The cybersecurity vendor has increased partner margins ‘across the board’ for deal registration and co-sell deals, according to Rapid7 Channel Chief Suzanne Swanson.
Rapid7 debuted a revamped channel program Tuesday with a major increase to profitability along with key updates around simplification and enablement, Rapid7 Channel Chief Suzanne Swanson told CRN.
In an exclusive interview, Swanson said the cybersecurity vendor is focused on helping partners to more effectively target specific segments of the market at a time of rapid change, fueled by the adoption of AI and intensifying cyberattacks.
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“We’ve increased the incentives around deal registration. We’re targeting our MDF expenditures to specific customers and use cases,” said Swanson, vice president for global partners at Rapid7.
“We’re getting more focused on marketing and creating demand in the right spaces,” she said. “And then we’re building very focused business plans with our key partners—so that we’re drilling in and aligning our sellers, their sellers and our marketing efforts to go after that use case and that customer.”
Notably, in terms of boosting profitability, Rapid7 has “increased partner margins across the board for deal registration and co-sell, and increased the level of incumbency protection on renewals,” Swanson said.
Rapid7 has also introduced a new tier, Platinum, for its top-level partners. The invitation-only Platinum tier offers enhanced margin protection, custom demand generation programs, custom sales incentives and performance rebates, early access to product roadmaps and early introduction to new products, according to Swanson.
The Platinum tier is “really targeted to the partners that are committed to Rapid7 [and shows] we’re committed to them,” she said.
Partner Perspective
For solution providers such as SHI International, the new Platinum tier and updates on profitability from Rapid7 are highly welcome amid heated competition among security products, according to Joseph Lentine, director of security partners at Somerset, N.J.-based SHI, No. 12 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 for 2025.
“They understand that sellers are motivated by some of these incentives,” Lentine said.
Ultimately, “I’ve seen tons of partner programs over the years,” he said. “And [Rapid7 is] definitely on the higher end, in terms of what they’re willing to provide us when we’re bringing them opportunities.”
The partner program updates also show Rapid7’s ability to recognize where partners can add value beyond just sourcing new customer logos, Lentine said.
“There are also plenty of relationships that we can bring to the table, and resources that we have that can help them drive deals forward,” he said. “It seems like they truly understand that.”
Simplification And Enablement
Additional updates introduced by Rapid7 for its PACT Partner Program included simplifying certain program elements to make it easier for partners to engage, Swanson told CRN.
The biggest move around simplification is that Rapid7 has consolidated its co-sell deal types into a single category, she said.
Previously, “there were a few different flavors of co-sell that made it a little more challenging for partners to understand how to engage with us and what the margin expectation should be,” Swanson said. “We collapsed that into a single category of co-sell—with the idea that it not only makes the margin and revenue opportunity more predictable, but it also encourages our reps and partners to engage much earlier in the cycle.”
Meanwhile, in terms of enablement, Rapid7 is debuting new “role‑specific journeys” in the partner portal, she said. That means that technical, sales and other partner roles can “jump in at any point to gain the knowledge necessary—either for that particular opportunity or to fill a gap in their particular expertise,” Swanson said.
The launch of the refreshed partner program follows the appointment of Swanson, a longtime channel veteran, as Rapid7 channel chief in December. Swanson had most recently been channel chief at Secureworks, and prior to that held channel executive roles at companies including Qualys, Trustwave and IBM.
For Rapid7’s product portfolio overall, the focus for the coming year is expected to continue to be around the vendor’s detection and response offerings, including MDR and Exposure Command, she said.
For partners, it’s increasingly critical to deliver “the ability to detect and respond at scale and with speed, as AI continues to accelerate the proliferation of attacks and shorten the amount of time that you have as a customer to respond,” Swanson said. In this environment, “partners are under more pressure to deliver the right solutions to those customers.”
