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Co-Sell Ready: What Microsoft Actually Checks Before Prioritizing Your Solution
Co-sell is the lever most ISVs underestimate. Get co-sell ready, and Microsoft sellers can find your solution in their internal catalogs. Get to Azure IP co-sell eligible, and Microsoft sellers are actively incentivized to put your name in front of their accounts, and your offer contributes to customer MACC commitments. The status is worth millions of dollars in influenced pipeline. The catch is that Microsoft has a precise checklist, and skipping any line item holds up the application.
Most ISVs find out the requirements when an application gets bounced back from Partner Center. Better to know up front. What follows lays out exactly what Microsoft checks for co-sell ready status, what it additionally checks for Azure IP co-sell eligibility, and the most common reasons applications get held up.
What is co-sell ready vs Azure IP co-sell eligible?
Microsoft defines two main co-sell statuses for ISV solutions, with a third tier for Business Applications. Each status unlocks a different level of Microsoft seller engagement.
Microsoft announced at Ignite November 2025 a new App Accelerate program (expected to launch in 2026) that adds an early co-sell access route for ISVs that have not yet reached the $100,000 ACR or Marketplace Billed Sales threshold.
What Microsoft checks for co-sell ready status
Co-sell ready is the foundation tier. Microsoft checks five items, all of which sit in Partner Center co-sell requirements. None of the five involves revenue or technical validation. The bar is publishing discipline.
1. Active Microsoft Marketplace account in Partner Center
Microsoft requires a verified PartnerID and an active Microsoft Marketplace account in Partner Center, with the company profile complete. Missing tax forms, banking details, or an unverified domain hold up everything else. Build the partner operations architecture once and reuse it across every offer.
2. A live, published offer in Microsoft Marketplace
The offer must be published live in the Microsoft Marketplace (the unified marketplace that replaced separate Azure Marketplace and AppSource in September 2025). Draft, hidden, or preview offers do not count. Apps and add-ins for Microsoft 365 (Teams, Outlook, Excel) are not eligible for co-sell ready status.
3. Solution one-pager and pitch deck in the co-sell solutions area
Microsoft requires a one-pager and a pitch deck submitted in the Co-sell > Solutions section of Partner Center. The collateral is what Microsoft sellers actually read when deciding whether to pitch your solution to a customer. Microsoft provides templates. Generic collateral with no use case detail is the most common reason a co-sell application gets held up.
4. Sales contacts by geography
Co-sell requires named sales contacts by geography so Microsoft sellers know who to route opportunities to. Single global contact rows for a worldwide solution fail review. Provide regional contacts (Americas, EMEA, APAC at minimum) with current email and phone.
5. Solution play alignment and category eligibility
Microsoft maps each co-sell solution to its solution plays and solution areas. Misaligned categorization (selecting a category your solution does not actually serve) holds up the application. Verify the solution plays the offer aligns to against the Microsoft solution area definitions before submitting.
What Microsoft additionally checks for Azure IP co-sell eligible
Azure IP co-sell eligible is the higher tier. Microsoft adds four checks on top of co-sell ready. All four are gates, not weights. Miss one, and the status is held until resolved.
1. $100,000 revenue threshold over the trailing 12 months
At the organization level, generate at least USD $100,000 of Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) or Marketplace Billed Sales (MBS) over the trailing 12-month period. Azure credits and ACO do not count toward the threshold. A focused compete migration engineering motion is often what gets an ISV across the line, because each migrated customer adds to ACR and counts on the same scoreboard.
2. Azure platformed technical validation
The solution must pass the Azure platformed technical validation process, which includes a reference architecture diagram review. The reference architecture goes into Partner Center alongside the co-sell documents. A disciplined AI app innovation practice keeps the architecture documented, current, and ready to submit.
3. Active Azure platforming at the transaction
The offer must be actively platformed on Microsoft Azure at the time of the transaction. Solutions that run partially on Azure and partially on other clouds get rejected unless the Azure-platformed component is the one being transacted. A clean data and AI platform sitting on Azure is what passes this inspection check. For new offers since July 11, 2023, transactability on the Microsoft Marketplace is required for Azure IP co-sell eligible status.
4. Solution type set to "IP."
The solution type in Partner Center must be set to "IP" (intellectual property), not "service" or "consulting." Services-only offers go through the services co-sell track, not IP co-sell. A mismatched solution type is a five-minute fix in Partner Center but a common holdup.
Common reasons co-sell applications get held up
Three issues account for most of the rejections. All three are preventable with a single review pass before submission.
1. Generic, templated collateral
The one-pager and pitch deck have to give a Microsoft seller a clear reason to pitch your solution. Lists of features with no use case, no buyer persona, and no proof point fail. Write the collateral for a Microsoft seller's customer conversation, not for your own marketing site.
2. Wrong solution play or solution area mapping
ISVs frequently select solution plays that loosely fit the product, hoping to appear in more searches. Microsoft sellers ignore loose matches. Mapping to the wrong solution area is the same problem. Get the Microsoft channel positioning right before submitting, not after.
3. Revenue threshold counted on the wrong meter
Some ISVs assume Azure credits or ACO consumption count toward the $100,000 threshold. Those do not. Only billed Azure Consumed Revenue and Marketplace Billed Sales count. Reconcile the meter early, and use the new Estimated ACR field on Partner Center referrals to flag full cloud impact on each opportunity.
Get the co-sell engine running on the right side of Microsoft's checklist
Co-sell ready and Azure IP co-sell eligible are not marketing badges. The statuses are the operational currency that decides whether Microsoft sellers know your name. Run the checklist above against your offer this week. If you want a second opinion before submission from a team that has built Microsoft co-sell motions for ISVs at scale, start a conversation with Valorem Reply.