How to Use Affiliates to Grow Your Software Company

In this article you will learn how to add $1m of revenue, fast, using Affiliates

• How Pritesh Vora used a single partnership with AppSumo to onboard 5,000 new paid users in one week for Sprinto.
• The affiliate playbook Michał Suski used to attract 3,000 marketers to promote Surfer SEO, driving growth to over $10M ARR.
• How Jamie Akhtar built a partner channel with MSPs at CyberSmart that achieved an incredible 160% net dollar retention.

40 Examples of SaaS Companies Using Affiliates to Grow Revenue

1. Surfer SEO’s CEO, Lucjan Suski, revealed their affiliate program pays a 30% recurring commission, a key incentive that helped them scale to $15M in revenue. Learn more about this strategy here.
2. Michał Suski of Surfer SEO shared how they built a network of 3,000 affiliate marketers to promote their product, a major factor in reaching over $10M in revenue. Learn more about this strategy here.
3. Sprinto’s Pritesh Vora detailed how a partnership with AppSumo for a lifetime deal resulted in over 5,000 new paid users in a single week, helping the company grow past $5M in revenue. Learn more about this strategy here.
4. Jamie Akhtar, CEO of CyberSmart, explained their move to a partner-led growth model with MSPs, which produced 160% net revenue retention from the partner channel as they grew towards $15M. Learn more about this strategy here.
5. Mark Abbott of Ninety.io shared how they leveraged a community of thousands of business coaches as an affiliate sales force, propelling the company to $30M in revenue. Learn more about this strategy here.
6. AJ Eckstein of Creator Match detailed his strategy of using LinkedIn influencer marketing, partnering with creators to generate organic promotion and trust for brands like HubSpot. Learn more about this strategy here.
7. Taxtaker founder Ari Salafia explained that affiliate agreements and revenue share partnerships have been the key driver of growth, offering partners more than the typical 5% share to hit $3M in bookings. Learn more about this strategy here.
8. Zack Oates of Ovation shared his playbook for B2B influencer marketing, which involves connecting with “PIP cats” — Partners, Investors, Press, Customers, Advisors, and Thought Leaders — to grow to over $40k MRR. Learn more about this strategy here.
9. Omnisend’s CEO, Rytis Lauris, noted that agency and freelance partnerships became a top growth channel, outperforming SEO and helping the company break $50M in ARR. Learn more about this strategy here.
10. Robert Warner of PPC Ad Lab explained their affiliate strategy of running one-week partner promotions, which consistently signs up 30 new paid users per launch, helping them reach $700k ARR in a year. Learn more about this strategy here.
11. Charlie Fritsch from Hotel Investor Apps detailed how their OEM partnership with an ERP platform allows them to keep 70-80% of revenue, a model that is crucial to their plan to build a billion-dollar company. Learn more about this strategy here.
12. Chris Vandersluis of Timecontrol shared how partnering with former competitor Primavera allowed them to integrate and expand their market, a key move in growing the company to $3M ARR. Learn more about this strategy here.
13. Muhammad Younas of vFairs explained their system-driven word-of-mouth referral program, which was instrumental in growing the company past $30M in revenue with no outbound sales team. Learn more about this strategy here.
14. Stefan Smulders of Expandi shared his tactic of engaging with micro-influencers to build initial traction and grow his bootstrapped SaaS to $7M in ARR in just 20 months. Learn more about this strategy here.
15. Travis Chappell of Guestio leverages JV launches and joint webinars with partners to drive traffic for his $1 trial offer, a strategy that helped break $75k MRR. Learn more about this strategy here.
16. Surfer SEO also executed a high-impact integration partnership with Jasper after seeing customers request it, launching in just 28 hours and driving significant growth towards their $15M ARR milestone. Learn more about this strategy here.
17. Pavel Doležal of Keboola, which hit $5M in 5 years, noted that their first couple of years of growth were primarily driven by referrals from early customers. Learn more about this strategy here.
18. Chris Federspiel of Blackthorn, now at $16M ARR, built a revenue stream by partnering with Stripe through their revenue share program, leveraging the payment platform’s ecosystem. Learn more about this strategy here.
19. BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu, who grew his company to over $100M, highlighted their “channel” segment as one of the four core pillars of their go-to-market strategy, relying on partners for distribution. Learn more about this strategy here.
20. Jay Ackerman of Reveleer shared that their growth to $100M involved a strategy of starting with partnerships with potential M&A targets to ensure product-market fit and cultural alignment. Learn more about this strategy here.
21. Adam Sandman from Inflectra Corporation leverages a partner strategy as a key go-to-market motion to help grow the company to over $10M ARR. Learn more about this strategy here.
22. Chili Piper’s Alina Vandenberghe, who grew the company toward $50M ARR, mentioned channel partners as a critical component for creating first-touch brand engagements with their target accounts. Learn more about this strategy here.
23. Jamie Akhtar of CyberSmart emphasized the power of their MSP partner channel, which not only drives sales but also results in an extremely sticky customer base with 99% gross retention per month. Learn more about this strategy here.
24. Lucjan Suski from Surfer SEO explained that while their 30% recurring commission seems high, the total cost averages out to 15-20% of revenue due to the additional organic traffic and press generated by affiliates. Learn more about this strategy here.
25. Ovation CEO Zack Oates uses a Founder Advisor Standard Template (FAST) to give equity to advisors who act as key partners and influencers, helping unlock connections in their niche. Learn more about this strategy here.
26. Pritesh Vora of Sprinto viewed their AppSumo partnership not as a revenue channel but as a distribution channel, which successfully got the product in front of a massive audience of SMBs and agencies. Learn more about this strategy here.
27. Muhammad Younas explained how vFairs gets customers to act as referral partners by simply asking, “Can you recommend me to other departments?” after providing great service, a tactic that helped them scale to $30M+. Learn more about this strategy here.
28. The team at Creator Match partners with top brands like HubSpot, leveraging LinkedIn creators to produce organic content that humanizes the brand and fast-tracks visibility. Learn more about this strategy here.
29. Omnisend’s Rytis Lauris uses a pool of freelance partners and small agencies not just for direct referrals but also to generate valuable backlinks, boosting their SEO and organic growth on the path to $50M ARR. Learn more about this strategy here.
30. Surfer SEO’s affiliate program is so efficient that co-founder Michał Suski shared it is managed by a single half-time employee, despite having over 3,000 active affiliates. Learn more about this strategy here.
31. Hotel Investor Apps CEO Charlie Fritsch uses their OEM partnership to leverage a wider ecosystem of integrated software vendors (ISVs), creating additional revenue streams through these secondary partnerships. Learn more about this strategy here.
32. Mark Abbott of Ninety.io, which hit $30M, considers the thousands of business coaches in their ecosystem as their primary sales channel, serving them so they can better serve their own clients. Learn more about this strategy here.
33. Ari Salafia grew Taxtaker to $3M in bookings by creating affiliate and revenue-share partnerships, which have become the company’s core distribution channel without any paid ad spend. Learn more about this strategy here.
34. Robert Warner’s PPC Ad Lab works with affiliate partners on tightly focused one-week promotions, a strategy that maximizes impact and time efficiency to drive their growth to $700k ARR. Learn more about this strategy here.
35. The team at CyberSmart, led by Jamie Akhtar, focuses on their partner channel with MSPs because it provides a highly efficient growth engine, with a customer acquisition cost to lifetime value ratio of 1 to 15. Learn more about this strategy here.
36. Vladimir Blagojevic of Fullfunnel.io uses a strategy of engaging with influencers and people connected to his target buyers, using them as an “amplification and a proxy” to grow his agency to $500k ARR. Learn more about this strategy here.
37. Stefan Smulders grew Expandi to $7M ARR by engaging micro-influencers and building a community of beta users sourced through partnerships with tools like BuiltWith before the official launch. Learn more about this strategy here.
38. Muhammad Younas of vFairs, now at over $30M, systematized their referral process by asking every inbound lead how they heard about the company and using that data to double down on successful referral channels. Learn more about this strategy here.
39. Surfer SEO’s partnership model is built on simplicity, using their existing affiliate system to handle billing and commissions with integration partners like Jasper, avoiding complex bundling and revenue share negotiations. Learn more about this strategy here.
40. Zack Oates’ influencer strategy at Ovation focuses on building genuine relationships with key partners and thought leaders (“PIP cats”) in his niche, which has been instrumental in being accepted by the community and driving growth. Learn more about this strategy here.

7 Steps to Launching a Successful Affiliate Program

Based on the playbooks from top SaaS CEOs, here are the essential steps to building an affiliate program that drives significant revenue and user growth.

1. Define Your Ideal Partner: Don’t just accept anyone. Identify the types of affiliates, influencers, agencies, or coaches who have direct access and trust with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). As Zack Oates from Ovation advises, focus on your “PIP cats” — the key partners and thought leaders in your niche.
2. Create an Irresistible Offer: Your affiliate offer needs to be competitive. Lucjan Suski of Surfer SEO found success with a 30% recurring commission. This motivates partners to promote your product continuously, not just once. Provide them with everything they need, including marketing materials, tracking links, and a product they are proud to review.
3. Build a Simple Tracking & Payout System: Start with simple, off-the-shelf affiliate tracking software. The goal is to make it easy for partners to sign up, get their links, track their performance, and get paid reliably. As Michał Suski shared, you can manage thousands of affiliates with minimal overhead if the system is efficient.
4. Actively Recruit Your First Partners: Don’t just “build it and they will come.” Your first partners will come from proactive outreach. Look to your best customers, engage with micro-influencers as Stefan Smulders did with Expandi, and find agencies or consultants who already serve your target market, a key tactic for Omnisend.
5. Focus on Strategic Integrations: Look for non-competitive software that serves the same customer base. The partnership between Surfer SEO and Jasper was a massive success because both customer bases were asking for it. An integration creates a powerful, built-in referral channel.
6. Launch with High-Impact Promotions: Instead of a slow trickle, consider launching your affiliate program with high-impact, short-term promotions with key partners. Robert Warner of PPC Ad Lab uses one-week promotions to sign up dozens of new customers in a single push.
7. Nurture the Relationship: Your affiliates are a sales channel. Treat them like part of your team. Provide them with early access to new features, listen to their feedback, and create a community. Mark Abbott of Ninety.io built his entire growth motion on serving his community of business coaches, who in turn became his best salespeople.

Conclusion

You just learned how to add millions of revenue using Affiliates from top SaaS founders. These CEOs have shown that a well-executed affiliate and partner strategy is not just a secondary marketing channel but a powerful engine for efficient, scalable growth. By leveraging the audience and trust of others—whether they are influencers, agencies, coaches, or integration partners—you can break into new markets, lower customer acquisition costs, and build a competitive moat. The key is to be strategic, create win-win relationships, and equip your partners for success. If you’re looking to fund your affiliate program’s commission payouts or invest in the tools to manage it without giving up equity, explore your options at Founderpath.

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