Buying and selling
Reseller agreement
The paper behind selling through somebody else, most often used for software and services rather than physical stock. It settles the question that decides everything else: whose contract does the end customer sign. In one shape the reseller sells the vendor's product under the vendor's terms and earns a margin; in another it bundles the product into its own offering and carries the customer relationship itself. Support, data, branding and renewals all follow from that choice.
- In the catalogue
- Buying and selling
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Software vendors building a channel instead of selling only direct.
- Agencies and IT providers reselling tools to their own client base.
- Companies packaging somebody else's product inside their own service.
What you are deciding
- Whose paper the end customer signs
- Which products may be resold, and to whom
- Margin or discount, and how it is calculated
- Whether the arrangement is exclusive in any territory or segment
- Who provides first-line support, and who escalates
- How the vendor's name and marks may be used
- Who owns the customer relationship and the data
- What happens to customers when the arrangement ends
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties and appointment
- 2Products and permitted customers
- 3Order flow and end-customer terms
- 4Pricing, margin and payment
- 5Support responsibilities
- 6Trade marks and marketing
- 7Customer data and ownership
- 8Confidentiality
- 9Term and termination
- 10What happens to customers at the end
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- reseller agreement
- var agreement
- channel partner agreement
- software reseller contract
- partner program agreement
- white label reseller agreement
Questions people ask
- Who owns the customer in a reseller arrangement?
- Whoever the paper says. It is the first question worth settling, because support, renewals, pricing and what happens at the end all depend on it.
- How is a reseller different from an affiliate?
- A reseller sells the product, often at its own price; an affiliate points people at the vendor and is paid for the introduction. The reseller carries far more of the relationship.
- Does the end customer still agree the vendor's terms?
- Often yes, through a pass-through or an end-user agreement, even where the invoice comes from the reseller. Agreements of this kind say plainly which terms reach the end customer.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds