Katalon Launches New Partner Program, Partner Portal: Exclusive

Software test automation tech company looks to serve both reseller and service partners with expanded partner program, increase discounts for solution providers, and double the number of systems integrators it works with.

Test automation software provider Katalon is launching a major revamp of its partner program today, looking to support both resellers and partners who use the Katalon platform to provide DevOps and testing services to clients.

Katalon is looking to double over the next year the number of global and regional systems integrator partners it works with through the new program, which also offers more generous partner discounts than before.

The company has also launched the Katalon Partner Portal (pictured) to provide channel partners with a single point of access for partner program materials, deal registration and management, and training and best practices. A new partner locator service is also in the works.

[Related: The Fastest Growing Services Offered ByThe Fastest Growing Services Offered By MSPs In 2022MSPs In 2022 ]

“We want to recruit at least 40 more partners over the next 12 months into the program,” said Matthew Sandberg, Katalon vice president, partnerships, in an exclusive interview with CRN.

The new Katalon Solution Partner Program was officially effective April 1 and the portal went live Monday. The company has been introducing the program to partners this week and is publicly unveiling it today.

Katalon addresses the task of testing newly developed and redeveloped applications for bugs and errors – traditionally a time-consuming manual task. Katalon is an open-source, low-code software testing tool that’s used to build test scripts that automate software testing.

The Katalon platform, including Katalon Studio, Katalon TestOps and TestCloud, is built on the Selenium open-source automation framework. In addition to offering a free community edition of the testing tool, Katalon has marketed commercial editions of Studio Enterprise and Runtime Engine, along with related services and support, since 2019.

Today the open-source Katalon tools are used by hundreds of thousands of developers and the company has commercial customers around the globe.

“Over the last 10 years or so there has been a shift in the markets toward more adoption of test automation,” Sandberg said.

Katalon, headquartered in Atlanta, has grown rapidly and now has some 250 employees. The company raised $27 million in Series A funding in June 2021.

Katalon is currently working with about 40 global and regional systems integrator “solutions partners,” according to Sandberg, who joined the company at the beginning of this year. Those partners use the Katalon platform to build automated test scripts for their clients’ applications as part of their software development and DevOps practices.

“We estimate that one Katalon license can drive more than 10X revenue from services for our partners – and probably a lot more than that,” the channel executive said.

The company launched its first partner program in 2020. But that earlier program was focused on a reseller go-to-market motion, providing incentives and rewards for partners who sold Katalon licenses to their customers. Sandberg said that more than half of the company’s partners today are using Katalon to provide managed testing services to their customers, part of their long-term software development, testing and maintenance customer engagements.

“We’ve grown over time and the old framework was less scalable than where we need to be now,” Sandberg said.

The new four-tier Katalon Solution Partner Program is designed to accommodate both the reseller and managed service models, providing service partners with the same program benefits as resellers, according to Sandberg.

Responding to partner feedback, the program has essentially doubled the discounts partners earn on sales volumes, the channel executive said, and also offers multi-year discounts.

The new program is also designed to be more programmatic and transparent, Sandberg said, including establishing Katalon-partner rules of engagement, standard terms and conditions for deal registration, and clearer requirements for tier levels and discounts.

The new program provides training and support, including access to courses in the Katalon Academy. Also available are joint-marketing events, co-branding marketing materials and deal pursuit support. And the program offers “a comprehensive framework” for developing service packages around the Katalon platform and access to non-production product licenses, according to the company.

“Software quality is a critical driver of business success and organizations are embracing test automation as a way to improve test coverage and speed to ensure high performing systems,” said Abhishek Nema, chief operating officer at KMS Solutions, a Katalon partner, in a statement. “KMS Solution‘s partnership with Katalon has provided a foundation for our teams to help our customers adopt test automation in a manner that is easy to learn and quick to get started and can also scale as our customers mature their test automation practices. We’re excited about the benefits that Katalon‘s new partner program will offer as we continue to grow our partnership.“

The new Katalon Partner Portal is the access point for many of the program’s benefits and resources, sales and marketing tools, and information about Katalon’s products and strategy.

Katalon has developed a pricing calculator that partners can use to develop price quotes for potential customers. “We want to enable partners to be able to lead us into their client engagements and have an understanding of what their prices will be,” Sandberg said.

Katalon is assembling a partner locator web site where partners can “showcase their partnership with Katalon,” including their product and service capabilities and the requirements they have met, Sandberg said. Partners also will have the ability to promote their Katalon platform service packages. And they can highlight customer success stories.

The partner locator is currently in beta with the first partners developing content and is slated to go live within the next week or so.