Playbook
How to Get Paying Users for Your SaaS Without Ads
Short answer: stop trying to out-post everyone. Borrow someone else's distribution. Of the four ways I've done that (equity, commission, affiliates and widget integrations), the one with the lowest risk and the highest leverage is a widget integration: one feature of your product living inside another product your customer already uses.
From the video:
There's no such thing as instant users, and there's no such thing as effortless growth. Whatever you do, you won't snap your fingers and wake up to a list of paying customers. But there is such a thing as getting paying users quicker and easier.
The founders who look lazy, quote unquote, are usually the ones who looked at every option and picked the one with the best return for the least effort. That isn't laziness. It's leverage.
Why "do more" stopped working
Ask anyone how to grow a SaaS and you get the same answer: do more. More posts, more outreach, more emails, more ad spend, more ad variants. That worked when volume had leverage. It doesn't now. Building got cheap, anyone can vibe code a SaaS, so every extra post you publish is competing with everyone else's extra posts.
I know because I did more. Content worked, but slowly. Ads didn't work for me. Posting on X and Reddit by hand gets you users, but you are the channel, and Reddit bans you quickly. Every one of those is the same move: more of your own effort.
The one lever that still has leverage is somebody else's distribution: products that already have your customers. There's more than one way to get it, and they are not equally good. (The longer version of this argument: why "post more" stopped working.)
The scorecard
Grade every option on five things:
- Upfront cost: what you give before the first user shows up (money, equity, time).
- Scalability: more users without more work.
- Fulfillment: how hard it is to deliver on the deal once it's made.
- Risk: what you lose if it goes wrong.
- Difficulty: how much trial and error before it works.
The ideal is low cost, high scalability, easy fulfillment, low risk and easy difficulty. The scorecard works for any channel, not just partnerships: how to evaluate a growth channel walks through it on its own.
The four models, graded
| Model | Upfront cost | Scalability | Fulfillment | Risk | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity (a co-founder) | Ownership | Low | Easy | Very high | Hard |
| Commission / revenue share | Nothing, or the tools | High | Hard | Low | Medium |
| Affiliates | Nothing | High on paper | Easy with a playbook | Low | Hard |
| Widget integrations | Nothing | High | Easy | Low | Easy |
- Equity can work once. It doesn't repeat: one network, then you run out of equity. (Should you give a marketing co-founder equity?)
- Commission is low risk for you and low commitment from them. (Why commission-only partners rarely sell)
- Affiliates are great at being seen and bad at being chosen. (Are affiliate programs worth it?)
- Widget integrations fix the trade. The partner has something riding on it, without any equity changing hands.
What a widget integration is
Your startup packages one feature of its product as a widget, and another startup drops it into theirs. Their users get your feature without leaving the product they already use. That's the door.
Set up a few of these around the same customer and you have a scenario collaboration: two or more startups, same customer, each solving a different step. The way to pick the partners is the same every time: same customer, same job to be done, a different step in the value chain. More on that in what a widget integration is.
The proof I have is one integration, so read it as one data point, not a benchmark. While our offer lived inside a partner's product, 32% of the founders who clicked through signed up. When we became one link among several, it fell to 7%. The full story: why our conversion rate dropped from 32% to 7%.
Is it really lazy?
It isn't zero work. There are terms to set and partners to pick. But lazy here means leverage: if you have something valuable, use it to the maximum through collaboration.
Frequently asked questions
What's the cheapest way to get users for a new SaaS?
Borrowed distribution: an integration into a product your customers already use, on revenue share, costs nothing upfront.
Are ads worth it for an early SaaS?
Often not until conversion is proven. Fix conversion before buying traffic.
What is the lowest-risk partnership model for a SaaS?
Of equity, commission, affiliates and widget integrations, a widget integration on revenue share: nothing changes hands upfront, it scales without more work from you, and the partner still has something riding on it because the widget lives inside their product.
Ordana is a free SaaS widget directory: list one feature of your product as a widget, set its terms, and other startups integrate it into their products. Create your widget, or integrate one that fits your users.
Related reading:
- SaaS Partnership Models Compared: Equity, Commission, Affiliates, Integrations — the four models side by side.
- What Is a Widget Integration? — the door, and how a set of them becomes a scenario.
- How to Choose an Integration Partner for Your SaaS — picking the product to live inside.