Vercel expands partner program with new funds, training, and tiers
Vercel is rolling out a set of updates to its Partner Program, citing that one in two sales and project deliveries now happens in collaboration with partners. The company recently hosted over 35 partner sponsors at Next.js Conf, which drew more than 1,000 attendees in San Francisco and tens of thousands online.
The program's expanded benefits fall into three areas:
- Partner Fund: Previously known as Market Development Fund (MDF), this lets partners reinvest referral earnings into technical training and demand generation activities. Vercel experts lead these initiatives, which aim to improve project success rates, raise brand visibility, and generate demand for partner services.
- Partner enablement: The Partner Learning Portal provides battle cards, sales decks, and technical guides to help teams understand the Frontend Cloud ecosystem and co-selling with Vercel. Monthly Technical Excellence sessions, led by Vercel's Partner Solutions Engineering team, cover product updates and technical discussions.
- Partner tiers with dedicated GTM support: New tiering recognizes that partners need different levels of support depending on their stage. Engaged partners can plan go-to-market and product initiatives with a dedicated Partner Manager, while newer partners receive an onboarding experience.
Solution partner impact on customer projects
Recent solution partner work highlights how Vercel deployments have accelerated major digital transformations:
- Work & Co (part of Accenture Song) handled strategy and delivery for the BNP Paribas Open's new digital experience, launching new website and mobile app experiences within months.
- Code and Theory has digitally transformed more than 200 newsrooms. The firm led an infrastructure upgrade for the Minnesota Star Tribune ahead of the 2024 election using Next.js and Vercel, resulting in a smooth election season, improved conversions, and Core Web Vitals in the 80-90 range.
- Americaneagle.com, a long-time Vercel partner, helped Mecum Auction Company reshape its digital presence. The new workflow lets developers and marketers manage an auction experience serving over 120 million annual page views.
"Vercel has provided game-changing capabilities for Horizontal and for our mutual clients. Because their technology acts like an 'easy button' for our developers, we've seen substantial acceleration in time to market with new digital experiences, resulting in both lower costs for our clients and increased speed with which marketers can deliver innovation."
Dave Michela — SVP of Global Strategy & Growth, Horizontal Digital
Technology partner integrations and features
Vercel is also extending its ecosystem through joint features with technology partners:
- Optimizely Feature Experimentation Template: A Next.js quick-start template for building a demo storefront with Vercel Feature Flags and Optimizely Feature Experimentation.
- Sanity Live API + Next.js 15: Sanity unveiled its Live API at Next.js Conf 2024, enabling real-time content updates without full page refreshes. Combined with the Next.js App Router and Vercel Data Cache, apps can deliver live content updates to all users.
- Contentful via Vercel's Content Link: This gives users the ability to tightly integrate a Vercel Deployment with their CMS, letting editors make live changes on a page. The integration is available through the Contentful Marketplace.
- BigCommerce Catalyst: An accelerator for composable storefronts using BigCommerce, Next.js, and Vercel, cutting launch time from years to months.
- Supabase on the Vercel Marketplace: Launched a month ago, the Marketplace provides a streamlined integration and onboarding path that has opened a new conversion channel for partners.
Vercel will discuss the program updates at its Q4 Partner Webinar on November 22, 2024. The company is also presenting at Optimizely Opticon (November 18, 2024), AWS re:Invent (December 2, 2024), and NRF (January 12, 2025).
