We are thrilled to announce that the HTCD cloud security SaaS solution is now live on the AWS Marketplace. The journey to get here was time-consuming and rigorous, but we’re confident that the rewards of being on AWS Marketplace will justify all the sweat and man-hours we put in. While this isn’t your typical AWS Marketplace guide which gives you a step-by-step breakdown of what you need to do, it does offer the unique perspective of a startup trying (and succeeding) to list a SaaS on AWS. Having said that, Let's dive into how we managed to publish our SaaS on AWS and what it means for you.

Why AWS?

Choosing AWS as our platform was a strategic decision influenced by several key factors:

• Credibility: Gaining approval from AWS is no small feat. Their approval process, which took us three months, involved a meticulous review of our architecture and end-to-end functionality. AWS ensured that our product is reputable and reliable, providing customers with the peace of mind of knowing they are investing in a trusted solution and not some sort of high-end scam.
• One-Click Deployment: Our integration with AWS allows for a seamless user experience. With just one click, customers can deploy our platform and begin the onboarding process, which takes only 15 minutes. This simplicity is designed to get you up and running with minimal effort.
• Simplified Payment Processes: AWS handles all payment transactions, removing the need for external payment gateways. This setup streamlines the purchasing process and allows us to focus on delivering a superior product. We can also customize contracts for our customers or use AWS's standard contracts based on our requirements, and that flexibility is key, especially when you list a SaaS on AWS with the intention of creating a tiered pricing list.
• Leverage Amazon's Reputation: Being on the AWS Marketplace means leveraging Amazon’s vast scope and impeccable reputation. With over 300,000 active users globally, our product gains immediate visibility and credibility. This trust factor is crucial in attracting new customers.
• Customer Convenience: Since we already integrate with major AWS offerings such as Amazon Security Lake, AWS AppFabric, and AWS Cost and Usage Reports, it made sense that our clients who needed security for their AWS Cloud environments could easily procure our SaaS offering from AWS’ native marketplace.

Steps to Create a Marketplace SaaS Offering

The journey to listing on AWS Marketplace involves several detailed steps. While we won’t go into the nuts and bolts of all these steps, we can point you in the right direction. This GitHub guide published by AWS was a huge help in getting the ball rolling as it not only has a sample for integrating with Marketplace but also includes code logic. Furthermore, as you’ll see later, Amazon’s documentation on their website is also quite comprehensive, we will provide an overview of the steps needed to Sell a SaaS on AWS:

1. Decide on Product Type: AWS supports a variety of products, including SaaS solutions like ours. You need to pick your product type first before doing anything else.
2. Plan Pricing Model: Choose between subscriptions, contracts, or a hybrid model. Your choice will dictate the setup of your marketplace listing. Price is a major consideration when you list a SaaS on AWS, so pay close attention to this step.
3. Collect Assets: Gather all necessary assets such as logos, descriptions, EULA, and support information. All of these (and more) will need to be populated on AWS before the listing can go live.
4. End-to-end Design: Ensure your product integrates seamlessly with AWS Marketplace requirements. This means your page design needs to check all the right boxes and comply with AWS requirements before you can get your listing published.
5. Implementation: Incorporate your backend with AWS Marketplace’s infrastructure. This forms the link between the marketplace and your product, and as such is a crucial step in the process.
6. Testing: Create mock payloads and events to simulate customer interactions. This is part of AWS’s verification process and ensures that your subscription workflows function correctly.
7. Approval and Deployment: Once everything is in place, AWS reviews and approves your product. This typically takes 7-10 business days. From what we understand, our extended waiting period of 3 months is the exception rather than the norm, but as we proved, it can take that long.

Pros and Cons of the AWS Marketplace Listing Process

While the journey to publish our SaaS on AWS has been a net positive, there have been highlights and lowlights we wanted to bring to the fore.

Pros

• ‍Thorough Testing: AWS provides robust testing environments for public offers, ensuring that your setup is verified and reliable.
• ‍User-Friendly APIs: The APIs and backend systems are straightforward to navigate, making the entire integration process smooth and hiccup-free.
• ‍Comprehensive Documentation: AWS offers detailed documentation and checklists, simplifying the listing process. In fact, “comprehensive” may even be understating it a tad. And this is a good thing, because the more detailed the information you have, the quicker you can deploy.

Cons

• ‍Limited Testing for Private Offers: Testing private offers is not possible until post-deployment, which means initial development can be uncertain as code development is akin to a shot in the dark rather than a slam dunk.
• ‍Support Timeframes: AWS Marketplace support teams can require up to 7 business days for a response. However, once engaged, the support is thorough and helpful.

Now That We’re Live

As we celebrate our live status post our AWS SaaS integration, here are our final reflections. One area for improvement we’ve identified is the parameters received from AWS's API. Currently, we only receive the expiration date of a subscription, unlike say, Azure, which provides comprehensive status updates including the start date, the end date, the status of the project, and more. On the flip side, the ease of making changes to our listing through the AWS Console cannot be lauded enough. It can take as little as five minutes to make tweaks to our AWS marketplace listing, and this is a significant advantage.

We hope this guide proves fruitful to fellow developers looking to publish their SaaS on AWS.

Curious about what a completed listing looks like? Take a look at the HTCD AWS Marketplace listing here. If you’re interested in experiencing the mechanics of private offers on AWS, fill in the sign-up sheet for our 99c plan to view an example.

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