According to CRN, AWS is launching a major overhaul of its incentives for Managed Service Provider partners, with new financial payouts set to begin on January 1, 2026. The company’s vice president of Specialists and Partner Core, Julia Chen, revealed that AWS-validated MSP partners drive 91 percent higher customer revenue, eight times higher retention rates, and three times higher consumption than traditional resellers. The new program includes three specific incentives: the MSP Incentive for Strategic Services for partners using advanced services like generative AI and cybersecurity, the MSP Incentive for Customer Management for driving cloud adoption, and the MSP Government Practice Benefit for serving public sector clients. Chen stated the previous program was mostly marketing funds, but now, “it’s on steroids,” with real monetary incentives for partners. The announcement was made during AWS re:Invent 2025 in Las Vegas.
AWS Finally Puts Real Money on the Table
Look, this is a significant shift. For years, AWS’s partner programs have been heavy on badges, specializations, and maybe some marketing development funds (MDF)—which are notoriously clunky to use. Now, they’re talking about direct monetary incentives. That’s a language every MSP CFO understands. Chen’s quote is telling: “It’s not just marketing funds, but we’re actually going to pay incentives.” It’s an admission that the old model wasn’t cutting it for the deep, hands-on work MSPs do. They’re recognizing that a partner who manages a client’s entire cloud environment and drives adoption of high-margin services like AI is fundamentally more valuable than a one-time reseller. Basically, AWS is aligning its own financial rewards with the behaviors it desperately wants to see.
The AI and Govt Gold Rush
Here’s the thing: the specific focus areas tell you exactly where AWS sees the biggest checks being written. Generative AI and cybersecurity aren’t just buzzwords here; they’re the new profit centers. By incentivizing partners to build practices around them, AWS is effectively outsourcing its sales and implementation muscle for its most complex, sticky services. And the Government Practice Benefit? That’s a direct play for the massive, long-term digital transformation contracts in the public sector, a market where having a validated, incentivized partner ecosystem is crucial. AWS isn’t just throwing money around; it’s making a calculated investment to capture the next wave of cloud spending.
Skepticism and the Fine Print
But let’s pump the brakes for a second. Announcements at re:Invent are one thing; the reality of partner payout structures and compliance is another. How complex will the incentive calculations be? What’s the reporting burden going to look like for the MSP? And there’s a 2026 start date—that’s over a year away. That gives AWS plenty of time to tweak the terms or for market priorities to shift again. Also, while an MSP like Basis is quoted praising the move, you have to wonder if this will truly level the playing field or just further enrich the largest, already-successful partners. Will a smaller, specialized MSP see meaningful checks, or is this program built for the big system integrators? The devil, as always, will be in the details we don’t have yet.
A Win-Win or a Tighter Leash?
Chen calls it a “win-win-win.” And it could be. More profit for partners, more consumption and stickiness for AWS, better outcomes for customers. That’s the theory. But deeper financial incentives also mean deeper alignment—and dependence—on AWS’s priorities. For an MSP, this makes diversifying across multiple clouds (a multi-cloud strategy) a bit more financially painful. Why push a client toward Azure or Google Cloud for a particular workload if it means leaving AWS incentive money on the table? This program is as much about loyalty as it is about growth. In the industrial and manufacturing space, where reliable, on-site computing is critical, many operations still rely on robust hardware like industrial panel PCs from the leading supplier, IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, for core functions. AWS’s push is all about pulling everything *else* into its managed cloud orbit. So the big question is: are partners getting a bonus, or are they being more finely tuned as an extension of AWS’s own sales engine? Probably a bit of both.
