Amazon announces new Skill Developer Accelerator Program for Alexa

Today, Amazon announced the Skill Developer Accelerator Program (SDAP) for third-party skill developers to build engaging custom skills and grow their businesses with Alexa. The program offers developers an increased revenue share opportunity and new benefits to help improve skill quality, discoverability and engagement. 

SDAP rewards developers for building quality skills. The program includes multiple benefits and incentives for developers looking to build sustainable businesses with Alexa:

1. Skill Quality Coach:  Core to SDAP is a new Skill Quality Coach that provides developers with a step-by-step approach for building high-quality skills with tailored guidance and feedback. The Skill Quality Coach leverages the learnings from thousands of successful Alexa skills to generate a Skill Quality Score (SQS), and delivers personalized recommendations to drive improvements.

SQS is measured on a range of 0-5 and is divided into bands (e.g. SQS 0-1, SQS 1-2, SQS 2-3, etc.). SQS is calculated based on multiple factors that enhance the customer experience, such as content richness, reduced friction, lower latency and customer feedback. Initially, we expect to offer custom skills in the SQS bands of "Select" (SQS 3-4) and "Premier" (SQS 4-5) monetary incentives based on their status as high-quality skills. This incentive will be available to custom skill developers next year. 

Developers in the US can get started with Skill Quality Coach by visiting the skill quality dashboard in the Alexa Skills Kit developer console.

2. Increased Revenue Share and Value Back Incentive: Starting this month, developers that earn less than $1MM in aggregate annual revenue from In-Skill Purchasing (ISP), Subscriptions, and Paid Skills will now receive revenue share of 80% — an increase from the earlier revenue share model of 70/30. In addition, these developers will also receive 10% of their skills’ earnings as an additional value back incentive. This incentive will be paid out in cash for 2022. In the future, we expect to offer developers this same value as traffic promotional credits that can be applied toward Promoted Skills: a self-serve skill promotion offering which we are also announcing today designed to drive traffic to skills. We’ll share more about Promoted Skills later this year. With these incentives, the revenue share for skill developers will effectively go up to 90/10. The increased revenue share model goes into effect starting with the earnings for the month of July 2022.  


“Innovation from developers who build skills on Alexa is critical to realizing Amazon's vision for ambient intelligence” said Kelly Wenzel, director of business to business and developer engagement at Alexa. “We recognize that developers have a variety of options when it comes to deciding where they want to invest their time and resources, and we are committed to helping you drive growth. We can’t wait to see all that you do — with Alexa, and for your business.”

Please visit the ASK developer console to review the Skill Quality Coach recommendations and view your Skill Quality Score.