The interesting number at Intelisys is the one it does not keep. In fiscal 2025, suppliers billed end customers approximately $2.79 billion through its business. Intelisys recorded $85.6 million in net sales. Between those figures sits an entire way of selling technology: independent advisers, supplier commissions, engineering help, and the patient work of getting a customer connected.
- Independent sellers bring customer relationships. Intelisys brings supplier access and shared support.
- Its agency business earns recurring commissions; supplier billings are a different measure.
- Channel Exchange adds software purchasing and subscription management to the mix.
That distinction matters because Intelisys can be surprisingly difficult to describe. It distributes cloud and connectivity services, but its contribution extends beyond a catalog. For a small technology advisory business, the useful product may be access to someone who can untangle a network requirement, compare suppliers, or help move a sale through the machinery behind it.
01 / A bigger bench, without hiring one
Rick Dellar and Rick Sheldon founded Intelisys in 1994. By the time ScanSource announced its acquisition in 2016, the company had more than 2,400 sales partners and over 130 suppliers. Those historical numbers describe its essential design: many independent businesses supported by a shared operation.
The sellers include telecom agents, managed service providers, value-added resellers and IT integrators. Their customers are businesses buying the unglamorous essentials: internet access, business calling, contact-center systems, cloud infrastructure and security. Intelisys helps the seller assemble those pieces. The supplier generally delivers the underlying service.
Its portfolio crosses connectivity and software-defined networking, communications and customer experience, cloud computing, managed security, wireless and IoT. Supplier relationships include names such as Verizon and Five9; Channel Exchange features Microsoft, Acronis and Bitdefender. Breadth is useful when a customer's problem refuses to stay inside one vendor's product catalog.
The engineering operation gives that breadth some practical substance. Intelisys describes presales specialists who help match customer requirements to suppliers, with inside engineers handling questions and more complex opportunities moving to regional specialists. The distinction is useful: a seller can understand the customer's business without personally mastering every technical detail of the proposed system.
02 / Follow the payment
In the agency model, the supplier bills the end customer and pays commissions. Intelisys pays the sales partner and recognizes the commission it retains as net sales. A large volume of customer spending can therefore produce a much smaller reported revenue figure. Calling both numbers “sales” would erase the economics.
Suppliers’ billings to end customers
Intelisys net sales after partner commissions
ScanSource agreed to an initial $83.6 million purchase price for Intelisys in 2016, plus performance-based earn-outs over four years. For a hardware distributor, the appeal was recurring service income. Rick Sheldon put the partner proposition plainly in the acquisition announcement:
“Intelisys’ driving mission has always been to enable the growth and success of our sales partners.”Rick Sheldon / Co-founder / 2016
But recurring income has a timing problem. A seller can win a contract before the service starts producing commissions. Staff still need paying. Intelisys launched its Partner Investment Program in fall 2010 and, by February 2014, reported more than $2 million in loans. Financing was secured against current and future commissions.
More recently, ScanSource leadership described a Revenue Accelerator that advances commissions to support partner hiring, with repayment from subsequent commissions. This is a concrete intervention in the sales process: helping a partner afford growth before that growth pays back. Supplier pricing and partner economics depend on the relevant agreements; the model offers no universal price tag.
03 / The shopping cart joins the conversation
In November 2024, Intelisys announced Channel Exchange, the renamed intY US business, with a December 9 launch date. Its promised tools included automated quoting and invoicing, click-to-purchase licensing, provisioning, subscription management and white-label storefronts. These are the chores that multiply when a seller acquires more software customers.
The marketplace also acknowledges a difference in buying habits. A complex network project may need a conversation with an adviser. Managing software licences often benefits from a repeatable purchasing workflow. In a 2024 CRN interview, president Ken Mills explained that customers wanted multiple ways to buy technology. Channel Exchange gives Intelisys another route into that transaction.
Agency
Sell services through supplier relationships and earn commissions.
Marketplace
Source software and manage licences, invoices and subscriptions.
Education completes the offer. Intelisys University launched in 2021 with certifications, learning resources, marketing materials and on-demand sessions, available at no cost to partners. Teaching sellers how to explain a service is commercially sensible when the distributor earns money from services they sell. Training is part of the distribution machinery.
04 / The middle has to earn its place
The model faces a straightforward challenge: another distributor can offer a richer commission split. ScanSource leadership has identified Telarus and AVANT as primary competitors. Reporting in December 2025 described pressure from competing offers, partner consolidation and executive turnover, followed by renewed emphasis on growing partners and the marketplace.
There are practical limits, too. That reporting identified hardware certifications as an obstacle for advisers trying to sell certain equipment. Access to a parent distributor does not automatically confer every qualification a manufacturer requires. A seller with extensive in-house expertise and direct supplier relationships may also value shared support differently.
The latest scale marker is approximately $2.88 billion in Intelisys supplier billings for fiscal 2026, up 3.2%. The broader Intelisys & Advisory segment reported $101.13 million in net sales; that includes other businesses. Keeping the distinction visible is part of understanding what Intelisys actually does.
The useful idea to copy is simple: find work that small businesses repeatedly struggle to staff, then supply it across a network. Engineering, education, administration and cash timing all qualify. Intelisys earns its place when sharing that work leaves the independent seller better equipped to serve the next customer.