---
title: "The Referral Journey: Co-Selling with STACKIT"
description: "Expand your enterprise reach without deep technical marketplace integration. The Referral Track is designed for software vendors who want to partner with STACKIT through joint sales activities. By leveraging our established sales force, your solutions are directly recommended to STACKIT enterprise accounts, backed by a transparent lead-sharing model and agreed commission structures. Follow the tailored milestones below to navigate your path from initial contact to active co-selling."
scfTrail:
  maintainers:
    - user: "timo.bergen"
  tags: ["isv", "sovereignty", "onboarding", "marketplace", "certification"]

  steps:
    - style: "compass"
      id: "contact"
      title: "Make Contact and Qualify the Fit"
      trailContext: "One form on the Marketplace assigns you a dedicated Partner Manager, and a 30-to-45-minute discovery call establishes mutual fit before either side invests engineering or legal time. Bring a business owner and a technical lead — the call covers both."
      pageId: "isv/contact-and-preparation"

    - style: "chart"
      id: "kickoff"
      title: "Build the Joint Business Case"
      trailContext: "Pricing model, resource footprint, target verticals and revenue expectations turn a conversation into a business case. The same commercial parameters agreed here become billing SKUs much later, which is why loose answers are expensive."
      pageId: "isv/kickoff-and-strategy-alignment"

    - style: "stairs"
      id: "signing"
      title: "Sign the Partnership"
      trailContext: "The Partner Base Agreement plus a sales model addendum, a DPA and the SLA framework. Annex 2 is not a legal footnote: the TOMs you commit to here are validated technically in the quality gate."
      pageId: "isv/signing-and-legal-alignment"

    - style: "t-bar"
      id: "partner-portal"
      title: "Get Portal Access and Enablement"
      trailContext: "Credentials for the Partner Portal, the capabilities that differ between the referral and reselling models, and the STACKIT University modules your business and technical leads complete before the build starts."
      pageId: "isv/partner-portal-and-enablement"

    - style: "hut"
      id: "onboarding"
      title: "Set Up the Cloud Tenant"
      trailContext: "Organisation, projects and IAM on the STACKIT Portal — and one decision that delays more onboardings than any other: making sure the registered Account Owner is someone who can actually assign permissions to engineers."
      pageId: "isv/stackit-onboarding-and-technical-preparation"

    - style: "stairs"
      id: "poc"
      title: "Deploy the Proof of Concept"
      trailContext: "Tenancy strategy, landing zone, resilience requirements and a formal architectural blueprint mapped to STACKIT services — then automate it. Manual provisioning through the portal does not survive the quality gate."
      pageId: "isv/technical-proof-of-concept"

    - style: "shield"
      id: "es3"
      title: "Pass the ES3 Self Assessment"
      trailContext: "Nine sovereignty dimensions, each checked contractually, organizationally, and technically, and condensed into one of four maturity levels from Initial to Future-Proof. The minimum principle applies: your overall level is the lowest level you reach in any single dimension."
      pageId: "isv/es3-self-assessment"

    - style: "chairlift"
      id: "quality-gate"
      title: "Clear the Technical Quality Gate"
      trailContext: "Because STACKIT holds zero access to your environments under BSI C5, the gate shifts left: an IaC compliance scanner runs in your own pipeline, produces a signed report, and your Technical Lead attests to the result."
      pageId: "isv/technical-quality-gate-and-certification"

    - style: "gondola"
      id: "placement"
      title: "Turn the Product Into an Offer"
      trailContext: "The Product Delivery Sheet is the single document the storefront entry and the billing SKUs are built from. Then choose your depth: a standard listing with manual fulfilment, or API integration with automated provisioning and metering."
      pageId: "isv/placement-and-marketplace-enablement"

    - style: "summit"
      id: "go-live"
      title: "Go Live and Operate"
      trailContext: "Activation switches the listing to live and starts the joint go-to-market. What determines whether the partnership works is what follows: support routed by inquiry type, with commercial questions and platform questions going to different owners."
      pageId: "isv/ready-for-production"
source_url: "https://framework.stackit.cloud/isv/trails/stackit/sovereign-isv-onboarding/"
source_file: "docs/isv/trails/stackit/sovereign-isv-onboarding.mdx"
---

## Steps

### 1. Make Contact and Qualify the Fit

Stage: `compass`

One form on the Marketplace assigns you a dedicated Partner Manager, and a 30-to-45-minute discovery call establishes mutual fit before either side invests engineering or legal time. Bring a business owner and a technical lead — the call covers both.

Page: [/isv/contact-and-preparation/](/isv/contact-and-preparation/) — source: [/raw/isv/contact-and-preparation.md](/raw/isv/contact-and-preparation.md)

### 2. Build the Joint Business Case

Stage: `chart`

Pricing model, resource footprint, target verticals and revenue expectations turn a conversation into a business case. The same commercial parameters agreed here become billing SKUs much later, which is why loose answers are expensive.

Page: [/isv/kickoff-and-strategy-alignment/](/isv/kickoff-and-strategy-alignment/) — source: [/raw/isv/kickoff-and-strategy-alignment.md](/raw/isv/kickoff-and-strategy-alignment.md)

### 3. Sign the Partnership

Stage: `stairs`

The Partner Base Agreement plus a sales model addendum, a DPA and the SLA framework. Annex 2 is not a legal footnote: the TOMs you commit to here are validated technically in the quality gate.

Page: [/isv/signing-and-legal-alignment/](/isv/signing-and-legal-alignment/) — source: [/raw/isv/signing-and-legal-alignment.md](/raw/isv/signing-and-legal-alignment.md)

### 4. Get Portal Access and Enablement

Stage: `t-bar`

Credentials for the Partner Portal, the capabilities that differ between the referral and reselling models, and the STACKIT University modules your business and technical leads complete before the build starts.

Page: [/isv/partner-portal-and-enablement/](/isv/partner-portal-and-enablement/) — source: [/raw/isv/partner-portal-and-enablement.md](/raw/isv/partner-portal-and-enablement.md)

### 5. Set Up the Cloud Tenant

Stage: `hut`

Organisation, projects and IAM on the STACKIT Portal — and one decision that delays more onboardings than any other: making sure the registered Account Owner is someone who can actually assign permissions to engineers.

Page: [/isv/stackit-onboarding-and-technical-preparation/](/isv/stackit-onboarding-and-technical-preparation/) — source: [/raw/isv/stackit-onboarding-and-technical-preparation.md](/raw/isv/stackit-onboarding-and-technical-preparation.md)

### 6. Deploy the Proof of Concept

Stage: `stairs`

Tenancy strategy, landing zone, resilience requirements and a formal architectural blueprint mapped to STACKIT services — then automate it. Manual provisioning through the portal does not survive the quality gate.

Page: [/isv/technical-proof-of-concept/](/isv/technical-proof-of-concept/) — source: [/raw/isv/technical-proof-of-concept.md](/raw/isv/technical-proof-of-concept.md)

### 7. Pass the ES3 Self Assessment

Stage: `shield`

Nine sovereignty dimensions, each checked contractually, organizationally, and technically, and condensed into one of four maturity levels from Initial to Future-Proof. The minimum principle applies: your overall level is the lowest level you reach in any single dimension.

Page: [/isv/es3-self-assessment/](/isv/es3-self-assessment/) — source: [/raw/isv/es3-self-assessment.md](/raw/isv/es3-self-assessment.md)

### 8. Clear the Technical Quality Gate

Stage: `chairlift`

Because STACKIT holds zero access to your environments under BSI C5, the gate shifts left: an IaC compliance scanner runs in your own pipeline, produces a signed report, and your Technical Lead attests to the result.

Page: [/isv/technical-quality-gate-and-certification/](/isv/technical-quality-gate-and-certification/) — source: [/raw/isv/technical-quality-gate-and-certification.md](/raw/isv/technical-quality-gate-and-certification.md)

### 9. Turn the Product Into an Offer

Stage: `gondola`

The Product Delivery Sheet is the single document the storefront entry and the billing SKUs are built from. Then choose your depth: a standard listing with manual fulfilment, or API integration with automated provisioning and metering.

Page: [/isv/placement-and-marketplace-enablement/](/isv/placement-and-marketplace-enablement/) — source: [/raw/isv/placement-and-marketplace-enablement.md](/raw/isv/placement-and-marketplace-enablement.md)

### 10. Go Live and Operate

Stage: `summit`

Activation switches the listing to live and starts the joint go-to-market. What determines whether the partnership works is what follows: support routed by inquiry type, with commercial questions and platform questions going to different owners.

Page: [/isv/ready-for-production/](/isv/ready-for-production/) — source: [/raw/isv/ready-for-production.md](/raw/isv/ready-for-production.md)