Hey everyone, one question. 👋 We're considering implementing affiliate program in our SaaS business. My question would be: Do you think it's better to start with a free plan of affiliate program or with paid? I'm always voting for free first, until you optimize enough to scale. My only worry in this case, is free plan usually good enough so we can start or there are big limits so we won't be able to test? Thanks in advance!

What do you mean by "big limits so we wont be able to test?" Are you worried you don't have a complete enough product to test? Do you already have plans for beta testing? Thats usually what is used when you dont quite have a complete product

Nope, I was asking if affiliate software free version has big limits. Basically is free version good to start with? Or you recommend starting from paid version however?

Can you define affiliate in this case and what purpose they would be using it? Without more info, I would say "it depends" 😅

Well, the 1st purpose is to give our current customers a reason (discount, commission) to refer our software to their network. 2nd is to find good partners (influencers) that would earn commissions.

If your cashflow doesn't depend on these specific individuals, I would honestly at this point open up the firehouse and give them access to all features. The goal is to wow them into wanting to refer your product to other people. By limiting the features, you're lowering the chance you're going to wow them. I'm assuming the affiliate, by not paying, will be a drop in the bucket compared to the potential of what you'll get by having them showcase your product to other potential clients. WpEngine example: Now ideally here you are in a situation where you can have your cake and eat it too by showing all the features "vertically" but perhaps not "horizontally" what I mean by that is what wpengine does for their affiliates. They give one full environment (dev, staging prod) for free to any affiliate. However, as soon as I make a website for a client, I'll need to purchase an incremental license to host their website. So I can 1 for free as my sandbox/to showcase, or heck even to "cheat" and get 1 website free, but after that I'm having to pay. However, I don't feel like they're "limiting" my features I get to explore by doing things this way. Above vertically means I get to see all the features, but I can't expand horizontally for free (I have to pay to add on additional clients)