How to launch a SaaS affiliate program in an afternoon

Most "how to start an affiliate program" guides assume you have a week and a developer. You don't need either. Here's the version that fits in an afternoon.

1. Decide the offer before the tooling

Pick a commission your unit economics can carry for the lifetime of a customer. For most SaaS that's 20–30% recurring or a flat first-payment bounty. Recurring aligns incentives with retention; a bounty is simpler to reason about. Write it down before you touch any software.

2. Get tracking live

Drop one lightweight script before your closing </body> tag and connect the Stripe account you already use. That's the whole integration — a first-party cookie at checkout plus Stripe webhooks for conversions. Run the built-in test to watch a click → conversion → payment resolve before you invite anyone.

3. Write one commission rule

Resist the urge to build five tiers on day one. Start with a single rule (percentage or flat, recurring or one-time) and a sensible cookie window. You can add tiers and level-up rules once you have affiliates to reward.

4. Recruit your first ten by hand

Your best early affiliates already exist: power users, agencies that resell you, and creators in your niche. Email ten of them personally with a ready-made link and a one-paragraph pitch. Ten engaged affiliates beat a thousand who signed up and forgot.

5. Watch for fraud from day one

Self-referrals, coupon leakage, and velocity abuse show up early. Pick a platform that scores risk automatically so you're reviewing flags, not building spreadsheets.

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That's it — offer, tracking, one rule, ten people, and a fraud backstop. Everything else (recurring clawbacks, multi-method attribution, payouts) should be handled by the platform, not by you.

Ready to try it? Launch your program or see how attribution works.