The Vendure Partner Program is now open to everyone

After an early-access period, the Vendure Partner Program is open to any agency or system integrator that wants to build a practice on Vendure. Joining is free today, with no tier you can buy your way into. You earn your standing by doing actual work in the ecosystem.

Why Build a Vendure Practice

The agency business case starts with staffing. Vendure runs on Node.js, TypeScript, NestJS, GraphQL, and React. If your team delivers modern web projects, they already know this stack. There's no retraining cycle, no six-month ramp-up, no hiring a specialist language pool. You staff the engagement with people you already have.

The second part of the case is the client work itself. The projects Vendure wins are substantive: account hierarchies, contract pricing, approval workflows, ERP integration, and multi-entity setups. These are the kinds of engagements where agencies build margin and reputation, not commodity builds that race to the bottom on price. Deep B2B requirements demand real implementation skill, which means the best agencies carry a durable advantage.

Third: the open-source core changes what's possible on a client project. Vendure Core is GPLv3, which means when a client requirement doesn't fit the standard pattern, you read the code, extend it via the plugin model, and ship, without waiting on a vendor's roadmap. Copyleft rarely touches the client work itself: the custom plugins you write sit outside its obligations under Vendure's licence. And where a client needs different terms, Vendure Platform ships under a commercial licence that resolves the question. The core you build on stays open and yours to work with. Vendure was built by a team shipping real client commerce work, and that background shows in how the platform is structured. That origin story is worth reading.

Earned, Not Bought

Your standing in the program is determined by Vendure Experience Points (VXP), which accumulate through real contributions to the ecosystem: contributing to open-source Vendure repositories, writing docs, publishing content, speaking at events, and the client projects you submit as showcases. GitHub contributions are counted automatically; everything else is submitted through the Vendure partner portal and reviewed by the Vendure team. Client work counts even when it's under NDA: submit the project as a showcase, and if it's a candidate for a public case study, we'll produce one with you. That earns more VXP again.

There are two VXP pools:

• Business VXP sits at the company level. It reflects your agency's collective track record.
• Personal VXP is tied to individual contributors, including independent developers and community members who participate outside a formal agency context.

The tiers are Friend of Vendure (the entry level) and Vendure Partner (the senior recognition). You move up as VXP accumulates. There is no fee to reach either tier today.

One practical note: contributions you've already made count. At registration, up to 12 months of your prior GitHub contributions are automatically backfilled into your VXP score. If your team has already been building with Vendure, you don't start from zero. A track record you can demonstrate affects both your standing and which leads get routed to you.

The merit model matters beyond fairness as a principle. It means a two-person studio with a strong track record competes on equal standing with a 200-person agency. The directory reflects who's actively building, not who's paying the most.

What You Get

Recognition in the program comes with tangible commercial support. At both levels, benefits scale as VXP climbs.

1. Lead referrals: Qualified opportunities that come through Vendure's own pipeline get passed to partners who match the project profile. As your tier and track record grow, so does the quality and volume of referrals.
2. Referral commission: When a client you've introduced signs a Vendure Platform or Vendure Cloud contract, you earn a percentage of that first contract value. The exact rate depends on the deal; we cover it on the intro call.
3. Co-selling: On enterprise deals, Vendure's team works alongside you on the sales motion, bringing technical depth, positioning support, and credibility with procurement. Vendure doesn't take on full-scope delivery itself: the implementation is yours, and our professional services exist to back up your engineering team.
4. Co-marketing: Partners appear in the partner directory, with the option to develop case studies and co-branded content as the relationship matures. If you close a project worth showcasing, there's a real route to getting it in front of Vendure's audience.
5. Partner badge: Recognisable in proposals, on your website, in client conversations. It signals credibility within the ecosystem.
6. Early product insight: Partners see the roadmap before public announcements, so you can align project timelines and client conversations with what's coming.
7. Direct team access: Active partners get a line into the Vendure team via Slack and GitHub for questions and collaboration. Production support for live deployments runs through our paid retainers, which partners get at a discounted rate.

Coming later this year: Vendure Academy and a formal certification track. These aren't available yet, but they're on the roadmap. When they land, they'll give your team a structured path to demonstrate Vendure expertise to clients and prospects. We'll announce separately when they're ready.

Partners Are Already Building

Agencies and system integrators are already using Vendure for production projects across B2B wholesale, distribution, and multi-channel commerce. The partner directory is live. The clearest signal there's real work to be done is seeing who's already doing it.

How to Join

The process is light by design. Download the partner guide to get the full picture: it covers the tier structure, the VXP model, how leads are routed, and what onboarding looks like.

Anyone can apply. Send a short application; we read every one and reply within a week. If the timing isn't right, we'll say so. From there, a short intro call, then onboarding puts you into the partner portal, where you connect your GitHub account and VXP starts accruing from day one.

Joining is free today for both the Friend of Vendure and Vendure Partner tiers. As the program grows we may introduce additional levels, but the cost of reaching these tiers is the work you do in the ecosystem, and that will not change.

If you want to get a sense of who's already building before you commit to anything, browse the partner directory, see the shape of the ecosystem, and reach out when you're ready.