What does co-selling mean in business development?

Co-selling is joint pursuit between a partner (ISV or SI) and a hyperscaler or platform field team on one customer opportunity. Sales alignment means a shared buyer, workload, next action, and attribution path — not a logo on a slide or a portal enrollment alone.

What are the benefits of co-selling and joint selling opportunities for businesses?

Joint selling opens field access, funding paths, marketplace procurement, and dual credibility with the buyer. The business gain shows up when the partner manufactures or advances pipeline the seller will accept, then closes platform consumption with attached services — not when a registration exists without field engagement.

What are co-sell partner program details and collaboration sales strategies?

Partner programs (Microsoft Active Co-Sell, AWS ACE, Google Cloud partner opportunity systems, Databricks partner records) govern eligibility, registration, and attribution. Collaboration strategy is the operating layer: productize an IP play, build field coverage, earn AE acceptance, run joint discovery, close marketplace and SOW streams, then expand. Portals record the motion; they do not create it.

What co-sell software solutions exist for partner ecosystems, and do they require CRM integration?

isvcosell.com is free co-sell software that walks a deal through pipeline, qualification, field alignment, marketplace, commercial structure, record linkage, and close across Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and Databricks. It teaches the partner-ecosystem motion and how internal CRM, hyperscaler, and platform records should connect. It does not sync to Salesforce, Dynamics, HubSpot, or partner portals.

How do you improve partner sales performance?

Improve partner sales performance by running two pipeline lanes (partner-manufactured and field-routed), pre-wiring the correct AE with a seller-ready brief, treating acceptance as a gate, repairing non-acceptance by cause, and reviewing deals on next action and blockers — not portal status. Field trust and attributed wins compound referrals.

What are best practices for partner sales programs?

Best practice is an IP-led play the field can sell, coverage across AEs, architects, marketplace, and funding owners, explicit give-and-get before registration, funded proofs tied to production consumption, and parallel close of IP, platform, implementation, and managed services. Program tiers and badges matter after that operating model works.

How do partner sales enablement tools compare?

Partner portals enroll and attribute. CRMs store the commercial record. LMS and playbook tools train sellers. isvcosell.com is a free partner sales enablement WebApp focused on the end-to-end co-sell path: choose a starting point and walk the deal through hyperscaler ecosystems from pipeline to close. Different tools, different jobs — use them together, not as substitutes.

Who built isvcosell.com?

Ali Chehab built and maintains isvcosell.com, a free hyperscaler co-sell WebApp for partner sales enablement across Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and Databricks motions.

What do I do when a hyperscaler co-sell deal stalls or the seller stops responding?

isvcosell.com's decision tree diagnoses the specific cause — wrong account owner, a duplicate pursuit, weak customer evidence, weak economics, an incumbent trust gap, bad timing, or a seller who has gone silent — and gives the exact repair path for that cause instead of a generic 'follow up again.' Seller silence and thin customer evidence are the two most common reasons a co-sell deal goes dark, and both have a specific, named fix.

Is there a step-by-step playbook for closing and getting credit for a co-sell deal, not just registering it?

Yes. isvcosell.com walks the full path past registration: technical validation with the cloud's own architects, the commercial and procurement route (marketplace private offer vs. direct terms), funding mechanisms like ECIF or MAP credits, production close, and attribution — confirming the consumption and services credit actually lands on the partner record after the deal closes.

Benchmark analysis

IAM Pricing Benchmarks

Enterprise IAM pricing benchmarks: what organizations actually pay for Okta Workforce Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID. Per-user cost comparison with.

Where this sits in a co-sell pursuit

Benchmark analysis sets the price expectation the customer brings into the room. Co-sell works the other side of the same table, so read this for the objection you will meet, not the discount you will offer.

Security and compliance. IAM travels with the cloud estate rather than against it. A consolidation conversation here usually opens a marketplace procurement route at the same time, so the commercial path and the technical path move together.

Microsoft Azure
Microsoft pricing on this page becomes MACC headroom in an Azure pursuit: the commitment the customer already signed is the budget a co-sold workload draws against, and the co-sell record that claims it lives in Partner Center.
Azure co-sell Partner Center co-sell
AWS
On AWS the same money shows up as EDP or PPA position. The pursuit is shared through ACE in Partner Central, and Marketplace private offers are the procurement route that lets committed spend absorb the deal.
AWS co-sell AWS ACE

Commercial vehicles named on this page

ELA / ETLA.: An enterprise agreement with its own renewal clock. The clock is the trigger: a pursuit timed to it meets a budget that is already open. Renewal timing in the pipeline lane

Qualify the pursuit jointly Walk the decision tree Build the seller-ready brief

Key points

The standalone Entra ID P2 benchmark rate ($3.80 to $5.20 per user per month) is lower than Okta's benchmark rate for comparable SSO + MFA functionality ($4.80 to $6.20).
Our benchmark data shows that organizations that conduct a module-level review before Okta renewal (rather than accepting the bundle renewal quote) consistently identify 15 to 25% in modules either not being used or duplicating functionality in other parts of the security stack.

IAM Pricing: The Bundling Problem

This article is part of the cybersecurity software pricing benchmarks series. Identity and access management pricing has become genuinely complex because the category's two dominant vendorsOkta and Microsoft, have fundamentally different commercial strategies. Okta sells IAM as a standalone product with transparent (though negotiable) per-user pricing. Microsoft bundles Entra ID into M365 and Azure, making the "true" per-user cost of IAM a function of how you allocate your Microsoft license costs.

Neither approach is inherently better for procurement, but they require different benchmark methodologies. For Okta, the question is simple: what is your per-user rate, and how does it compare to what similar organizations pay? For Microsoft, the question is: what is the incremental cost of Entra ID capabilities given your existing M365 commitment?

Okta Workforce Identity: Per-User Pricing Benchmarks

Okta's Workforce Identity Cloud is its enterprise product line for employee (and contractor) identity. The platform covers SSO, MFA, lifecycle management (provisioning/deprovisioning), PAM, identity governance, and related capabilities. Pricing is per-user per-month, with significant variation between tiers and based on which modules are included.

Okta SSO + MFA: Core Benchmark Data

User Count	Product	List Price / User / Month	Benchmark Median	Best-in-Class
500 to 2,499	Workforce SSO + MFA	$9 to $13	$6.80	$5.20
2,500 to 9,999	Workforce SSO + MFA	$8 to $12	$6.20	$4.80
10,000 to 24,999	Workforce SSO + MFA	$7 to $11	$5.40	$4.10
25,000 to 74,999	Workforce SSO + MFA	$6 to $10	$4.60	$3.40
75,000+	Enterprise Platform	Negotiated	$3.80	$2.80

Okta Full Platform: With Lifecycle Management

User Count	Product Bundle	List Price / User / Month	Benchmark Median	Best-in-Class
5,000 to 19,999	Workforce + Lifecycle Mgmt	$14 to $18	$9.40	$7.10
20,000 to 49,999	Workforce + Lifecycle + PAM	$22 to $30	$14.20	$10.80
50,000+	Full Platform Bundle	Negotiated	$11.60	$8.40

"Okta's biggest pricing lever is Microsoft. Every organization evaluating Okta renewal should first establish the true incremental cost of Entra ID P2 within their Microsoft EA. That number becomes the anchor for everything Okta will negotiate against."

Benchmark Your Okta Contract

See where your Okta per-user rate sits vs. real peer contracts. 24-hour turnaround, Confidential benchmark report.

Microsoft Entra ID: The "Included" Cost Reality

Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) is included in various M365 and Azure tiers:

Entra ID Free: Basic directory services, SSO for SaaS apps. No MFA advanced features. Included in all M365 plans and Azure subscriptions.
Entra ID P1: Conditional Access, MFA, hybrid identity, self-service password reset. Included in M365 E3, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, and EMS E3.
Entra ID P2: All P1 features plus Privileged Identity Management (PIM), Identity Protection (risk-based CA), and Entitlement Management. Included in M365 E5, EMS E5, and Entra P2 standalone.

The "included" framing is accurate, if you're already on M365 E3 or E5, you have Entra ID P1 or P2 at no incremental license cost. The question is what you paid for M365 E3 or E5, and how much of that cost is attributable to Entra ID.

The M365 E3 vs E5 Cost Allocation for Entra

M365 License	Entra ID Tier Included	Benchmark Rate / User / Month	Premium Delta vs E3	Allocated Entra Cost
M365 E3	Entra ID P1	$28 to $36/user/month	—	~$3 to 5/user/month (P1)
M365 E5	Entra ID P2	$46 to $58/user/month	+$14 to 22/user/month	~$5 to 8/user/month (P2, allocated)
Entra ID P2 (standalone)	Entra ID P2	$6 to $9/user/month list	—	$3.80 to 5.20 benchmark median

The standalone Entra ID P2 benchmark rate ($3.80 to $5.20 per user per month) is lower than Okta's benchmark rate for comparable SSO + MFA functionality ($4.80 to $6.20). But for most large enterprises, Entra ID P2 is accessed through M365 E5 rather than standalone, meaning the "cost" is the incremental premium of E5 over E3 allocated across all E5 features (Defender, Purview, Sentinel, Intune, Entra). This allocation analysis is the core of any honest Okta vs. Microsoft IAM cost comparison.

CyberArk PAM: Privileged Access Benchmark Data

CyberArk dominates the Privileged Access Management sub-category with its Core PAS (Privileged Access Security) platform and newer SaaS offering (Privilege Cloud). Pricing differs from general IAM, it's based on privileged account vaulting, session recording, and privileged session management capacity rather than total user count.

Deployment	Metric	List Price Range	Benchmark Median	Best-in-Class
CyberArk Core PAS (on-prem)	Per vault + per account tier	$180K to $280K/yr (midsize)	$124K	$92K
CyberArk Privilege Cloud	Per privileged user/month	$100 to $180/priv user/yr	$68/priv user/yr	$50/priv user/yr
CyberArk Secrets Mgmt	Per vault/year	$36K to $72K/vault/yr	$24K	$18K

CyberArk's primary competitive threat in privileged access management is increasingly from BeyondTrust and HashiCorp Vault (for secrets management). Microsoft also has Entra PIM for privileged role management within the Azure/M365 ecosystem. For organizations where privileged access is primarily cloud-based (Azure, AWS, GCP), the Entra PIM + AWS IAM combination can replace standalone PAM at significantly lower cost. For organizations with significant on-premise infrastructure and complex PAM requirements, CyberArk maintains a genuine capability advantage that justifies its pricing premium relative to alternatives.

Okta vs. Entra: Negotiation Strategy

The mechanics of Okta negotiation have shifted significantly as Microsoft has become a more credible identity platform. Before 2022, Microsoft Entra ID (then Azure AD) was widely seen as weaker than Okta on SSO breadth and configuration flexibility. That gap has narrowed, and organizations that can credibly threaten an Okta-to-Entra migration now have substantially more negotiating leverage than they did two years ago.

How to Establish Real Microsoft Leverage Against Okta

Calculate your true Entra ID P2 incremental cost honestly, this gives you a hard anchor number for the Okta conversation
Run a technical assessment of Entra ID P2 coverage for your specific application portfolio (key question: what percentage of your SSO-integrated apps work with Entra vs. requiring Okta's broader integration catalog?)
Identify your Microsoft EA renewal timing, if you're heading into an M365 EA renewal, the bundling leverage increases substantially
Share the results of your Microsoft assessment with Okta in the commercial negotiation. "Our analysis shows Entra P2 covers 85% of our requirements at $4.80/user/month all-in; we need Okta to be commercially competitive with that" is a much stronger negotiating position than a vague competitive threat

Okta Module Expansion: The True-Up Trap

Okta's commercial model has the same module expansion problem seen with other major security vendors. Organizations that start with SSO + MFA progressively activate Lifecycle Management, Privileged Access, Identity Governance, and Management. Each module has its own per-user or per-integration pricing. By the time of the second renewal, the effective per-user cost has grown substantially, often without clear visibility into why.

Our benchmark data shows that organizations that conduct a module-level review before Okta renewal (rather than accepting the bundle renewal quote) consistently identify 15 to 25% in modules either not being used or duplicating functionality in other parts of the security stack. This review process is a core part of our renewal benchmarking methodology.

Okta vs. Entra Benchmark Summary

Okta SSO + MFA standalone benchmark median: $4.60 to $6.20/user/month (5K to 25K users)
Entra ID P2 standalone benchmark median: $3.80 to $5.20/user/month
Entra ID P2 via M365 E5 (allocated cost): $5 to 8/user/month, comparable to Okta, but bundles additional M365 capabilities
Okta full platform (lifecycle + PAM): $9 to 14/user/month benchmark median; best-in-class $7 to 10
CyberArk PAM (standalone): $50 to 68/privileged user/year benchmark median
Okta best discount timing: End-of-quarter + active Microsoft evaluation running simultaneously
Entra ID best deal structure: As part of M365 EA renewal with dedicated security workload allocation

The IAM Benchmark Bottom Line

Identity is one of the few security categories where Microsoft has built a genuinely competitive alternative to the market leader, not just a checkbox product. For organizations already on M365, the Entra ID P2 option is worth an honest cost analysis before every Okta renewal. Our benchmark data shows the price gap between Okta at best-in-class rates and Entra P2 has narrowed to the point where the decision is often driven by non-price factors: integration breadth, Okta's deeper third-party app catalog, or organizational preference for best-of-breed vs. platform consolidation.

For any organization not running this analysis, they're almost certainly leaving money on the table, either in Okta discounts unlocked by credible Microsoft leverage, or in potential savings from a partial or full Entra migration. The benchmark data starts that conversation.

For the full cybersecurity pricing landscape, see our Cybersecurity Software Pricing Benchmarks pillar, and download our Cybersecurity Pricing Report for the complete vendor benchmark dataset.