22 Reseller CoMarketing Playbooks CEOs Used to Reach $1m Sales

In this article, you’ll discover the reseller co-marketing strategies top SaaS CEOs use to rapidly scale user acquisition and multiply their revenue, complete with real-world examples. These tactics have powered companies to millions in ARR by systematically turning partners, agencies, and affiliates into powerful growth engines.

You’ll get a 5-step playbook to launch your own Reseller Co-Marketing program, in addition to over 40 case studies you can use as inspiration. These examples are from top Founders like Pete Lampson at Jazz HR, Ze a anovic at High Conversion, and Dennis Kelly at Postalytics, who have collectively generated hundreds of millions in revenue by mastering these partnership strategies.

The 5-Step Playbook for Reseller Co-Marketing

1. Identify and Recruit High-Value Partners: The first step is to find partners who serve your ideal customer profile. These can be marketing agencies, consultants, or companies with complementary products. Start by offering value upfront. Sri Swaminathan from Factors.ai explained their strategy of working with agencies on a non-transactional basis first, focusing on co-creating content. This approach built trust and resulted in agencies coming to them inbound, ready to partner.
2. Create a Compelling Commission Structure: A clear and attractive incentive is crucial. This is typically a percentage of the revenue generated by the partner. A sliding scale that rewards higher volume can be very effective. Jazz HR’s CEO implemented a sliding scale commission for their 200+ channel partners, ranging from 20-30% based on the business they drive. This model helped them attribute 30% of all new business directly to partners.
3. Enable Partners with Co-Marketing and Support: Your partners need resources to succeed. This includes co-branded marketing materials, product training, and dedicated support. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for them to sell your product. The CEO of Postalytics, a company that grew to $135k in MRR in just eight months, invested heavily in marketing and sales enablement for its HubSpot partners, engaging in co-marketing and co-selling activities that fueled their rapid growth.
4. Launch Joint Marketing Initiatives: Collaborate on campaigns that leverage both of your audiences. This can include webinars, ebooks, and online events. These initiatives build credibility and generate high-quality leads for both parties. The team at High Conversion partners with major e-commerce platforms to create invite-only programs, co-sponsoring initiatives to educate merchants and showcase the power of their combined solutions, a strategy that helped them 10x their revenue in a single year.
5. Leverage Platform & App Marketplaces: Integrating with larger platforms and getting listed in their app marketplaces provides a powerful distribution channel. These platforms have massive existing user bases actively looking for solutions. PlusThis CEO Dave Lee shared that a core strategy is to work directly with platforms like HubSpot and ActiveCampaign to get into their marketplaces, which educates their employees and drives direct referrals.

40+ Examples of Reseller CoMarketing in Action

• The CEO of Jazz HR revealed that their channel partnership program, which includes over 200 regional providers, now drives 30% of all new business, helping them add a million dollars in ARR in just three months.
• High Conversion’s CEO attributed their incredible 10x year-over-year growth, from $50k to $500k in monthly revenue, to a partnership model with major e-commerce and payment platforms.
• Sri Swaminathan at Factors.ai detailed their long-term partnership strategy with G2, which took over a year of relationship-building and resulted in a partnership agreement to go live to all G2 customers, significantly expanding their market reach.
• Postalytics CEO Dennis Kelly shared that by focusing heavily on the HubSpot partner ecosystem with co-marketing and co-selling, his direct mail automation tool grew from zero to $135,000 in monthly recurring revenue in just eight months.
• The founder of Griddle explained that their explosive growth from $40,000 to $250,000 in monthly revenue was primarily driven by cracking the reseller model, using a tiered commission structure that paid out 20% in the first year.
• Sean Leonard of Active Demand uses channel partners and white-label resellers to grow, reaching between $200,000 and $300,000 in MRR with a 30% year-over-year growth rate.
• Dave Lee from PlusThis explained that one of their key acquisition channels is working with marketing automation consultants who act as resellers on either a wholesale or affiliate referral model, contributing to their $2.1 million in annual revenue.
• Bryn Jones at GrowSumo built a marketplace for influencer and affiliate programs, securing clients like Evernote by offering a platform for them to manage their own partners, charging a base fee plus a 10% cut of partner payouts.
• Yuryi Ferber of BRITech Global advocated for a “partner now, buy later” strategy, suggesting companies embed a partner’s product via white-label to test the market fit before acquisition, a model that helped them grow to over $5 million in ARR.
• Kevin Yoon of GrowSurf leverages affiliate and referral marketing to help tech startups build their own partner programs, bootstrapping his company to $26,000 in MRR.
• The team at GrowSumo, a YC-backed venture, works with over 70 paying customers, including Intuit and Asana, by building a marketplace for channel partner programs that automates onboarding, tracking, and payments for partners.
• Lucjan Suski from Surfer SEO detailed a powerful partnership with Jasper that now accounts for 20% of their revenue, driving their growth to over $15 million in ARR.
• The founder of Encompass, a KYC automation software, shared how they landed their first major distribution channel by partnering with a data supplier in Australia, which allowed them to roll out their product to a large group of legal companies and kickstart their growth to over $5 million in ARR.
• Michael Jensen of Solo SEO grew his business to over 200,000 paying customers and a run rate of over $40 million by partnering with hosting companies like EIG (Bluehost) to get his SEO tools included in their registration flow.
• Len Rio of Ativo Group operates as a value-added reseller for SAP Business One, growing his firm to $3.2 million in revenue by personalizing and implementing SAP solutions for manufacturing and distribution companies.
• Seymour Dunker of iCharts partners with ecosystems like NetSuite, allowing his business intelligence platform to be used as a native app by NetSuite’s 40,000 corporate customers, helping him scale to over $3 million in ARR.
• Jay Ackerman, CEO of Reveleer, mentioned that their M&A strategy often starts with a partnership to ensure product-market fit before an acquisition, a tactic that has helped them scale from $25 million to a projected $100 million ARR in two years.
• John Oechsle, CEO of SwiftPage, leverages a vast channel of 500 value-added resellers (VARs) called Act Certified Consultants to sell their CRM and marketing automation tools, helping the company grow to over $80 million in ARR.
• Susan Hunt Stevens from WeSpire initiated partnerships with rewards platforms like Achievers and employee donation platforms to create an integrated employee engagement solution, contributing to their growth to over $3.5 million in ARR.
• Amit Kothari from Tallyfy shared that partnerships are a key part of their growth strategy, helping them land enterprise clients by integrating their workflow management tool with platforms their target customers already use.
• Adam Baker of Dealpad leverages system integrator partners to get his sales enablement tool into large enterprise deals, a key channel for scaling his revenue.
• Zach Hedges, founder of AIMISocial.com, used a two-tier affiliate program with a 30% commission for the first tier to rapidly acquire his first 300 customers in 72 hours, kickstarting his company to $25,000 in MRR.
• Max Bertilo of PixelMe built an affiliate program that offers a 30% recurring commission to partners, helping the bootstrapped link-shortening tool grow from zero to $10,000 in MRR in just 12 months.
• Alison Murdock of Trusted CMO advises startups to leverage partnerships with established players in their ecosystem to amplify their marketing reach and build credibility, a key tactic for growing from $200k to $2M.
• Paul Lynch of Assembla utilizes a partner network of consultants and resellers, offering them a 30-40% commission in perpetuity to sell their source code management tool, helping them grow at 60% year-over-year to over $10 million in ARR.
• John Doherty, founder of Credo, built a high-touch marketplace connecting businesses with marketing agencies, using a dual retainer and commission model that has enabled him to generate over $250 million in leads for his agency partners.
• Vidya Santhanam of Fitbots combined her OKR software with a network of certified OKR coaches, creating a hybrid SaaS and service model that has helped her grow to $25,000 in MRR.
• Tom Bendenbos of CookieFirst works with over 350 resellers, offering them a 30% discount on his privacy SaaS tools, which they can then bundle with their own services. This channel has helped him bootstrap to over $1 million in ARR.
• Garrett Mehrguth of Direct Consulting partners with major SaaS platforms like Sendoso and ZoomInfo, running co-marketing campaigns that drive qualified leads and pipeline for his clients, helping him grow his agency to over $20 million in revenue.
• The CEO of SCM rush, Eugene Levin, mentioned that they engage in co-marketing with partners like HubSpot, including joint newsletters and webinars, which helped them scale to well over $100 million in ARR.
• The team at GrowSumo built their entire business around a network of 40,000 partners, charging companies a fee to access this network and paying partners for performance, a model that helped them achieve 35% month-over-month revenue growth.
• Chris from Blackthorn shared that their partnership with Stripe generates over $1 million per year in revenue share by processing payments through their platform, a key part of their growth to $16.5 million in ARR.
• Kyle Poyar of OpenView highlighted how webflow built a community showcase for designers and developers, which acts as a powerful, free acquisition channel by amplifying the work of their power users.
• Sean Ellis, who coined the term “growth hacking,” explained that Dropbox’s famous referral program (offering free storage) was successful because it amplified an already existing word-of-mouth loop from a product people loved.
• Aneto Okonkwo, CEO of Chatdesk, emphasized partnering with clients to solve their unique problems, even if it requires manual work initially. This approach builds deep trust and opens the door for significant upsells, helping them triple their ARR in one year.
• Bruce McGowan from InterWeave has built his business to over $500k in MRR by creating a crm integration platform that partners with new and emerging CRM vendors like ORO CRM and BPM Online.
• Corey Kossack of Aspirechip partners with organizations like The Teacher Career Coach to tap into niche audiences. These partnerships provide a steady stream of candidates for his sales talent marketplace, helping him reach a $1.5 million run rate.
• John Fields at Grow Your Base onboards new companies by having them purchase a subscription that includes a tranche of crypto tokens, which they then use to incentivize their own users to perform marketing actions, creating a unique partner-driven ecosystem.
• Mark Abbott of 90.io built his software around the EOS movement, partnering with a community of business coaches who then brought his platform to their clients, a key tactic that helped him bootstrap to $3.6 million before raising capital.
• Chili Piper’s CEO, Nicholas Vandenberg, created a “Chili Piper everywhere” motion by integrating with partners like Gong, G2, and Sendoso, enabling users to book meetings from within those platforms and driving significant business to their $30M ARR company.
• Matthew White, CEO of Qebot, white-labels his platform for marketing agencies and media companies, allowing them to resell his tools and driving growth to a $1.2 million run rate.
• Yannick Dickel of Conveno launched his employee engagement platform as a corporate spin-off, giving his former employer, Trumpf, a minority stake and securing them as the first customer and an ongoing strategic partner.

Conclusion

You’ve just learned the 5-step playbook and reviewed over 40 examples of how top SaaS founders use Reseller Co-Marketing to add millions to their ARR. By identifying the right partners, creating winning incentive structures, and leveraging joint marketing, you can build a powerful, scalable engine for customer acquisition. To get capital to fund your own growth strategies without giving up equity, explore your options at Founderpath.

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