How to Get Your Software Discovered on AWS Marketplace

Getting Your Listing Found Is the Hard Part

Putting software on AWS Marketplace is the easy half. The harder half is getting a buyer to actually find it among the other listings, and AWS doesn't hand you a growth button for that. What it does give you is a handful of fields that decide how your listing reads and where it shows up, a few commercial tools, and a co-sell program.

This guide covers all three, plus the part most listings skip: the content around the listing. We sell Meetrix images on AWS Marketplace ourselves, so I'll mention what we do on our side where it helps, and I'll stick to what AWS documents for the rest. I can't promise a ranking, because AWS doesn't publish how search ranks listings, and nobody outside AWS knows the formula.

How Buyers Find Software

There's more than one way into your listing, and they need different work:

• Search and browsing inside AWS Marketplace. AWS's own guide says discovery here depends on keywords, categories, and highlights.
• Search engines. AWS notes that listings should also be findable through ordinary SEO, so a buyer googling your category can land on you.
• AWS account teams, when you co-sell and register opportunities with AWS through the ACE program.
• Private offers, when you already have the customer and use Marketplace as the purchase channel. We covered how buyers think about this in our guide to self-hosting software on AWS.

Step 1: Get the Listing Fields Right

These are the fields AWS points to, with its guidance from the AWS startup listing guide, the AWS Marketplace best-practices post, and the metadata page in the Seller Guide.

Limits can differ by product type, so check the Seller Guide for the numbers that apply to yours when you fill the fields in.

AWS also gives sellers a search performance dashboard in the AWS Marketplace Management Portal. Per AWS's user guide, it shows your current keywords, the keywords in the top searches for your product, recommended keywords for similar products, impressions and click-through rates, and optimization suggestions for fields like the description. Access may depend on your seller program, so check what your account can see. It's worth opening before you rewrite those fields. AWS also notes that keywords are only one factor: your short and long descriptions, and features such as free trials, affect search results too.

The point of all of it is the same: say clearly what the product is, in the words a buyer uses. AWS's own best-practice post puts it as showing value that addresses customer challenges and explaining why someone should buy it through AWS Marketplace. A listing that names the proprietary tool it replaces, such as "a self-hosted Slack alternative" or "an Auth0 alternative," gives search something to match.

Step 2: Pricing, Trials, and Offers

Pricing is part of discovery, because a buyer who can't tell what it costs usually moves on. AWS requires public pricing on every listing, even if you plan to sell mainly through private offers. If a tier has no public price, AWS's best-practice post suggests adding a note at the end of the description that points buyers to a sales contact.

• Pricing model. AWS describes pay-as-you-go (hourly, monthly, or usage-based) and up-front contracts (monthly, annual, or multi-year). Define the model clearly so buyers can compare.
• Free trials. AWS's guide says trials are set up in the AWS Marketplace Management Portal, last from 7 to 90 days, and help with visibility, trust, and customer data. Product types differ, so check the seller guide for yours.
• Private offers. They let you give a specific customer custom pricing and terms. AWS notes they suit enterprise buyers with compliance or budget needs, and a private offer is also how you move a trial customer to a paid plan.

Step 3: Documentation That Sells

AWS asks for setup instructions, system requirements, integration details, and support protocols, plus a support contact on the listing. For regulated industries, it says to document security measures and compliance certifications. A buyer who can't see how to get started in the first five minutes doesn't subscribe.

This is the cheapest improvement for most listings. We write a developer guide for each product: a step-by-step walkthrough of launching, pointing DNS, signing in, and troubleshooting. You can see the shape in our Keycloak developer guide, the Coturn developer guide, and the Rancher developer guide. Each one is linked from its page in our store.

Step 4: Content Outside the Listing

The listing is one page. A search engine has little to rank when that page is short, and AWS itself says listings should be findable through SEO. So we publish content that does the explaining and send readers to the listing:

• A developer guide per product, as above, aimed at people who have already decided
• A product article for each marketplace listing, covering what the product is, who it suits, and how it compares, like Rancher on AWS Marketplace and Flowise on AWS Marketplace
• Comparison and explainer articles for the questions people search before they choose, such as the best collaboration tools on AWS Marketplace
• A video walkthrough, where the product has one

Our guides and product articles link back to the Marketplace listing, so a reader who finishes one has an obvious next click. I cannot show you a growth number for this, because I have not measured it in a way I would put in print. The logic is simple, though: the listing tells buyers what you sell, and the content tells search engines and buyers why.

Step 5: Getting AWS on Your Side

AWS's own guidance puts marketing next to the listing: it says how you promote the offering is a good predictor of how successful you'll be. What it recommends:

• Join the AWS Partner Network and, if you're eligible, co-sell through the ACE program (APN Customer Engagements). ACE is where you register opportunities so AWS account teams can see them.
• Tie Marketplace to your co-sell pipeline. Since October 2024, Partner Central lets you associate a private offer with a launched opportunity, and since July 2026 you can attach Marketplace solutions and product listings to co-sell opportunities, so you can track a deal from pipeline to customer offer.
• Publish a launch press release, and write tutorial-style posts for the AWS Marketplace blog.
• Use the 180-day GTM Academy, a self-service set of campaign resources.

Co-sell is slower than a good title, and for a small seller it can be out of reach at first. AWS's ISV Accelerate program page, for example, lists requirements such as a generally available product on Marketplace, ACE eligibility with Validated or Differentiated status, at least 5 launched opportunities (ACE or Marketplace private offers) in the past 12 months, and at least 15 qualified opportunities in ACE. Those requirements have changed between versions of the program, so check Partner Central before you plan around them. It's worth knowing about because it's where larger deals come from. Third-party sources say some Marketplace spend can count toward a buyer's commitments with AWS, but I couldn't confirm the rules from AWS's own pages, so ask your AWS contact before you promise a customer anything about it.

Common Mistakes

• A clever title. It has to work as a search title tag, so lead with brand, product, and what it does.
• Marketing language. AWS says to avoid excessive marketing language and filler, and buyers feel it too.
• Hidden pricing. Public pricing is required, and a buyer can't compare what they can't see.
• No documentation link. If setup is a mystery, the listing converts nobody.
• Ignoring everything outside AWS. A listing with no content behind it is easy to miss.
• Chasing a ranking trick. AWS publishes no formula. Spend the time on clear metadata and good documentation instead.

Where I'd Start