What does a genuinely best in class partner program look like up close?
Look at Shopify, HubSpot and Microsoft rather than at frameworks. Shopify paid out over 1.3 billion dollars to partners in 2025 and treats developers and agencies as a real business, with revenue share, docs, CLI tooling and certification, which is why people build careers on it. HubSpot's channel worked because it put partners through the same culture and enablement as its own reps and tiered on retention and certification rather than raw volume. Microsoft wins on onboarding: structured training, certification and marketing assets from day one. The common thread is that the best programs treat partners like employees, not like a discount tier.
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Named teardowns instead of theory: Shopify, Microsoft, AvePoint, Nintex and Lookout, with what each does differently on onboarding, automation and partner performance.
The clearest example of a platform treating partners as a real business: 1.3 billion dollars paid to partners in 2025 across apps, themes, store builds and referrals, with docs and tooling to match.
First hand from the person who ran HubSpot's channel for a decade, with the four maturity stages and the argument that support, not incentives, is where nearly every program dies.
A working session from the SaaS Connect community focused specifically on technology and integration partnerships, which most channel content skips over on its way to resellers.
