The best first co-marketing partner for a small SaaS is usually a product your users already run next to yours, and the best first deal is one small, concrete swap with a date on it. Not a vague "let's partner up sometime". If you have somewhere between 50 and 2,000 users and almost no audience of your own, a co-marketing partnership is one of the cheapest ways to get in front of buyers who already trust someone else. You borrow a little of their attention, they borrow a little of yours, and nobody pays for ads. In my experience the swaps that work are boring on paper: a mention in each other's newsletter, a short guide written together, a "works great with" page. The ones that fail are big, fuzzy and never get a ship date. This guide walks you through picking a partner, choosing a format, pitching it, agreeing on the details in writing, running it, and deciding whether to do it again.
The short answer
If you read nothing else, read this.
Pick a partner your users already use. Same buyer, different job, no feature overlap.
Match on size, honestly. A product roughly your size will reply. A famous brand usually won't.
Start with the smallest swap that has a date. A newsletter or changelog mention each way is plenty for round one.
Offer to do most of the work. Draft the copy, the guide or the page yourself and send it for approval.
Write the plan on one page. Dates, who writes what, who approves, links, and what happens if someone flakes.
Disclose the swap, track it with one link or code per partner, and share the results with your partner afterwards.
What is a co-marketing partnership, and what isn't it?
A co-marketing partnership is two companies promoting each other, or promoting something they made together, to audiences that overlap but don't compete. In SaaS co-marketing at this stage, the "something" is small: a mention, a guide, a page, a bundle offer, a shared session. No money changes hands and nobody earns a commission.
It helps to be clear on what it isn't, because founders mix these up and then pitch the wrong thing:
Not an affiliate program. Affiliates earn a commission on sales they drive. That's a different system with tracking, payouts and terms. If that's what you want, read how to start an affiliate program for your SaaS instead.
Not a reseller deal. Nobody is selling your product on your behalf or bundling it into their invoice.
Not an integration project. You might mention that two tools work well together, but co-marketing doesn't mean building an API connection. If an integration exists already, great, it gives you a story. If it doesn't, don't build one just to get a newsletter mention.
Think of it as cross-promotion between two founders who respect each other's product. That framing keeps it small and keeps it honest.
Who makes a good first co-marketing partner?
Your users already know. Most early founders go looking for partners by scrolling big-brand partner pages, which is backwards. Start with the tools your customers mention without being asked.
Here's where to look this week:
Support chats and onboarding answers. Search your inbox and chat history for "we use", "we also use", "export to" and "import from". The tools that keep showing up are your shortlist.
Ask directly. Send five friendly customers one line: "What tools do you use right before and right after ours?" The answers are usually more useful than any market map.
Your niche communities. Look at the tools people recommend to each other in the forums, subreddits and Slack groups where your buyers hang out. Not the ones being advertised, the ones being recommended.
Products launching next to you. The makers who launched the same week as you on a launch platform are in the same position you are: small, hungry for reach, and reachable. Some of them sell to your buyer.
Adjacent steps in the same job. If your product handles one step of a job, the tools that handle the step before and after are natural partners. A proposal tool and a time tracker both serve freelancers, for example, but neither replaces the other.
Once you have five to ten names, score them. Be strict. A partner that fails the first two rows isn't a partner, no matter how nice the founder is.
Fit check | What a good answer looks like | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
Same buyer | Their customers would plausibly buy your product too | "Everyone could use it" or a totally different job title |
No overlap | You don't compete on any main feature, now or on your roadmap | You'd both pitch the same feature on your homepage |
Similar size | Roughly comparable users, list size or traffic, within a few times either way | They're 100 times bigger and you have nothing they need |
Active audience channel | A newsletter, changelog, blog or community that real users actually read | A list nobody has emailed in a year |
Founder reachable | You can find and message a founder or the one marketer directly | Only a generic contact form and a partnerships portal |
Give each row a yes or no. Four or five yeses is a good first partner. Three is a maybe. Anything less, skip it for now.
Which co-marketing ideas work best for a first swap?
The best co-marketing ideas for a first try are the ones you can ship in two weeks without a meeting every other day. Here they are, ranked roughly from least to most effort.
Format | Effort | What each side gives | What to measure |
|---|---|---|---|
Mention in each other's changelog or newsletter | Low | A short paragraph and a link in one send or one changelog entry each | Clicks, signups and replies from the partner's mention |
"Works great with" page on each site | Low to medium | One page each explaining how the two tools fit together, with a link | Visits to the page, signups from it over a month |
Cross-listed integration note | Low if the integration exists | A line or listing in each other's integrations or resources area | Clicks from the listing |
Co-written guide or template | Medium | One useful guide or template, written mostly by one side, published or shared by both | Downloads or reads, signups, which side's audience used it more |
Joint bundle discount or giveaway | Medium | A small offer for each other's users, or a shared prize with clear rules | Redemptions of each side's code, and whether those users stay active |
Shared live session | High | Both founders on one live call teaching something, promoted to both lists | Registrations and attendees from each side |
A few notes on these. The newsletter or changelog mention is the right first move for most people because it takes an hour and tells you quickly whether the audiences actually overlap. The "works great with" page is underrated because it keeps sending visitors long after the swap week. And the live session is great, but it's a project of its own. If you want to try one, there's a separate guide on running a live workshop that brings in SaaS customers.
If your partner doesn't have a newsletter but someone else in the niche does, that's a different play: getting featured by an independent writer. The IndieHunt guide on getting your indie product featured in niche newsletters covers that one.
How do you pitch a co-marketing partnership?
Pitch the founder, not the brand. At small companies, the founder or the one person who runs marketing makes this call in a day. A "partnerships@" inbox at a 6-person company is often a black hole.
Three rules make the pitch work:
Show you use or understand their product. One specific sentence, not a compliment.
Propose one concrete swap with a date. Not "explore synergies". A thing, a time, and a size.
Offer to do most of the work first. Say you'll draft the copy or the guide and send it for their edits. This is the single biggest reason small founders say yes.
Here's an example. Everything in it is made up: Quillmark is an invented proposal and contract tool for freelance designers, and Hourbird is an invented time tracker for freelancers. The numbers are invented too.
Subject: Quillmark x Hourbird, one small swap in November?
Body: Hi Linnea, I run Quillmark, a proposal tool for freelance designers. A handful of our users told us they track hours in Hourbird and then copy totals into their proposals by hand, which is how I found you. Would you be up for a simple swap? I'd write a short "send a proposal from your Hourbird totals" section for your November newsletter, and we'd feature Hourbird in ours the same week. Our list is about 1,100 freelancers, mostly designers. I'll draft both blurbs and send them for your edits by Friday. If it's not a fit, no worries at all. Ketaki
Short, specific, honest about size, and it does the work up front. Compare that with what most founders send:
Weak pitch | Better pitch |
|---|---|
"We'd love to explore a partnership." | "Would you swap a newsletter mention with us in the week of 9 November?" |
"Our audiences are super aligned." | "A few of our users already use your product to do X before they use ours." |
"We have a big community." | "Our list is about 1,100 freelancers; last month's sends got replies from about 40 people." (Use your real numbers.) |
"Let's hop on a call to brainstorm." | "I'll draft both blurbs and send them by Friday for your edits." |
A deck attached | Plain text, under 150 words, one ask |
If they don't reply, send one short nudge a week later. If there's still nothing, move to the next name on your list. Don't take it personally. Small founders are busy, and timing matters more than your copy.
How do you agree on the details without a lawyer?
For a newsletter swap or a shared guide, you don't need a contract. You do need the details in writing, because "I thought you were sending it Tuesday" is how most of these go wrong. Put it on one page, a shared doc or a plain email both of you reply "agreed" to. This isn't legal advice, just a working habit: if real money, data sharing or exclusivity is involved, get proper help.
Here's the one-page plan outline I'd use:
What we're doing: one sentence, for example "Each side features the other in one newsletter send."
Dates: draft due, approval due, ship date for each side.
Who writes what: name the person and the piece.
Approval: each side approves anything written about its own product before it goes out. Agree on how many rounds of edits, usually one.
Links and codes: the exact URL each side will use, and any discount code with its end date.
Disclosure wording: the line both sides will use (more on this below).
What each side shares after: the numbers you'll send each other and when.
If one side flakes: what happens if a date slips. A simple rule works: "If either side can't ship within a week of the date, we both pause and reschedule. Nobody ships their half alone."
Then the fair-exchange rule. Match audience sizes honestly and never inflate your numbers. If your list is 1,100 and theirs is 6,000, say so, and offer more to balance it: two mentions to their one, or you write the whole guide. Founders talk to each other. One inflated subscriber count can quietly close doors for a long time.
How do you run the swap once it's agreed?
Treat it like a tiny launch with four steps.
Draft. Write your piece about them as if you were recommending a tool to a friend. Say what it does, who it's for, and how it fits next to your product. Skip the superlatives.
Review. Send drafts both ways before the approval date. Check names, pricing claims, screenshots and links. Each side has the final word on how its own product is described.
Ship on the agreed date. Send a short note when your half is live, with a link to it, so they can see it went out.
Share results. A week later, send the numbers you agreed to share. Even small numbers. Especially small numbers.
For tracking, give each partner a unique link or a unique code so you can tell their traffic apart, and leave it at that.
One more thing about the copy. Write for their users, not for your own pride. Their readers don't care about your funding, your roadmap or your founding story. They care about the one problem you solve that sits next to the product they already use.
Do you need to disclose a co-marketing swap?
If something of value is exchanged, tell readers. In a swap, the value is the other side's promotion, so yes, mention it. This is a short section on purpose, because the honest version is simple.
The US Federal Trade Commission's guidance on its Endorsement Guides has an example that maps closely onto swaps. Authors who agree to review each other's books, with no money involved, are told they need a disclosure, and the FTC says "the need to make a disclosure isn't limited to situations in which money changes hands." On wording, the same page says "The best disclosures are simple", and it calls a bare "partner" label "ambiguous and confusing". You can read the full FTC Endorsement Guides questions and answers for the details. Rules differ by country, so check your own if you're outside the US.
In practice, one plain line near the mention does the job, for example: "We're swapping newsletter features with Hourbird this month." Put it next to the recommendation, not at the bottom of the email.
How do you know if it worked?
Two weeks after the swap, sit down with your notes and your partner's numbers and answer three questions:
Did their audience show up? Look at signups from their link or code, not just clicks.
Did those users do anything? Check whether the new signups reached the first useful moment in your product. Ten activated users beat a hundred who bounced.
Was it fair both ways? If one side got far more out of it, talk about it openly before the next round.
Then pick one of three moves. Repeat if both sides got real users and the work was light. Expand if the overlap was strong: move up the formats table to a shared guide or a "works great with" page. Stop politely if the audiences didn't match. A thank-you note and an honest "this one didn't land for us, happy to try something else later" keeps the relationship intact.
Keep a small partner list sheet with these columns: partner, contact, format, ship date, your result, their result, next step. After three or four swaps, the sheet shows you which kind of partner works for your product, and that's worth more than any single swap.
What are the common co-marketing traps?
Pitching a brand 100 times your size. They might be lovely, but they get dozens of these. You'll wait weeks for a reply that never comes. Partner with peers first.
Mismatched audiences. Two products with "founders" as users isn't enough overlap. A solo designer and a 200-person agency are different buyers.
The vague collaboration email. "Let's collaborate!" with no format and no date gets a polite "sounds great" and then nothing.
Over-promising list size. Counting old, unengaged subscribers, or quoting social followers as if they were email readers. Your partner will see the results and do the math.
One-sided deals. You ask for a feature and offer "a shoutout on X" in return. If you wouldn't take that deal, don't offer it.
Spammy giveaways. "Follow both accounts and tag three friends" brings in prize hunters, not users. If you do a giveaway, make the prize something only your real buyers would want.
Forgetting the follow-up. Not sharing results is the easiest way to make sure there's no second round.
A 7-day plan for your first co-marketing partnership
This fits around normal product work. Roughly 30 to 60 minutes a day.
Day | What to do | Done when |
|---|---|---|
1 | Search support chats and onboarding answers for other tools; ask five customers what they use before and after yours | You have 5 to 10 candidate products |
2 | Score each candidate on the fit scorecard; find a founder or marketer contact for the top three | Three names with a real person attached |
3 | Pick one format from the formats table; write your pitch with one swap and one date | Pitch drafted, under 150 words |
4 | Send the pitch to your first choice; draft the blurb or guide you offered to write | Pitch sent, your draft ready |
5 | If you heard back, write the one-page plan; if not, send pitch two to the next name | Plan shared, or second pitch sent |
6 | Send drafts for approval; agree the disclosure line, links and codes | Both sides have approved copy |
7 | Set up the partner sheet; put the ship date and results date in your calendar | Sheet exists, dates booked |
The swap itself ships on the agreed date, often the week after. That's fine. The point of week one is to have a real partner, a real date and approved copy.
FAQ
What is a co-marketing partnership?
It's two companies promoting each other, or something they made together, to audiences that overlap but don't compete. For a small SaaS, it's usually a newsletter swap, a shared guide, a "works great with" page or a small joint offer. No commissions, no reselling.
How do I find co-marketing partners for my SaaS?
Start with tools your users already mention in support chats and onboarding answers, then ask a few customers what they use before and after your product. Add tools recommended in your niche communities and makers launching the same week as you. Score them on buyer fit, overlap, size, audience channel and reachability.
Do I need a contract for a co-marketing deal?
For a simple swap of mentions or a shared guide, most small founders use a one-page written plan both sides agree to by email. Once money, customer data or exclusivity is involved, get proper legal advice. This isn't legal advice.
Is co-marketing worth it with a small audience?
Yes, if you partner with someone of a similar size and offer to do more of the work. Partner marketing for startups works because two small, engaged audiences can beat one big, distracted one. Just be honest about your numbers from the first email.
Where should you start?
Open your support inbox today and search for the names of other tools. That list is your first partner shortlist. And if you're launching soon, the products launching on Aura++ the same week as you are a natural place to look for peers your size who sell to the same people.