AWS Marketplace Storefront vs Buy with AWS

AWS now gives sellers four ways to surface Marketplace commerce: Buy with AWS, a branded Storefront, the Discovery API, and the Agreements API. Which fits your buyer.

Stacy Wu
Aug 24, 2026

AWS Marketplace now gives sellers four different ways to surface discovery and purchasing outside the marketplace’s own pages — Buy with AWS, a branded Storefront, the Discovery API, and the Agreements API — that differ in buyer experience, who builds them, and how much they can do.


For years the choice was binary: send buyers to your AWS Marketplace listing, or don’t. In 2026 that changed. AWS shipped a branded Storefront (June 16), a Discovery API (April 9), and an Agreements API (May 6), joining Buy with AWS from December 2024. Four surfaces, four levels of effort, four different buyer experiences.

The mistake is reaching for the most powerful one. The right question is the smallest surface that fits your buyer’s journey and the team you actually have to build it. Here is what each one is, and how to choose.


What are the four AWS Marketplace commerce surfaces?

They are four ways to expose AWS Marketplace discovery or purchasing away from the listing page itself. Two are drop-in features; two are APIs you build against. Ranked by implementation effort:

SurfaceWhat it isWho builds itBuyer can transact?
Buy with AWSEmbedded CTA buttons on your websiteMarketing / web, no engineeringYes
Branded StorefrontA no-code branded catalog on your siteMarketing / partner ops, no codeYes
Discovery APIProgrammatic catalog + pricing dataEngineeringNo — read-only
Agreements APIProgrammatic offers, agreements, entitlementsEngineeringYes

The split that matters most: the Discovery API is read-only — it surfaces catalog and pricing data. The other three can complete a purchase.


Buy with AWS: the drop-in CTA

Buy with AWS is the lowest-effort surface: embedded call-to-action buttons — “Buy with AWS,” “View offers on AWS,” “Try free with AWS,” “Request private offer,” “Request demo” — that you place on your own website. Launched in December 2024, it is managed from the AWS Marketplace Management Portal and needs no engineering to add.

A buyer clicks, signs into their AWS account, and lands on a co-branded procurement page with the offer, pricing, and terms, then subscribes. Every transaction is processed and managed within AWS Marketplace, so billing stays consolidated on the buyer’s AWS invoice. It fits a seller who wants their existing website to convert high-intent visitors without building anything. We cover its downstream effect on your funnel in what Buy with AWS does to your website funnel, and the numbers to watch in Buy with AWS metrics.


Branded Storefront: your catalog, your brand, no code

The Storefront, generally available since June 16, 2026, lets a partner build a fully branded catalog of products on their own site or application with no code required. You import listings from AWS Marketplace and can publish the same day; it adds private offer templates, approval automation, and native CRM connectivity to Salesforce and HubSpot.

Like Buy with AWS, it is transactional — purchases flow through AWS Marketplace billing infrastructure and appear automatically on the customer’s AWS invoice — and it is available in all Regions where AWS Marketplace operates. The difference is scope: Buy with AWS decorates your existing pages with buttons, while a Storefront is a multi-product catalog you own the presentation of. It fits a channel partner presenting each customer a tailored set of approved products, or an ISV that wants a branded buying experience without a build.


Discovery and Agreements APIs: when you’re building the experience

The two APIs are for teams that want to embed marketplace commerce inside software they control — an internal procurement portal, a custom catalog, a partner platform.

  • Discovery API (April 9, 2026) is read-only. It returns catalog and pricing data — search listings, fetch a product, read offer terms — so you can build discovery into your own interface. Private-offer pricing is retrievable when the calling IAM principal is entitled to it. It is available in US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland), accessed through IAM and the AWS SDK. Use it to show products, not to sell them.
  • Agreements API (May 6, 2026) is transactional. It can accept offers, track charges and entitlements, update purchase orders, and manage or cancel agreements. It is available in US East (N. Virginia), authenticated with AWS Signature Version 4 and IAM.

Together they form an end-to-end procurement flow you build yourself: Discovery to surface and compare products, Agreements to accept and manage the purchase. That power costs engineering time and ongoing ownership — the right trade only when a drop-in surface genuinely can’t fit the buyer journey.


How to choose

Match the surface to the buyer journey and the team you have:

  • You want your website to convert high-intent traffic, with no build → Buy with AWS.
  • You want a branded, multi-product catalog on your site, without code → Storefront.
  • You’re embedding product discovery into software you control → Discovery API.
  • You’re building a custom purchasing or procurement experience → Agreements API (usually with Discovery).

Start with the smallest surface that fits. You can always graduate — a Buy with AWS button today does not stop you from building on the Agreements API later, and the underlying transactions land in the same place regardless. The buyer’s side of that purchase is the same one we map in how enterprise buyers buy through a marketplace.


How Suger helps

Whichever surface you expose, the offers, entitlements, and transactions behind it still have to be built, tracked, and reconciled. Suger runs that operating layer: it creates and manages private offers across AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud, tracks entitlements, meters usage, and syncs the resulting records into your CRM — so a deal that starts at a Buy with AWS button or a branded Storefront lands in the same system as every other marketplace deal, rather than in a surface-specific silo.


Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Buy with AWS and a branded Storefront? Buy with AWS adds embedded CTA buttons to your existing web pages. A branded Storefront is a no-code, multi-product catalog you host on your own site. Both are transactional and settle through AWS Marketplace; the Storefront gives you a full branded catalog rather than buttons.

Is the AWS Marketplace Discovery API transactional? No. The Discovery API, available since April 9, 2026, is read-only — it returns catalog and pricing data so you can build discovery into your own interface. To accept an offer or manage an agreement programmatically, you use the Agreements API.

When did the AWS Marketplace Storefront become available? The branded Storefront became generally available on June 16, 2026, in all Regions where AWS Marketplace operates. It is no-code: you import listings from AWS Marketplace and can publish a branded catalog the same day.

What can the Agreements API do? The Agreements API, available since May 6, 2026, can accept offers, track charges and entitlements, update purchase orders, and manage or cancel agreements. It is available in US East (N. Virginia) and authenticated with AWS Signature Version 4 and IAM.

Which AWS Marketplace commerce surface should I use? The smallest one that fits your buyer journey and your team. Buttons on your site: Buy with AWS. A branded catalog, no code: Storefront. Embedding discovery in your own software: Discovery API. A custom purchasing flow: Agreements API.


Takeaways

  • AWS now offers four commerce surfaces: Buy with AWS (Dec 2024), the Discovery API (Apr 9, 2026), the Agreements API (May 6, 2026), and a branded Storefront (Jun 16, 2026).
  • Two are drop-in (Buy with AWS, Storefront) and two are APIs (Discovery, Agreements). Only the Discovery API is read-only — the other three can transact.
  • Choose the smallest surface that fits: buttons for an existing site, a Storefront for a branded catalog, the APIs when you’re building the experience yourself.
  • Whichever you pick, transactions settle through AWS Marketplace — so keep the offers and entitlements behind them in one operating system.

Expose the surface your buyers need, and keep the offers behind it in one place: see how Suger runs AWS Marketplace private offers, entitlements, and metering, and book a demo.

Sources

Primary sources for the platform rules cited above. Last verified August 24, 2026. Cloud providers change fees, eligibility, and program terms without notice — check the source before relying on a figure.

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