Share via

Enroll in the Cloud Solution Provider program

Appropriate roles: Global admin

Overview

The rapidly growing demand for cloud-based solutions and services provides many opportunities for Microsoft partners of all sizes to build profitable cloud solution businesses. Partners can enroll for Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) authorization as indirect resellers when they:

  • Are ready to enter the market, but don't want to manage multiple vendors
  • Don't have an end-to-end customer relationship management infrastructure in place

As an indirect reseller in CSP, you work with distributors (formerly indirect providers) who have a direct relationship with Microsoft. In the distributor-reseller (two-tier) model, the distributor buys cloud solutions and services from Microsoft that you then resell to customers. Different distributors offer various support and services. Evaluate the distributors in your CSP region to determine which ones best meet your needs. Generally, most distributors:

  • Provide you with technical training and assistance
  • Help you market your products and services
  • Help you establish financing and credit terms

If you're not already working with a distributor, you can search the list of Microsoft distributors to find ones to contact about establishing a partnership.

For more information about how to sell as a CSP indirect reseller, see Get started as an indirect reseller.

Enroll as a CSP indirect reseller

Before you begin

As of October 2020, all Microsoft partners new to CSP should enroll for indirect reseller authorization. To enroll for indirect reseller authorization, you must first create an account in the Partner Center. To do so, provide the following information during the enrollment process:

  • Global administrator credentials for your work account You must provide the username and password you use to sign in to Microsoft 365, Azure, or Dynamics CRM. If you don't know whether you already have a work account, see Work accounts and the Partner Center.
  • Your company's legal business name, address, primary contact, and support details We require this information to confirm that your company has an established profile with Microsoft and that you're authorized to act on Microsoft’s behalf as a partner.

It might take us several days to review and verify the information you provided. We email your primary contact when we complete the review.

Get started

  1. To begin the enrollment process, go to the Welcome page to register.

  2. Review the Welcome page to be sure you have the necessary information required to enroll.

  3. Sign in with the username and password you use as a global admin for Microsoft 365, Azure, or Dynamics CRM.
    If you don't have a work account, select Create work account to set one up. After you create your work account, sign in using the global admin credentials for your new account.

  4. Associate your Partner Location Account (PLA) ID with your CSP account. Note that:

    • Only PLA IDs (formerly Microsoft Partner Network {MPN} IDs) are valid for POR assignments
    • PGA IDs (global account IDs) aren't accepted for CSP transactions
    • Only PLA IDs are valid for POR assignments.
    1. Sign in to Partner Center with your Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program (MAICPP) account credentials. These credentials might be different from your CSP credentials.
    2. Select the Settings (gear) icon, > Account settings, > Organization Profile, > Identifiers.
    3. Find the PLA ID with the Type Location that matches the business address of this CSP account. If you can't find it, you can add a new location that creates a new PLA ID, see Manage locations.

    Note

    You can postpone step four (4) for now. But you can't accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) or transact in CSP until you associate your PLA ID with your CSP account.

  5. Provide or update your company's legal business profile, primary contact information, and customer support information.

    You can either look up your company profile or enter company information manually. If your company is registered with Dun & Bradstreet, use the DUNS ID to look up your company information. If you want to provide your company details yourself, select Enter manually.

    For some countries or regions, when you enter your address manually, we validate your address for you. If the address you enter differs from the validated one, we suggest you use the validated address. This step ensures that the elements of the address are standardized as defined by the country/region's postal authority, correctly formatted, and that the address can receive postal mail and parcels.

    The primary contact is the person in your company we can contact about your enrollment. This contact can be anyone in your company, as long as they have a work email address on your company domain. We don't accept email addresses from Web-based email services such as Gmail, Yahoo! mail, iCloud mail, AOL mail, or Outlook mail.

    Important

    To help ensure your company's security and privacy, we email your primary contact to verify that:

    • They enrolled for a Partner Center account
    • The account’s email domain belongs to your company

    After the primary contact verifies their email address, we continue our review of the information you provided. We email enrollment status updates to the primary contact.

  6. After Microsoft completes your business verification, which takes 3-5 business days, accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) on the Agreements page using Global admin credentials. To view and download the MPA before signing it, select the View link. If your account is still in the verification stage after five business days, read the account verification process.

  7. Confirm that you accepted the MPA on the Program Info section of the Legal Info page. The indirect reseller status should be Active.

  8. When your Partner Center account is ready to use, verify that you were added as an admin agent. To finish setting up your account, including the addition of other users, you must have admin agent status. Follow these steps to view or update your permissions:

    1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Settings (gear) icon.
    2. Select Account settings, then select User management.
    3. Select your name from the list of users. Then, select Admin agent, if not already denoted.
    4. Select Update.

Connect with a distributor

By working with a distributor, you can offer a broader selection of Microsoft's cloud-based services and solutions to your customers. Distributors have the systems and infrastructure to offer a robust level of channel management and support. Relying on them in this way lets you focus on your technology solutions and customer engagements.

If you're not already working with a distributor, you can search the list of Microsoft distributors. When you find a distributor you want to partner with, contact them directly to discuss their reseller programs, level of support, and terms. If you and the distributor want to work together, you need to establish a partnership in Partner Center.

If a distributor wants to partner with you, they initiate the following workflow:

  1. The distributor emails you an invitation to authorize them to be your distributor. The email includes a link to associate your tenant with the distributor's tenant.

  2. To accept the invitation, select the link in the distributor’s email. You might need to sign in to Partner Center again.

  3. To confirm the partnership with the distributor, check the box next to the distributor’s and then select Authorize indirect provider. The distributor will now be listed on your Indirect providers page and your company is now listed on the distributor’s Indirect resellers page.

    Note

    When you establish a partnership with a distributor, you're authorizing them to submit orders and add subscriptions on behalf of your customers, and you're granting them administrator access to your company's work account. After your partnership with the distributor is established, you can remove the distributor’s administrator access to your work account in the Office 365 portal.

  4. Select Indirect providers from your Partner Center menu to see a list of the distributors with whom you have a partnership.

  5. Select View customers to see a list of the customers you and the distributor share.

  6. Select Invite new customers to send a reseller relationship request that includes both you and your distributor. Be sure to have the customer's email address on hand so you can email the invitation to them.

    Important

    Partner of Record (POR) Validation Requirements: Starting September 1, 2025, Microsoft will enforce POR validation for all CSP indirect reseller transactions. To ensure compliance:

    • The Partner Location Account ID (PLA ID) must be valid and associated with an active CSP indirect reseller tenant.
    • The business address must match the CSP region of the distributor.
    • The reseller must be properly authorized in Partner Center. If these conditions are not met, the transaction will be blocked and an error message will be returned. See Partner with indirect resellers in the Cloud Solution Provider program.  

    Important

    Your distributor must have a reseller relationship with your customers to submit orders on their behalf.

Your CSP region and the regions where you do business

Your legal business location as a CSP indirect reseller determines the distributors with whom you can work and the regions where you can do CSP business. See Cloud Solution Provider program regional markets and currencies where you can sell CSP offers.

Related content

Other resources

To learn: