What are marketing development funds (MDF) in 2026?
Marketing development funds (MDF) are dollars a vendor sets aside so a reseller, dealer, or channel partner can run its own local marketing — a paid campaign, a co-branded webinar, an event — rather than money the vendor spends directly. They're not the same as co-op advertising, which reimburses a share of a partner's own ad spend after the fact based on sales volume. Most B2B programs structure MDF one of three ways: accrual, discretionary, or a hybrid of both.
- Forrester's Partner Ecosystem Marketing Survey, 2026 found nearly 70% of partners operate at low-to-medium marketing maturity — a bigger constraint on MDF spend than the budget itself.
- PartnerStack and Wynter's State of Partnerships in GTM 2026 survey found 69% of B2B leaders plan to increase partnership investment, but team misalignment (37%) and having no documented partner program (20%) are the top blockers to results.
- MDF and co-op advertising aren't the same: Salesforce's own guidance describes MDF as vendor-discretionary funding for broad marketing activity, while co-op reimburses a fixed share of a partner's own ad spend tied to sales volume.
- Most B2B programs split MDF one of three ways — accrual, discretionary, or hybrid — and mixing them with no documented rules turns a funding line into a compliance headache.
- At least three major powersports OEMs added TikTok as an approved 2026 co-op claim channel, and BRP became the first to reimburse video production costs — guidelines are catching up to how partners actually market.
What are marketing development funds, and how do they differ from co-op advertising?
Marketing development funds are budgets a vendor sets aside so its channel partners, resellers, or dealers can run their own local marketing — a paid search campaign, a co-branded webinar, a regional trade show booth — rather than money the vendor spends directly. Salesforce's own guidance draws a clear line versus co-op advertising: MDF is awarded at the vendor's discretion for a broad range of activity, while co-op reimburses a fixed share of a partner's own ad spend, tied to how much they've already sold, and is usually reserved for higher-volume sellers.
The distinction matters because the two funds get approved, tracked, and reported differently, and a team that treats them as interchangeable ends up with neither budget spent well. Refinex's own partner programs work exists because most vendors and partners never build that governance layer — they hand over a number and hope it turns into pipeline.
What are the three ways vendors structure MDF?
Most B2B programs use one of three structures. Accrual MDF builds automatically as a partner closes revenue — the vendor sets its own accrual rate, and the partner draws against the balance for pre-approved campaign types. Discretionary MDF (proposal-based) works the other way: a partner submits a specific campaign, budget, and expected outcome for case-by-case approval — common for a partner with no accrual history yet, or a one-off like a trade show. Hybrid programs combine both: a baseline allocation to start, plus an accrual layer that grows with revenue.
None of the three is inherently better. The right choice depends on how many partners a program manages and how much oversight the channel team can apply — a few dozen strategic partners can run discretionary approval on every request, while thousands of resellers usually need accrual's automation just to stay solvent on paperwork.
Why do partners leave so much MDF unspent?
The honest answer usually isn't the fund itself — it's what the partner can do with it. Forrester's Partner Ecosystem Marketing Survey, 2026 found nearly 70% of partners operate at low-to-medium marketing and demand-generation maturity, meaning most funded partners lack the in-house skill or headcount to spend a campaign budget well even once approved. A partner with nobody who can build a landing page or run paid search won't burn through an MDF grant just because it exists.
The second constraint is internal, and isn't the partner's fault at all. PartnerStack and Wynter's State of Partnerships in GTM 2026 survey found team misalignment is the single biggest blocker to partner revenue, named by 37% of respondents, ahead of having no documented partner program at all (20%). If sales, marketing, and the channel team can't agree on what a funded campaign should look like, approvals stall no matter how much money sits in the fund.
How should a partner marketing team measure MDF's return?
Tie every dollar to a specific, pre-agreed outcome before it's approved — a lead count, a piece of pipeline — not a general "brand awareness" goal nobody can check later. The bigger issue is usually the attribution model, not tracking discipline: PartnerStack's same survey found only 42% of programs use multi-touch attribution to credit partner-influenced revenue, while 31% rely on first-touch and 19% on last-touch models that can hide a partner's real contribution. Our guide to what multi-touch attribution actually does covers how the model changes what a report can honestly claim.
Pick the attribution approach before launch, write it into the MDF approval itself, and use the same model for every partner so results are comparable — the same discipline behind funding what's measurably working and cutting what isn't, applied to money the vendor doesn't spend directly.
What actually gets funded with MDF, and what usually doesn't?
Most programs fund activity a partner couldn't otherwise afford that clearly promotes the vendor's own product: co-branded paid search and social, a joint webinar, a regional event booth, or launch content. See our breakdown of which ad creative angles to test first when a partner builds a co-branded campaign from scratch — the same discipline applies whichever side pays for the media. LinkedIn's blended cost benchmarks are a useful starting point for budgeting a partner's paid social line, since that's where most channel-funded demand gen for software resellers runs.
What most programs exclude: generic branded merchandise, general overhead, and sponsorships with no measurable lead tied to them — spend that looks like marketing but produces nothing a vendor can report against.
How is MDF changing in 2026?
Co-op and MDF guidelines are visibly catching up to how partners actually market today. According to trade coverage from Motorcycle & Powersports News, at least three major powersports OEMs added TikTok as an approved claim outlet for 2026, and BRP became the first in the category to reimburse the cost of producing a video itself — dealers can claim up to $250 for videography, and that video can then generate further claims for an influencer fee and paid promotion.
The pattern extends past powersports: vendors that once reimbursed only finished placements are starting to fund the production behind them, because a partner with no video budget can't compete on the channels their customers watch.
A worked example: turning a $15,000 accrual grant into two funded campaigns
Here's an illustrative model, not a specific vendor's formula. Say a software vendor sets an accrual MDF rate of 3% of partner-sourced revenue, and a reseller closed $500,000 in vendor product revenue last year — that reseller now has $15,000 ($500,000 × 0.03) to request against.
Splitting that across two campaigns agreed in advance — $9,000 for co-branded paid search and $6,000 for a joint webinar — at WordStream's 2026 blended average cost per lead of $66.69, that $9,000 buys roughly 135 leads ($9,000 ÷ $66.69), assuming the campaign runs under a multi-touch model agreed before launch, so leads touching the vendor's own demand-gen campaigns still credit the partner rather than disappearing into a last-touch report. Without that agreement in writing, the reseller can spend the entire $15,000 with no defensible answer for whether the pipeline closed because of the MDF campaign or the vendor's own marketing running in parallel.
FAQ: marketing development funds
What is a marketing development fund?
A marketing development fund (MDF) is money a vendor sets aside for a channel partner, reseller, or dealer to spend on its own local marketing — a paid campaign, event, or piece of co-branded content — rather than money the vendor spends directly. Programs structure it as accrual, discretionary, or hybrid, and it's approved before the partner spends it, not reimbursed after.
What is MDF strategy?
An MDF strategy is the written set of rules governing who qualifies, how funds are allocated, which activities are eligible, and how results get reported before money changes hands. Programs without one tend to see funds go unrequested or misspent, since nobody shares a definition of what a good campaign looks like.
What does MDF mean in finance?
In a marketing or channel-sales context, MDF stands for marketing development funds — not a formal accounting term. Vendors typically book it as a marketing or sales-and-partner expense rather than a rebate, and it has no relationship to unrelated acronyms sharing the same three letters.
How much should a company budget for marketing development funds?
There's no single published industry-average rate, since accrual percentages and discretionary caps vary by vendor and program maturity. Forrester's 2026 survey found 75% of partner marketing decision-makers expect to increase spend in the next 12 months — plan for a growing line, not a fixed one.
Do all partners qualify for MDF automatically?
No. Most programs restrict eligibility by partner tier, sales history, or certification status, and reserve discretionary funding for partners with no accrual track record yet. A partner with no documented sales typically has to submit a campaign proposal for case-by-case approval instead of drawing against an automatic balance.
Put this to work.
Pull the current utilization rate for your program before assuming the budget is the problem — if partners leave money unspent, check whether they have the in-house skill to execute, not just whether the offer is generous enough. Document which allocation model your program actually uses, in writing, and agree on one attribution model across every partner before the next round of campaigns launches. If a partner is building co-branded creative with MDF dollars, apply the same angle-testing discipline as any other paid campaign rather than treating it as free money. Book a strategy call to walk through how your partner or dealer network's funds should actually be structured.
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- Forrester — Partner Ecosystem Marketing Survey, 2026, 2026.
- PartnerStack & Wynter — The State of Partnerships in GTM 2026, 2026.
- Salesforce — What Are Marketing Development Funds (MDFs)?, partner relationship management guidance.
- Motorcycle & Powersports News — A Breakdown of OEM Co-Op Changes in 2026, 2026.
- WordStream — 2026 Google Ads Benchmarks: Competitive Data & Insights for Every Industry, updated 2026.
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