Reseller, VAR, referral or technology partner?

"Partnership" describes at least five different commercial relationships, each with different economics, effort and time to revenue. Choosing the wrong one is the most common reason a partner programme underperforms, and it is usually decided by accident rather than analysis.

The five models at a glance

Each model trades partner effort against your effort. The more the partner takes on, the more they need to earn and the more enablement they require before they can operate.

How to choose

The decision comes down to three questions about your product and your buyer, not about which model sounds most ambitious.

Does your product need implementation or ongoing service? If yes, this is VAR territory. A value added reseller already delivers implementation, integration or support in your market, so it can wrap those services around your product and sell a complete solution. That captures revenue you would otherwise have to deliver yourself, and it makes the partner genuinely hard to displace. If your product is simple to adopt, referral partners are more efficient, since there is nothing for a VAR to add.

Does someone already sit closer to the buying decision? Consultants, agencies and system integrators are often trusted before you are. Where that trust exists, a referral relationship converts faster than any outbound you could run yourself.

How much margin can you genuinely share? This constrains everything. A 20% reseller discount is impossible on thin margin, but a 10% referral fee on first-year value usually is not. Model it before you decide, not after a partner asks.

Start with one

Running two models simultaneously before either works is a reliable way to end up with neither. Each model needs its own agreement, reward structure, enablement material and rhythm of contact. Splitting limited attention across both usually means no partner in either group reaches their first deal.

Establish one model with three to five active partners, learn what your partners actually need, then add a second where it genuinely opens a different route to market. VARs are usually the second step rather than the first: they demand the deepest enablement of any model, so it helps to have learned what partners ask for before you commit to supporting one technically.

What changes as you scale

Below roughly ten partners, administration is not the problem: a simple agreement, a shared folder and a tracked list are enough, and tooling is a distraction. The constraint is attention, not systems.

Past that point the mechanics start to cost real time, and structure begins to earn its place: tiers with clear criteria, deal registration to prevent conflict, referral tracking, and a predictable cadence of partner contact. Introduce each one when the manual version starts hurting, not in advance.

The mistake that spans every model

Whichever model you choose, the failure pattern is the same: treating signature as completion. A partner who signs and receives a price list will almost never sell. The programmes that produce revenue are the ones where someone works the first two or three opportunities alongside the partner until they can do it without help.