Partner FAQ

Our partner program has different partner tiers for both development and agency partners: "Solution", "Business" and "Enterprise". 

Solution partners are meant for smaller agencies or development companies, implementing smaller projects or supporting bigger projects with their work.

Business partners are meant for mid-size agencies and projects. Rule of thumb: if you can provide up to 5 people working on one single client's project, that's what we'd call "mid-sized".

Enterprise partners are meant for enterprise size projects. Are you able to provide 20+ developers for a project? Have experience in for example integrating SAP or Hybris shops with TYPO3? Can you provide full teams working for years solely for one client? Then enterprise might be the tier for you.

Of course, when you fulfil the requirements, the final decision which tier to use is still yours. 

With "high-quality talks and sessions" we mean that you should be prepared to fill speaker slots on TYPO3 events or on non-TYPO3 events talking about TYPO3. A session or talk in this context may mean speaking at one of the official events like the TYPO3 developer days, or a session on a bar camp or even a slot on a local user group event - as long as there is an allocated time slot for it and the event itself is open for the public (but may require entrance fees). The duration of the talk does not matter and depends on the event itself.

A good case study consists of three parts: The task at hand, the implementation and the result. The first part should describe the project scope and what the project set out to achieve. The second part should describe how it was implemented and the last part should summarize the results (if possible with numbers like increased visits or sales, depending on what was the goal of the project).

The length of a case study varies but should not be less than 300 and not more than 700 words.

A partner satisfaction survey is a survey done multiple times a year gathering feedback from all partners about their satisfaction with the partner program. It's meant to help us to keep the partner program as useful as possible - for partners and for clients. Surveys will be done online but may require phone or email follow-ups for in-depth feedback.

An extension review is a code review of one single extension executed by the TYPO3 GmbH.

Find out more on the TYPO3 extension review product page.

A project review is a review of a project executed by the TYPO3 GmbH team.

Find more about reviews on the corresponding product page.

Certain partner levels require that the agency has at least one SLA (and reviewed projects). That means, that the agency has to have at least one customer who has a TYPO3 GmbH SLA as part of their support contract with the agency. Our reasoning is, that a partner of a certain level should provide their customers with support as close to the core as possible, providing the customer with fast solutions and providing us with the feedback from the customer so we can ensure the continuously high quality of our services and the product.

The main difference between full-service agency partners and development partners is full-service partners are capable to provide the potential client with all services surrounding a web project - including design, usability services, concept work and online marketing. Development partners on the other hand provide technological solutions, they implement the concepts and build the site, but leave the related services like online marketing to others.

The partner program will start in March 2017.

To become a partner you have to have a certain number of certified employees, so we can assure clients you have the competence they need. Not all of these certifications can be taken online at the moment and are only offered on special events, like the certiFUNcation day. But don't worry - even if you can't make it there, you can still become a partner. First of all, rest assured the certification team is working hard on providing all certifications online. Second, for becoming a partner, you only need to have certifications available online - and you will have 6 months to pass them after they became available.

If you want to become a partner but you don't fulfil the certification requirements yet, you can still apply. First of all, you could start out in one of the lower tiers and work your way up. But there is another way: After your application, you have 6 months to fulfill the certification requirements - and that only applies to those that are already available online. At the time of writing the developer certification for example is not available online - that means, it's very hard to have certified developers if you are located outside of Europe. Therefore, if you want to become a partner that requires certified developers, we will only require fulfillment until 6 months after the certification is available online. We will handle your partner application as a statement of intent and trust you to fulfill the requirement as soon as possible for you.

An official partner needs to have a certain amount of certified employees. The amount depends on the partner tier and type as well as the total count of employees in that area.

For example:

• the requirement is to have 50% certified integrators
• you have 10 employees working as integrators in total
• 50% of those 10 need to be certified = 5 certified integrators
• employees not working in that area don't influence the amount of certified employees

Every partner has to be a TYPO3 association member. To account for the different levels of membership these memberships are credited toward the partner fees. For the Enterprise partner levels, all memberships are credited 100%. This means, the full association membership fee may be deduced from the partner fee.

Another example:

For a silver association member wanting to achieve a solution full service partner level the discount is 40% of the membership fee (at the time of writing that equals 600 EUR).

Your client wants to support the Open Source eco system by paying the Open Source support fee thanks to your explanations. Congratulations! As you are the one in unique contact with your client and we don't want to "usurp" that position, you will write them an invoice for the fee and contact us. We will then in turn send you an invoice and re-invest the money into the TYPO3 project.

Partners have to include an optional 2% "Open Source Community Support" position on their TYPO3 related offers. This position is optional for the client to pick. TYPO3 is a powerful system developed and offered as Open Source. With the position we want to engage the clients - to prompt them to ask for the background of that position and give the agency the option to explain about the Open Source concept and benefits. Even if the clients do not decide to contribute - the conversation itself raises awareness for Open Source in general, strengthening the eco system and benefitting the project long-term.

For official partners positions like "Open Source Support" are mandatory on all offers but optional for the client to pick. "On all offers" in this case means on all offers for new TYPO3 related projects.

• If you do a new TYPO3 project - it's mandatory.
• If you do a combined project with TYPO3 and a shop system for example - it's mandatory.
• If you do a project that has nothing to do with TYPO3 - like developing an iphone app - you don't need to include the position.