Akamai is leaning on an evolving partner network to drive its expansion into cybersecurity and cloud computing.
The company announced a comprehensive revamp to its partner program last month, in large part to accommodate an influx of partners interested in the company’s growing cloud business. The company is stressing simplicity and flexibility as it widens its mix of partners, according to Dave Allen, Akamai VP and geo sales leader.
The Massachusetts-based company has made several major changes to its Partner Connect channel program, including updates to how it compensates partners and certifies them to provide services. “We drastically streamlined our partner agreement to a very slimmed-down document, but it's one that's agile and adaptive to any type of partner type,” Allen told Channel Dive.
The arrangement will help Akamai open Partner Connect to independent software vendors and managed security service providers. It will also lay the groundwork for another route to market with commercial distributors.
The channel program already encompasses managed service providers, tech services distributors and technology advisors, value-added resellers and system integrators. Last month the company added ISVs and MSSPs to the program. A major push around distributors is looming in the upcoming months, Allen said.
Akamai’s indirect revenue has grown 25% year-over-year, according to Allen. The company generates 98% of its new business through partners, a significant bump since 2022, when only 87% of new revenue came from partners. In 2021, 74% of Akamai’s new business was generated by partners.
Why Akamai is adding partner categories
Akamai’s partner base diversification paralleled the company’s business expansions and acquisitions.
Akamai moved into API security with the acquisition of Noname in 2024. Its purchase of Guardicore in 2021 made microsegmentation a strategic area.
The additions fueled growth in the company’s compute and cloud infrastructure services revenues. The segments only accounted for $242 million of the company's $1 billion Q2 2025 revenue, but both are growing. Cloud infrastructure services revenue was up 30% year-over-year and compute revenue grew 13%.
ISVs tend to work with Akamai’s compute business, but the company is aiming to widen its partners mix to address broadening customer needs.
“Some customers are looking for more support and help from a services standpoint,” Allen said. “Maybe they are looking for transitioning and spinning up new [compute] workload versus on-prem.”
While being more flexible, Akamai is, at the same time, taking a selective approach with the partners it adds. The company seeks “the top partners in each category” of partner type, and its partners need to have a cybersecurity focus, Allen said.
“We also need to be careful not to spread ourselves too thin,” he said. “One of the surest ways to degrade the productivity of an indirect strategy is to try to partner with too many organizations.”
Incentivizing new business
The Partner Connect update reconfigured the way Akamai pays its partners. Resellers had stressed that they needed more gross margin on deals, Allen said.
“It's not to say that spiffs or rebates or other incentives aren't important, but particularly gross margin is what the partner teams are compensated on and care most about,” he said. “So we've enhanced gross margin, particularly around our strategic and high-growth offerings.”
Those services include ransomware protection in the Guardicore portfolio and API security from Noname, Allen said.
The company is “heavily weighting” its partner incentives toward new business, which includes new customers and new technologies within existing customers, said Allen.
TSDs and their technology advisor partners have been steadily adding new customers. The company initially partnered with Avant Communications in 2022 and has since added other North American TSDs. The additions have given Akamai access to more IT decision makers, Allen said.
“It is, bar none, the fastest growing portion of our partner ecosystem to produce new customer acquisition for Akamai,” he said.
Embracing distribution
Akamai has run its North American reseller channel through direct relationships with VARs, rather than through IT distributors. Its VAR partners include WWT, GuidePoint Security, SHI International and Presidio.
Akamai plans to expand with North American distributors, too. “Akamai [is] looking to grow and expand our work with different types of partners and those distribution partners, [who] maybe 10-15 years ago were focused more on hardware sales, have really embraced security and SaaS and software,” Allen said. “That's why we're coming together with a few very large distribution partners.”
Akamai partners are handling a growing share of the company’s customer base. Most customers have an existing relationship with a partner, even if their initial purchase was with Akamai.
Akamai is requesting those customers’ consent to place them with the partner long-term, Allen said.
“It's one thing to say that you’re partner-first, but the data has to back it up. And we are actively positioning existing customers that may historically have done business with Akamai direct,” he said.
