In larger organisations the purchasing route often decides the provider before any technical evaluation happens. Knowing the routes is worth as much as knowing the models.
Four ways the same model reaches you
Several providers sell through more than one of these routes simultaneously. Anthropic, for example, documents availability through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud and Microsoft Foundry alongside its own API, with marketplace billing converted into a single line item on the cloud invoice.
Direct account
An account with the provider, billed by card or invoice. Fastest to start and usually the first place new features and models appear.
Suits
Small teams, prototypes, anyone who needs to start today
Friction
A new vendor to onboard, review and pay
Cloud marketplace
Buying through an existing agreement with a major cloud provider. Charges land on a bill you already have, and spend can count toward committed cloud spend.
Suits
Organisations with an existing cloud commitment
Friction
New models can arrive later than on the direct route
Reseller or integrator
A partner sells and often implements. Common in regulated sectors and public procurement where an approved supplier list governs purchasing.
Suits
Regulated buyers, framework-based public procurement
Friction
Margin, and another party between you and support
Embedded in a tool
The model arrives inside software you already buy, and you may have limited say over which model is used or when it changes.
Suits
Teams wanting the capability without any integration work
Friction
No control over model choice, versioning or data terms
What changes with the route
Who holds the contract. Buying through a marketplace can mean your commercial relationship runs through the cloud provider, which affects liability, support escalation and dispute handling. The applicable terms may be the marketplace's rather than the model provider's.
How you are billed. Marketplace billing may convert usage into the platform's own units. Anthropic documents a consumption unit model for marketplace purchases, where token usage is rated then converted for invoicing. Your cost per token is unchanged; your invoice looks different.
Where processing happens. Regional endpoint options and data residency arrangements differ between first-party and partner-cloud access, sometimes with a price premium attached.
When you get new models. Availability on partner clouds can lag a direct release, and older models sometimes remain available on a partner cloud after retirement elsewhere.
A procurement checklist that works for any provider
Which entity are you contracting with, and whose terms govern: the model provider's, the marketplace's, or a reseller's.
What the data terms say for that route, since marketplace and direct terms are not automatically identical.
Where the security documentation lives, including certifications, sub-processors and a trust portal.
What the support path is when something breaks at three in the morning, and who answers.
Whether spend counts toward existing commitments, which frequently decides the route on its own.
How you would exit, including data export and whether the integration would survive a provider change.
Which models the route actually offers and how quickly new ones appear on it.
The pattern worth knowing
Technical teams tend to evaluate models and then discover procurement constraints. The reverse order is usually faster: establish which routes are open to your organisation, see which providers are available through them, and evaluate only those.
This regularly narrows a field of six providers to two before any testing happens, and it avoids the situation where the preferred model cannot be bought for another quarter.
Independent briefing. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Microsoft or any other company named here, and none of them reviewed this content.
All company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used for identification only.
Availability, terms and billing arrangements differ by route, region and agreement, and change. Verify with the provider and the marketplace before contracting; Anthropic's platform documentation is at platform.claude.com/docs. Reviewed August 2026.
AI assistance was used in drafting this page. No company paid for inclusion or wording. This page is not legal, contractual, procurement or financial advice.