PanTerra Networks recently pulled back the curtain on its new partner program, which will utilize a recurring revenue model for resellers who market its Smartbox file sharing and sync system.

PanTerra will utilize a freemium model to market its Smartbox program to resellers, which will include secure sync, share and store capabilities. The company also will leverage viral marketing that will credit the initiating partner when a customer upgrades from the trial offering to the paid model. PanTerra claims it is the first cloud storage service vendor to offer a recurring revenue model to the channel.

“One of the challenges for us was the file store sync and share marketplace doesn’t really use the indirect channel, they mainly use the direct freemium channel,” said Arthur Chang, president and CEO of PanTerra Networks, in an interview with The VAR Guy. “So we worked closely with our partners and came up with a commission plan that gives a lifetime recurring revenue to the indirect channel … for the Smartbox product and we think we’re pretty innovative from that perspective.”

PanTerra released the new storage sharing system in January as the first service to combine real-time communication with the file-sharing capabilities of popular programs such as Box, DropBox and GoogleDocs. Smartbox users are able to combine their file-sharing accounts from multiple places into PanTerra’s single account, which then allows users to issue access to individuals and communicate within the program via video chat, instant messaging and more.

As part of the program, PanTerra also offers a private-label program for solution providers looking to sell Smartbox as their own product. Smartbox is list-priced at $15 a month for new users and $5 per month for existing PanTerra customers.