluent's website, eliminating the need to search for listings on the AWS Marketplace
• Second, Confluent gained clear visibility into their marketing effectiveness, connecting their lead generation investments directly to marketplace engagement

This alignment strengthened their AWS partnership by demonstrating measurable marketplace contribution from their traditional marketing channels.

Databricks took a different but equally strategic approach, positioning Buy with AWS as a payment option within their buyer interface. This implementation acknowledges the evolving role of cloud commits in enterprise software procurement.

With AWS's marketplace fees now capped at 3%, comparable to standard credit card processing fees, cloud commit transactions have become an economically compelling payment method. Their approach demonstrates how Buy with AWS can enhance existing purchase workflows rather than replacing them.

These implementations reveal three critical principles for ISVs considering Buy with AWS deployment.

1. Integration should address specific business challenges while complementing existing sales motions.
2. The feature's positioning—whether for new customer acquisition or payment optimization—should align with clear strategic objectives.
3. Implementation timing can create meaningful competitive advantages as enterprise cloud commit spending continues to accelerate.

‍Note: While Buy with AWS buttons can be implemented independently, maximizing their impact often requires careful integration with your existing sales and analytics infrastructure.

As Buy with AWS continues to gain adoption, it's worth examining how it fundamentally transforms the traditional marketplace sales cycle.

Accelerating cloud sales: Traditional AWS Marketplace procurement and Buy with AWS

The path from decision to purchase in traditional AWS Marketplace transactions often introduces a few additional steps beyond the decision phase in a customer’s buying journey.

When buyers discover your solution on your website, they must then navigate to AWS Marketplace, search for your listing again, and complete multiple steps to finalize their purchase. This extended journey not only creates opportunities for customer drop-off but also fragments the buying experience at precisely the moment when streamlined execution matters most.

Buy with AWS fundamentally reshapes this dynamic. By bringing marketplace capabilities directly to your website, it induces retail-like simplicity in software purchases while preserving the governance and financial advantages of utilizing cloud commits. It transforms what was once a multi-step process into a streamlined transaction that satisfies both the need for speed and the requirements of enterprise procurement.

At Clazar, we've experienced these advantages firsthand. Our implementation of Buy with AWS has enabled us to streamline procurement for our customers while gaining deeper insights into our marketplace performance.

If you’re ready to transform your marketplace strategy, our experts can guide you through implementing Buy with AWS effectively, ensuring you maximize its potential for your business.

Or, you can check how Clazar uses the 'Buy with AWS' feature here: