Channel focus: All you need to know about AWS' partner program

Amazon founded its subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, the result of a turn-of-the-century Jeff Bezos idea about renting out compute power.

In 2025, AWS, led by CEO Matt Garman, leads in the hyperscale cloud space alongside Google and Microsoft. Revenues hit $108 billion in 2024, up 19% year on year. Next-quarter revenues rose 17.5% to $30.9 billion in June 2025.

Its AWS Partner Network (APN) launched in 2012 and today boasts 140,000 partners worldwide. Ruba Borno, vice president of worldwide channels and alliances, marshals partners including AllCloud, Deloitte, Ingram Micro, Presidio, and Softcat.

Incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Amazon reports a total of 1,556,000 employees as of 31 December 2024, of which an estimated 136,000 work for AWS.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy predicts AI will become key to "everything". "Some areas are already seeing rapid progress; others are still in their infancy. But if your customer experiences aren’t planning to leverage these intelligent models, their ability to query giant corpuses of data, you will not be competitive," he warned in the company’s 2024 annual report.

Key offerings:

• AWS Transform: A generative and agentic AI service for cloud migrations and modernizations, including for .NET, mainframe, and VMware.
• AgentCore: This adds to AWS' pre-trained integratable managed generative AI service Amazon Bedrock, targeting AI security and governance challenges while supporting agents and scale.
• AI agents and tools in AWS Marketplace: These offer AI expertise for multiple domains and business functions. So far, AWS Marketplace has 900 partners' solutions, tools, agents, and knowledge bases, with 20,000 listings across 70 categories.

Recent news:

• July's AWS Summit in New York underlined its AI services pivot, including AgentCore.At the beginning of August 2025, AWS announced that its European Sovereign Cloud operations will be EU citizens-only, targeting data-control concerns.
• In early August 2025, Microsoft and Google closed the gap on AWS' lead in infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
• In mid-August, rebuked enterprises looking to replace devs with AI as the "dumbest thing" he'd ever heard.

AWS for partners

AWS keeps growing its partner channel. Brian Bohan, director of AWS' consulting partner Center of Excellence, emphasizes partners as being critical to AWS’ success "right from the very beginning". "And now more than ever," Bohan says, as we bridge into a more "probabilistic, agentic" world. "Even if you look beyond the partner organization to the to the broader AWS field and services teams, we're building things with partners in mind first. From the ground up, partners are embedded and considered."

Partners help customers scale, deliver reach, and meld deep expertise around process and industry domains, including all technologies and tooling from AWS and its own technology partners, Bohan notes.

"Even when we first built this, we didn't build it only on our own. We built it with partners," he adds.

Partner programs, tiers and partner types

The AWS Partner Network (APN) is the overarching program, with Select, Advanced, and Premier tiers based on revenue, competencies, and certifications.

• Global systems integrators (GSIs)
• Strategic consulting/advisory
• Technology resellers/solution providers/managed services providers (MSPs)
• Distributors

APN member Partner Paths offer Confirmed, Differentiated, and Validated accreditations in Software, Hardware, Services, Training, and Distribution via AWS' Partner Training and Scorecard on the APN Partner Central partner portal.

• Reseller programs:
  • Resell with AWS Distributors: Email distribution-program-team@amazon.com or search here to find a distributor.
  • AWS Solution Provider: Targeting SIs, MSPs, VARs and public-sector bodies
  • .Channel Partner Private Offers (CPPOs) via AWS Marketplace. ISV authorization of partners or vendors for wholesale pricing on software and professional services.
• Services programs:
  • Customer Engagement Incentive (details on Partner Central)
  • AWS Small Business Acceleration Initiative
• Managed services programs:
  • - AWS Managed Services Provider.
  • AWS Managed Services Build Workshop. Submit a request here.
• Technology Solutions programs:
  • -AWS Marketplace List & Sell -ISV Accelerate
  • AWS ISV Workload Migration- AWS Well Architected Partner for best-practice focus.
  • AWS Global Startup. Invitation-only. Start here.
  • AWS Marketplace Private Offer Promotion Program (MPOPP).- AWS Device Qualification
• Business Outcomes Solutions programs:
  • AWS Business Outcomes Xcelerator. Benefits include funding.
  • AWS Partner Matchmaking events
• AWS Public Sector programs:
  • Global Security & Compliance Acceleration on AWS
  • AWS Partner Transformation for cloud partners
  • AWS Think Big for Small Business. Download a guide here.
  • AWS Generative AI Impact Initiative.
• Other programs::
  • AWS Partner Proof of Concept (POC)
  • AWS Service Delivery for skilled AWS service providers
  • AWS Service Ready for AWS partner-built software products
  • AWS Migration Acceleration program
• AWS Specializations (116 badges).
  • AWS Competency in areas such as security incident response, government, SMB, managed security services provider (MSSP), and digital sovereignty.
• APN partner training and certification online, live, and on-demand is on Partner Central. Schedule exams here. Skill Builder subscriptions feature classroom, simulations, labs, tools, and course catalog access.
  • 36 Fundamental, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert certifications.
  • 196 AWS Partner learning plans.
  • Benefits and training tools include events and discounts; downloadable RampUp guides; exam vouchers (via Pearson VUE); livestreamed training on Twitch; AWS Educate cloud skills learning, the AWS Cloud Institute; training community and training blogs.

Further benefits, rewards, and incentives

• AWS Partner Finder listing.
• Partner Marketing Central hub with demand generation support, marketing resources, and information.[https://partnercentral.awspartner.com/APNLogin]
• Partner Growth Rebate (PGR) for existing accounts. Quarterly AWS Promotional Credit rebates (also available for certain certifications)
• APN Innovation Sandbox Credits.
• APN Customer Engagements (ACE) Program discounts for eligible partner-originated opportunities.
• Partner Originated Discount (POD) for AWS Solution Providers, achieving new end-customers or developing early-stage AWS customers.
• AWS PartnerEquip roadmap and access to experts.
• GTM Acceleration workshops.
• Marketing development funds (in cash or credits).
• Content and enablement resources, benefits, and programs for different Partner Paths.
• AWS Direct Connect program for customer datacenters, colos, and other locations. Contact sales support to discuss.
• Regional events.
• Partner webinars, live and on demand.
• APN blogs.

Sign up and get on board

To join APN and partner with AWS, first register on Partner Central. You'll also find details of most programs, eligibility, and specific requirements on the portal. The next step is to enroll in the appropriate Partner Path.

Contact AWS to ask about AWS Marketplace here. Questions on password resets, support tickets, and the like? Search the APN Partner Network Knowledge Base or try the partner sales support contact form.

For more AWS contacts, announcements, and updates, visit LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and via email or RSS feed. AWS also has accounts on Instagram, Bluesky, and Threads.