DESPITE THE FIRST THREE LETTERS of its name, MSP360 serves more than just managed service providers. Plenty of ordinary businesses use the vendor’s backup, remote desktop, and IT management software too, and many of them have been buying those products straight from MSP360 itself.
Not anymore, however. Effective this month, end users who want to purchase an MSP360 solution will be forwarded to one of the company’s roughly 11,300 partners. Buyers who want someone to manage the software for them will be referred to a nearby MSP. Those that want to run the software themselves will be funneled to a VAR or distributor.
“This is going to be a great opportunity for us to redirect businesses to the right places,” says Brian Helwig (pictured), MSP360’s CEO.
Want to be on the receiving end of those leads? You’ll have to prove you’re worthy of them. If the time it takes you to follow up on a highly qualified referral averages less than an hour, you’ll get more of them. Average more than an hour before responding, though, and you’ll get lower-quality leads, or possibly none at all.
Location weighs on who gets which lead too, so the gold rush is on to be the best and fastest lead catcher in your specific geography. “We’re going to let the MSPs race for the business as much as they can,” Helwig says. “Once the territories are locked up, it’ll be harder and harder and harder to get in.”
MSP360’s new lead-sharing program is part of a larger partner program redesign rolling out this month. Under a new set of requirements and benefits, anyone responsible for 250 or more licenses of any combination of MSP360 products can reach the Registered tier simply by signing up, and get an extra 2% discount on anything they buy in return.
Partners with 500 or more licenses under management who sell more than 10 licenses of the company’s managed backup solution in a given year and have at least one certified onboarding tech on staff move to the Professional tier, where they get five bonus discount points, access to sales leads, a listing in MSP360’s partner locator tool, and NFR software.
If your active license count reaches 750, you sell more than 100 managed backup seats in a year, and you have two certified technicians on your team, you become an Expert member, and receive 10% of incremental discount plus limited access to MDF.
Entry to the Premier level, at the top of the program’s pyramid, is by invitation only to partners who have even more licenses under management, employ more certified technicians, and sell more MSP360 software. Making the grade will net you a 15% bonus discount plus a dedicated channel manager and technical resources.
Significantly, the sales-related figures MSP360 cares about always focus on how many seats you sell, rather than how much you sell them for. “There’s no revenue commitment to our program,” Helwig notes.
Per a policy introduced in 2020, furthermore, volume-based pricing benefits are no longer product-specific. “Many MSPs said to us, ‘Hey, I have 500 desktop licenses with you, and I get a 50% discount off of that. Now I come to you and buy one server [license] and I pay full price,'” Helwig notes. Taking that input into account, discounts today are based on the aggregate volume of all the MSP360 solutions you sell.
As it happens, MSP360 has more solutions for MSPs to use and sell than ever. Once known as CloudBerry Lab, the company signaled its intention to build a suite of tools for managed service providers when it adopted its current moniker in 2019. The company took a major step toward realizing that vision last summer when it’s RMM solution reached market. A PSA solution is now in development.
“We’ve almost started turning into this sort of one-stop solution,” Helwig says. “You can get everything in one bill.” Thanks to MSP360’s new partner program, moreover, that bill will now be smaller.
