Channel sales is selling through other companies rather than only through your own reps: resellers, referral partners, agencies, systems integrators and technology partners who put your product in front of buyers you would not otherwise reach.
Also called: indirect sales, channel partnerships, partner-led sales.
The trade in channel sales is margin for reach. You give away part of the deal value, and in return you get a seller who already has the relationship, already has the account, and does not appear on your payroll. For a lot of markets that is the only economic way in: the buyer already trusts somebody, and it is not you.
It is called indirect sales because the transaction runs through a third party. Direct sales is your rep and the buyer. Channel sales is your partner and the buyer, with you supplying the product, the enablement and usually the pricing.
Referral partners introduce a buyer and hand over. They carry no delivery risk and take the smallest cut. Resellers buy and resell, owning the commercial relationship and often the first line of support, which earns them the largest margin. Agencies and systems integrators sell your product as part of work they are already doing, so their incentive is the project rather than your licence. Technology partners integrate with you, and the deal flow runs both directions.
Most programs end up running more than one of these, which is where the administration comes from: the same pipeline has to price four different commission arrangements without four different processes.
Because the partner's contribution usually happens before anything lands in your CRM. A partner mentions you in a meeting you were not in, the buyer arrives through your website a fortnight later, and the deal is recorded as inbound. The rep is not hiding anything: by the time they see it, the origin is genuinely invisible.
This is why deal registration and attribution exist. They are attempts to capture the partner's involvement at the point it happens, rather than reconstructing it after the deal closes and the record has already been written.
How Airstride does it
Airstride writes partner-sourced pipeline back into your CRM as it happens, so channel revenue shows up in the same reports as everything else.
Partner attributionLast updated 28 July 2026
