A reseller programme for a software or service product: the one-page terms

Picture three computer-shop owners in your city asking to sell your software or service, and you saying yes to all of them over tea. Within two months two have quoted the same school at different prices. A reseller programme prevents that with four decisions on one page: what the reseller earns, what they must show before they demo, how a prospect is claimed, and who the customer rings when something breaks. Settle them before the first signature, because afterwards every answer is a negotiation.

What does the reseller actually take home?

Software and services renew, so the margin has two halves. The first sale pays for finding and closing the customer. The renewal pays for keeping them, and it makes sense only if the reseller is the one who stays in touch. If your own team takes over support after the sale, pay on the first year alone and say so. A renewal share for a reseller who does nothing breeds resentment in your own office.

Write both amounts in rupees against one real price. For illustration, take a plan at ₹30,000 a year: show what lands in the reseller's account on the first invoice and on the second. At a 20 percent first-year share and a 10 percent renewal share, that is ₹6,000 and then ₹3,000. Percentages alone hide the answer the reseller cares about.

Leave out two things. Skip a margin that climbs with volume from day one, because it can reward whoever sells to friends first. And let a reseller discount only from the reseller's own share, with a note to you, so the customer's price is never a surprise at renewal.

What must the reseller prove before a demo?

A weak demo loses you the customer, not just the reseller. Set a short test instead of a course. The reseller runs one live demo for your person on a call, using a sandbox login and the three questions you want asked first. Until it is passed, the reseller may refer leads but not present.

Give the reseller a list of customers to avoid as well. Tell resellers whom to leave alone as well as whom to chase. If a reseller sells to a business your product cannot serve, you take the refund request and both names suffer. Ask each reseller to name two bad-fit cases before quoting.

How is a prospect claimed?

The test is simple: could a reseller who lost a deal read your rules and see why? If not, the rules are too vague.

Deal registration answers one question: whose customer is this? The reseller sends the company name, the person spoken to and the date to one email address or sheet. You confirm or reject on a reply time you set for yourself. Protection then runs for a stated number of days, taken from your own closed deals, with one extension on request.

Reject honestly. If you were already talking to that company, say so the same day. A reseller who learns it at invoice stage will not register again. And decide in advance what happens when a registered prospect later enquires on your website: the registered reseller keeps it, provided the reseller has actually been in contact.

Who answers when the customer calls?

Split support into two layers and name the owner of each.

One rule saves arguments: the reseller passes problems on with a short note, never a forwarded stream of messages. If your support desk deals straight with the end customer, the reseller loses the reason to exist.

What went wrong with three shops in Jalandhar

Take an invented firm in Jalandhar that sells an attendance and payroll app to small factories. It signed three computer-shop owners as resellers on a handshake, and within a fortnight two of them quoted the same textile unit, at prices that differed by an illustrative ₹4,000. One had promised free on-site training that the firm had never offered.

The firm wrote its page. It fixed one price sheet, allowed discounts from the reseller's share only, and made email registration compulsory before any quote. It ran its demo test, and one of the three failed it and went back to referring leads. Hardware visits were assigned to the shops, software faults to the firm. The next factory to enquire was registered once and quoted once. Two of the shops still sent quotes by WhatsApp before registering for a while, so the firm began refusing to honour any unregistered quote, which annoyed one shop owner.

Where a programme is the wrong tool

Not before you have sold the product directly several times yourself. You cannot write a margin, a demo script or a bad-fit list from imagination, and resellers who join earlier will write the rules by getting things wrong. Our note on when partner and reseller channels work for a software company covers that decision. Hold off too if every sale needs heavy customisation: the reseller sells the promise and you deliver the work.

What does the page look like?

Four headings, each with a number in it. Earnings: first-year share, renewal share, who may discount. Readiness: the demo test and the bad-fit list. Registration: the days of protection, your reply time, the extension rule. Support: who takes which call. If the page runs past one side of paper, you are writing a contract before you have a programme. Add the legal wording only when a reseller has stayed long enough to deserve it, and have your own adviser read that part.

Show the draft to your best three

Write the four sections and show them to the three resellers you trust most before you show anyone else. Ask each to mark what they would refuse. Reseller programme development is the service that helps with the terms and the demo test, and the rest of our sales work sits under sales. To start, tell us what you need.