The SaaS business market is growing fast and there are constantly new companies stepping onto the scene with innovative solutions. In fact, the industry is worth $19.3 billion and expected to double by 2030. This dynamic environment creates new lucrative opportunities for cross-industry collaborations such as the SaaS affiliate marketing programs.
The subscription-based nature of SaaS companies makes affiliate partnerships a compelling marketing niche that can generate substantial profits for both sides involved. Affiliates can benefit from recurring commissions and earn unlimited income for every customer they turn. And this is a very good reason to put in the extra effort into bringing more leads and more sales.
But before we dive deeper into the best SaaS affiliate programs you should consider joining in 2023, let’s first focus on the basics.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of promotional campaign where companies partner up with third-party websites. As a result, they get to have their products recommended to a new audience. In exchange for their endorsement, the affiliate receives a commission of the income generated by every client they bring in.
The Top Benefit of Doing Affiliate Marketing for a SaaS Product
As mentioned, the most lucrative benefit of becoming an affiliate for a SaaS company and what sets their programs apart from other businesses is that more often than not, the payments recurring.
In a regular affiliate program, the affiliate recommends the merchant’s product to their audience, and when a referral customer buys it, the merchant pays the affiliate a commission. This is where the partnership ends until another referral customer makes a purchase and the cycle starts again.
SaaS businesses, on the other hand, are subscription-based, and, in many cases, the commissions they offer are recurring and continue until the referral customers turn into loyal clients. In other words, the affiliate promotes the product, the customer buys it, and the merchant pays the affiliate a commission every month, rather than only once.
Basically, the affiliate puts in the same efforts, but instead of a one-time commission, they can have a monthly income.
What to Consider When Choosing a SaaS Affiliate Program
The success of affiliate programs depends on many factors, but relevance is the key ingredient. If you are promoting products that have nothing in common or are vaguely related to your niche of expertise, it’s doubtful that your audience will find the recommendations convincing. As a result, you will not only have lost your time, but your credibility will suffer as well. Choosing the right company to partner up with is the first step to success.
Before you decide to join any program, consider doing preliminary research on what SaaS products can be useful to your customers. Find the companies that sell such products and look for information regarding the conditions for affiliates.
Next, take a look at the company’s reputation and customer politics which can give you an insight into how much potential your partnership has. A reputable business with happy clients means more income for you from recurring subscriptions.
Here are the main things to focus on when choosing a SaaS affiliate program:
- The relevance of your niche of expertise. It’s best to focus on SaaS products that are related to topics you are familiar with. This way you will be able to provide a valid opinion and your recommendation will have more weight.
- The interests of your audience. Promoting solutions that fix the most common pain points for your customers will increase your chances of success.
- The company’s customer retention rate and satisfaction. Consider working mostly with trustworthy companies that value their clients and put effort into keeping them around. The income from their affiliate programs will be steady and might even increase over time.
- The percentage of the price you gain. In affiliate marketing, you receive a payment for every customer the company seals a deal with after your recommendation. Different companies offer different commissions. Some pay a set amount, while others give you a percentage of the customer subscription plan value.
- The type of payment. Recurring commissions are the best benefit of SaaS affiliate programs. However, some companies pay a percentage only of the first-month subscription. When researching, make sure to double-check the company’s politics on this to decide whether the percentage is high enough to be worth your time.
- The cookie lifespan length. The affiliate program documentation should mention how long they keep cookies. This part is very important for you, because the longer the cookie lifespan, the better your chances of success are. It might take time for the customer to make a decision and seal a deal after they see your recommendation. Simply put, the cookie from their first visit links the person to you, and if it has expired, you don’t get a commission.
- The resources the company provides. Most companies provide ready-made resources to help you to get to know their product and market it better. The more information you have, the better job you’ll do.
Now that you know what to look for, read on to find the best SaaS affiliate programs to leverage in 2023.
SaaS Affiliate Programs to Leverage in 2023
There are many good options out there. However, if you are just starting out, it’s best to initially focus on just a few companies with a good reputation and solid customer base.
We’ve researched for you the most lucrative SaaS affiliate programs that offer top partnership conditions, a long cookie lifespan, and can bring you recurring profits.
Without further ado, let’s see these affiliate commissions pile up!
1. Moosend
About the Company
Moosend is an all-in-one marketing SaaS solution that focuses on email marketing personalization and automation, landing page building, and subscription form templates. The platform offers real-time analytics for its products and pre-build workflows that require no coding. It integrates with different eCommerce platforms, websites, and CRM software.
Affiliate Program Resources
The company doesn’t offer any specific information on packages to their affiliates but it has a resources page with a blog, tutorials, webinars, infographics, downloadable webinars, and other useful tools.
They provide a reliable tracking system and real-time statistics where affiliates can monitor their links’ performance and conversions.
Moosend uses a first-touch attribution model. This means that if a customer visits their website through your affiliate link, but later signs up through another affiliate link, you are the one who receives the commission.
Affiliate Commission
Affiliates earn a 30-40% recurring commission for every fee their referrals pay, and extra commissions for every plan upgrade.
Cookie Lifespan
The lifespan of the referral cookies is 90 days. However, if the customer initially signs up for the free version but later upgrades to a paid plan, the affiliate still receives a commission.
2. SocialBee
About the Company
SocialBee is a social media management tool that integrates with various social media platforms. It has a variety of features that allow you to repurpose content for different networks, schedule posts depending on their type and relevance, and manage multiple profiles.
The SaaS software has custom URL and tracking features and allows you to analyze your audience and competitors, and monitor keywords.
The company also offers concierge services like article writing, ad management, social media consultancy, etc.
Affiliate Program Resources
SocialBee doesn’t offer any specific resources for affiliates but has a 14-day free trial that allows you to tweak the tool’s features and get familiar with it. Their website has a resources page with videos, guides, and other useful information that can help affiliates, as well as customers.
SocialBee’s affiliate program is managed by PartnerStack.
Affiliate Commission
The affiliate commission the company offers is 20% on every platform sale and lasts for the lifetime of the account. There is also an additional 10% for every concierge service sale.
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie lifespan is 90 days from the first click, but if the lead clicks again, this restarts the 90-day period.
3. SurveySparrow
About the Company
SurveySparrow is an omnichannel experience management platform that delivers a variety of customer, employee, and product experience surveys. The company offers classic form digital and offline surveys, as well as more creative and conversational solutions such as chatbot surveys. They also have a 360 employee assessment software with a focus on increasing team productivity.
Affiliate Program Resources
SurveySparrow has a team of marketers that provides their affiliates with detailed resource materials such as email templates, infographics, banner ads, videos, podcasts, and webinars. Their support team keeps in touch with affiliates via a dedicated Slack channel, Google Hangouts, email, and phone number.
The company offers exclusive content and special deals for referrals.
Affiliates have access to tracking and analytics of their links on PartnerStack.
Affiliate Commission
The affiliate commission is a lifetime, recurring 25% of every sale, plus bonuses for top performers.
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie lifespan is 90 days.
4. Unbounce
About the Company
Unbounce is a SaaS solution for building landing pages, pop-ups, and sticky bars, no coding skills are required. The software uses pre-made templates customizable with drag-and-drop blocks. Users can create different versions of their pages and A/B tests to identify what works best for their clients. The platform also offers AI-powered optimization that allows it to automatically target clients with the most suitable version of a landing page, based on an analysis of their attributes.
Affiliate Program Resources
The affiliate program of Unbounce offers handy training courses, templates, and promotional assets. They have a dedicated partner coach on staff who is available to affiliates for questions and support.
The company has also set up a dashboard where affiliates can track in real-time how their campaigns perform and the income it generates.
Referrals receive a 20% discount on their first three months as clients.
Affiliate Commission
Affiliates earn a recurring 20% lifetime cut for every transaction the referral makes with the company.
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie’s lifespan is 90 days.
5. OSI Affiliate
About the Company
OSI Affiliate is software that enables you to set up your own affiliate program and turn your customers into brand advocates. The SaaS solution allows the merchant to create pre-written social media posts affiliates can easily share on various social media platforms. It also generates individual promotional codes that can be shared by referrals to increase sales. Some other notable features are customer surveys to identify potential affiliates and affiliate program landing page templates.
Affiliate Program Resources
Since they are in the affiliate business, OSI Affiliate know their stuff and offer everything you need to easily promote their services on social media, with website banners, email, etc. They regularly update the resources they provide to their affiliates to improve results and generate more sales.
Their dashboard allows affiliates to track results, gain access to resources, and monitor the performance of the different channels where they do their promotion.
Affiliate Commission
Affiliates receive a 20% recurring commission for the lifetime of the customers they bring.
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie lifespan is 60 days.
6. Outranking.io
About the Company
Outranking.io is an AI content writing platform that helps research, write, and optimize web content. Outranking generates title ideas, meta descriptions, helps build comprehensive outlines, and writes content with the power of AI. It is ideal for content writers, SEO managers, agencies, and enterprises who want to create content at scale, do SERP analysis quickly, and increase organic traffic.
Affiliate program resources
Dedicated resources and affiliate promo packs will be shared with all affiliates.
Affiliate commission
Affiliates earn a recurring 25% lifetime cut for every transaction the referral makes with the company.
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie’s lifespan is 60 days.
7. Jotform
About the Company
Jotform is a feature-packed online form builder that allows you to easily create dynamic forms and surveys. It’s a valuable data collection and management tool for those looking to automate their workflow. Jotform offers many features and integrations you can utilize to handle your data effectively – no coding knowledge needed.
Affiliate Program Resources
Jotform will happily provide everything you could need to reach potential new subscribers: brand assets, a training package, and some helpful content to help you promote your Jotform Affiliate Program link and start earning.
You’ll also gain access to a dashboard you can use to track pending and completed payments as well as an earnings report.
Affiliate Commission
You’ll earn a one-year 30% commission for every new qualifying subscriber you refer. This means that Jotform will pay you monthly for up to a year, and the amount will depend on the paid plan the subscriber went with.
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie lifespan is 60 days.
8. Mailmodo
About the Company
Mailmodo stands out as a premier email marketing platform that revolutionizes the way marketers engage with their audience. By seamlessly integrating app-like interactive features such as calendars, forms, shopping carts, and more directly into emails, it offers an unparalleled user experience.
Their unique selling proposition lies in the mastery of AMP email technology. Marketers worldwide have fallen in love with Mailmodo due to the remarkable 3x return on investment they achieve with every email campaign. It’s no wonder that their free trial to paid conversion rate currently stands at an impressive 30%.
Read how one of Mailmodo’s customers, Pixl, increased their conversions by 137% with interactive emails.
Affiliate program resources
Dedicated resources are available to all affiliates.
Affiliate Commission
Affiliates earn a recurring commission rate of 20% for every referral.
Cookie lifespan
The cookie lifespan is 60 days.
9. Anytrack
About the Company
Anytrack is a conversion tracking and attribution platform that enables digital marketers to leverage the most advanced data driven marketing tactics. It handles the most complex and challenging pain point of any digital marketing journey: Turning data driven insights into automatic data driven marketing actions across all your marketing channels.
In plain vanilla words:
You can have the best creative, product strategy, and team to drive your business, but if you can’t tell Google, Facebook, TikTok who buys what, when and for how much, you won’t be able to scale with confidence.
Affiliate Program Resources
The company offers a variety of helpful resources to their affiliates:
Blog: https://anytrack.io/blog
Knowledge Base: https://readme.anytrack.io
For communities, courses owners, and tech partners:
- Private webinars to address your specific audience tracking challenges.
- Custom content matching your audience persona.
- Custom marketing automation and integrations.
- Get full access to the AnyTrack platform for 3 months.
Affiliate Commission
The affiliate commission is lifetime, recurring 15% of every sale (pricing ranges from $50 to $300/month)
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie lifespan is 60 days.
10. Woorise
About the Company
Woorise is an all-in-one lead generation and marketing platform that allows you to create a wide range of interactive campaigns such as landing pages, forms, surveys, quizzes, viral giveaways & contests, accept payments and more to help you reach your goals from a single platform.
Affiliate Program Resources
Woorise provides a reliable tracking system and real-time statistics where affiliates can monitor their links’ performance and conversions.
Their support team keeps in touch with affiliates via a dedicated Slack channel, Google Meet and email. The company also has a resources page with a blog, tutorials, webinars, brand assets, and other useful tools.
Affiliate Commission
Affiliates earn a recurring 30% lifetime cut for every transaction the referral makes with the company.
Cookie Lifespan
The cookie lifespan is 90 days.
11. Semrush
About the Company
Semrush is a leading online visibility management SaaS platform that enables businesses globally to run search engine optimization, pay-per-click, content, social media and competitive research campaigns and get measurable results from online marketing. Semrush offers insights and solutions for companies to build, manage, and measure campaigns across various marketing channels.
Affiliate Program Resources
Semrush affiliate program offers to promote 40+ international award-winning tools used by over 7,000,000 marketers. You can advertise with exclusive Semrush creatives, as, for example, Semrush Pro trial for promotion.
Affiliate Commission
- Earn $200 for every new subscription sale,
- $10 for every new trial
- and $0.01 for the new sign-up
Cookie Lifespan
Semrush are using last-click Attribution Model.
The affiliate partners could benefit from last-click attribution and 120 days of cookie life.
12. Kinsta
About the Company
Kinsta is a cloud hosting provider accommodating web applications, databases and WordPress websites. Kinsta offers an infrastructure built on cutting-edge technology and a highly secure network for hosting web projects of all sizes.
They are considered one of the most reliable providers in the web hosting arena.
Kinsta is all about the constant improvement of services and features and providing excellent support and UX with in-house developed tools.
Affiliate Program Resources
Kinsta affiliates have access to a custom-built dashboard, where they are able to review detailed analytics about their referrals, total referred pageviews, and payment data. They can also generate custom links and download promo materials.
Besides the Affiliate dashboard, Kinsta has an Affiliate Academy with useful affiliate marketing tips and resources, as well as they have a dedicated affiliate newsletter with tips, updates and helpful articles delivered to subscribers each month.
Kinsta also has a dedicated affiliate team that can help with further support and suggestions to increase your passive income.
Affiliate Commission
Kinsta puts the emphasis on long-term gains by offering lifetime recurring commissions for all of their hosting services.
Affiliates receive a one-time signup commission between $50 and $500, plus a 10% recurring commission each month for each WordPress hosting referral.
For Application Hosting and Database Hosting referrals, affiliates receive a 5% monthly recurring commission.
All recurring commissions are cumulative, with payouts on a monthly basis via PayPal.
Cookie Lifespan
Kinsta’s affiliate program provides 60-day tracking cookies and a last-touch attribution to ensure the accreditation of the referral. Also, if a customer signs up for a free trial, the affiliate will earn a commission as soon as the customer subscribes to a paid plan.
Recap
SaaS affiliate programs are a great way to generate a recurring income. However, to ensure that you are not wasting your time, and to increase the chances of successful partnerships, you have to make the right choice.
Look for companies that match your area of expertise and provide solutions to your audience’s most common pain points. This way your recommendations will not only be more valuable but they will deliver more sales to the SaaS businesses you are working with, all of which will, in turn, mean more income for you and your business.
As a leading WordPress agency, we at DevriX are here to help you with our exceptional WordPress SaaS development services. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for assistance anytime!
