Channel partners are the advisers and resellers a buyer already relies on, such as agencies, accountants, dealers, brokers and integrators, who sell, recommend or install a company's product. They earn from each account they bring in, through commissions, revenue shares, reseller margins or service fees.
Also calledchannel salesreseller channelpartner-led sales
How Channel Partners work
The adviser already has the buyer's trust, so the company reaches customers it could not reach cheaply with its own sales team. Because partners earn on every account, through commission, a revenue share, reseller margin or service fees, each new client gives them reason to recommend the product again. HubSpot's agency partners and their referrals made up 44% of its customers in 2014. Autodesk sold almost entirely through local dealers, more than 85% of sales by 1986.
Partners take a cut, and the company gives up some control over how it is sold and supported.
Dealer finds buyerLocal engineering and drafting firms
Dealer sells, installsEach dealer employs a drafting professional
Dealer supports itRequired to support every package sold
Reach scales4,000 dealers by 1990
How Autodesk sold AutoCAD in the 1980s: local dealers did the selling and support that Intergraph handled with its own salespeople.
How companies won with Channel Partners
From the win chains in Strategy Canon case studies: what the winner did, and what its rival did at the same step.
vs. BigCommerce
Shopify
Partners earn more than Shopify
What it did
Lifetime referral share for design firms; value split tilted to partners until they out-earned Shopify (2017-18)
BigCommerce
App billing only from 2025; revenue flowed from partners to BigCommerce