AppDirect

AppDirect is a digital commerce platform split into two halves that are rarely offered together: capabilities for selling recurring services and capabilities for buying and managing them.

On the selling side it covers a B2B marketplace for third-party services, partner relationship management for selling through resellers, subscription billing through an online checkout, cloud distribution for selling via third-party marketplaces, device application management, and digital engagement for lifetime customer value.

On the buying side it covers a procurement marketplace for shopping technology services, cloud lifecycle management for billing, identity and data, network lifecycle management and mobile lifecycle management.

Serving both sides is a coherent position rather than a scope problem, because the same organisation is frequently both. A telecommunications company sells cloud services to its customers while procuring substantial technology for itself, and a large enterprise resells internal services to business units while buying from vendors. The commercial mechanics of subscription management, entitlement and billing are the same in either direction.

Partner relationship management deserves separate mention because indirect selling is where most software revenue in this market actually moves. A vendor selling through resellers must handle deal registration, margin, co-selling and channel conflict, and none of that appears in a system designed for direct sales.

Mobile and network lifecycle management are unusual inclusions for a software commerce platform, and they matter for telecommunications customers where the services being sold and managed are connectivity rather than applications.

Pricing is published in tiers. AppDirect Starter is $799 per month for mid-size companies building a referral marketplace, and AppDirect Professional is $1,499 per month for mid-size companies selling third-party services, both with API access and usage measurement. A free trial is offered.