What Happened:
SentinelOne launched a unified partner program that consolidates resellers, MSPs, distributors, GSIs, and integration partners. The new “PartnerOne” program replaces siloed tracks with a single framework that allows partners to enter at different levels of maturity while keeping certification, incentives, and support consistent.
The company is prioritizing simplicity, activity, and measurement over traditional tiering complexity. SentinelOne says the program focuses on engagement (enablement, deal registration, activity) rather than opaque point systems or annual redesigns, which the company believes erode predictability for partners.
As customer buying motions blur across resale and managed services, SentinelOne is designing flexible workflows that meet partners where they operate. The company has rebuilt elements of its product to support MSPs, added self-service quoting for resellers, and is investing in data visibility (like renewal dashboards and pipeline snapshots) to accelerate partner time-to-value.
These insights were discussed during a conversation on the Partnerships Unraveled podcast by Channext.
Our Take:
SentinelOne’s overhaul was based on the insight that partners no longer fit cleanly into the old “reseller vs. MSP vs. SI” buckets. As customer buying patterns blend managed services, resale, and technology integration into a single motion, programs designed for a previous era simply can’t keep up.
The most notable decision in SentinelOne’s approach is the insistence on simplicity. While many vendors continue to launch sprawling partner frameworks with separate MSP, GSI, reseller, and alliance programs, SentinelOne is doing the opposite, consolidating everything under one umbrella.
Another point worth calling out is SentinelOne’s use of data and automation as a strategic differentiator rather than an administrative one. Visibility into renewals, real-time tiering compliance, deal-reg status, and MDF consumption has historically been uneven across the ecosystem. SentinelOne’s claim that simple visibility boosted retention by a percentage point shows that partners will take action if you show them what matters in real time.
The company is also leaning into partner-sourced pipeline as its north-star metric, which is an increasingly important move for 100% channel-led vendors. Measuring influence across SIs, alliances, MSSPs, and resale partners remains a challenge industry-wide, and SentinelOne admits they’re still working on this. But the attempt alone signals a maturing understanding of how modern ecosystems function: influence often outweighs transaction.
Finally, the fact that SentinelOne runs a global ecosystem of resellers, MSPs, GSIs, and distributors with a four-person programs team is impressive. It implies the real engine of scale isn’t headcount but program design, automation, and operational discipline. That’s a lesson many vendors, particularly those in hypergrowth, would benefit from internalizing.
Whether this unified model becomes a blueprint for other cybersecurity vendors remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: the era of overly complicated, multi-track partner programs is losing steam.
Listen to the full interview here.