5 Types of Partnerships for B2B SaaS: Which One Is Right for You?

Here's a startling fact: 69% of sales reps are struggling to meet their quotas.

There's no denying B2B SaaS sales is changing fast, and keeping up is tough.

But what if there was a way to boost your sales and cut customer acquisition costs without breaking the bank? Welcome to the world of partner sales.

Partner sales is when you team up with industry experts and trusted third parties, so you can reach a wider audience, gain the trust of bigger clients, and watch your sales soar.

Given the benefits, it's no surprise that 50% of B2B companies are investing more in partnerships in 2025.

Partnerships ensure that you reach more customers easily and build a SaaS business that lasts, but which partnership type is the perfect fit for your B2B SaaS startup? Let's dive in and explore the five main types!

Affiliate Partnerships

With an affiliate program, third-party publishers and influencers — known as affiliates — promote your products or services by placing a trackable link to your website on their channels. When someone clicks the link and makes a purchase, they receive a commission or payment.

Example of affiliate partnerships

Let's say you have a CRM system and you partner with a LinkedIn influencer who's big in the business or tech scene. They promote your CRM to their followers through posts, articles, or webinars and get a commission for every sale made through their unique link.

This way, you reach a wider audience and build trust with potential customers, all while driving more sales.

When to build an affiliate program

Affiliate programs are ideal for startups and growing businesses that want to increase brand awareness and sales without significant upfront investment.

You should build an affiliate program when:

• Early Stage: You're in the early stages of your business and looking to establish market presence.

• Cost-Effective Marketing: You want to explore cost-effective marketing strategies that leverage performance-based promotions.

• Customer Advocacy: You have a product that customers love and are willing to recommend to others.

• Low Risk: You prefer a low-risk, low-commitment approach to expanding your customer base.

• Network Expansion: You aim to build a network of advocates who can drive sales through their own channels.

Why should you launch an affiliate program?

• The easiest type to set up without heavy upfront investment. All you need is a trackable link and a way to reward your partners for conversions. 

• Expanded reach: Affiliates promote your product to a wide audience, thereby increasing exposure and traffic to your website.

• Performance-based compensation: No upfront fees, only pay based on the deals or leads they generate.

Cons of an affiliate program for a B2B SaaS startup

• Lower lead quality: Affiliates may promote very broadly to boost volumes but this could mean sending a lot of unqualified traffic that is less likely to convert.

• Limited control: Affiliates have their own marketing strategies and methods, which may not align perfectly with your brand guidelines. It's important to establish clear guidelines and monitor affiliates to maintain brand consistency.

Referral Partnerships

A referral partnership goes like this: you have a product, your partner knows someone who needs it, and they connect you both. If a sale happens, your partner gets a commission.

Example of referral partnerships

Let's say you've developed a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software that's gaining traction in the market. You could partner with a digital marketing agency that works with small to medium-sized businesses.

Here's how the referral partnership might work:

• You (CRM Provider): Offer the agency a commission for each client they refer who signs up for your CRM.

• Agency (Referrer): The agency identifies clients who could benefit from a better CRM solution and refers them to your product.

• Client (Referral): The agency's clients get introduced to your CRM, and if they sign up, the agency earns a commission.

This way, the agency can provide added value to their clients by recommending a useful tool, while you gain new customers through a trusted source. It's a win-win situation that leverages the agency's existing relationships to drive growth for your CRM.

When to build a referral program

You should build a referral program once you've achieved product-market fit (PMF) and have a happy customer base eager to recommend your product. This is a cost-effective way to expand your reach through trusted advocates.

Why you should build a referral program

A referral program brings several key benefits:

• Higher-quality leads: Referrals usually match your current customer profile. Since your existing clients fit well, referred leads likely will too.

• Pre-established trust: Referred leads trust you because your customers vouched for you. They know you've helped similar companies, proven by the referral itself.

• Improved cost economics: Referred leads close more often because they come with trusted endorsements. This leads to cheaper customer acquisition.

• Better customer advocacy: Referrals bring new customers and strengthen existing relationships. Success makes both you and your referring client look good.

• Lifetime value increase: Research shows referred customers' lifetime value is 16% higher than other marketing channels. Longer retention adds to this value.

Cons of a referral program for your B2B SaaS startup

• Limited reach: Referrals will often be within the partners’ close network, providing a smaller pool of potential new customers than other channels.

• More internal investment: Successful referral programs need ongoing attention to track performance, manage relationships, and optimize strategies. This administrative overhead can stretch small teams thin.

Reseller Partnerships

A traditional form of indirect sales, a reseller partnership allows a service partner to sell your product and often bundle it with their service.

Example of reseller partnerships

Let's take the example of the CRM company again.

Consider your CRM software and a potential reseller partnership with a digital transformation agency. Here's how it might work:

• You (CRM Provider): Develop a robust CRM solution that's ready for market expansion. You provide the agency with training, marketing materials, and support to effectively sell your CRM.

• Agency (Reseller): The agency includes your CRM in their portfolio of solutions. They sell your CRM directly to their clients as part of their digital transformation services.

• Clients: The agency's clients benefit from a seamless integration of your CRM into their business processes, enhancing their customer relationship management capabilities.

In this partnership, the agency handles the sales and initial client setup, while you focus on product development and support. The agency earns a margin on each sale, and you gain access to their established client base, accelerating your market reach. This collaboration allows both parties to leverage their strengths for mutual growth.

When to pursue reseller partnerships

You should pursue a reseller partnership for your B2B SaaS startup after your product has moved beyond the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage and has been proven in the market.

This means you've already conducted experiments, gathered customer feedback, and made necessary improvements — a stage where you're on track to scale your GTM motions. At this point, your product should be stable and reliable, demonstrating clear value to customers.

By waiting until your product is established, you can approach resellers with a stronger proposition, reducing the risk to their credibility and increasing the likelihood of a successful partnership.

Why you should build reseller partnerships

Your company's growth can soar with these key advantages of reseller partnerships:

• Added services: Resellers often bring extra expertise, customization, implementation, or training that makes your core product more valuable to end users.

• Credibility boost: Your brand gains instant credibility by partnering with established resellers, especially in new markets where people don't know your name yet.

• Extended market reach: Resellers help you access new customer segments or geographical markets that you might find hard to reach alone. Forrester's research shows mature partner programs can generate up to 28% of a company's total revenue.

• Lower acquisition costs: Using existing networks cuts down on expensive direct sales efforts. Resellers earn through commission or margin, which costs less than growing an internal sales team.

Cons of reseller partnerships for your B2B SaaS startup

Reseller partnerships come with their share of challenges:

• Resource-heavy: These partnerships need lots of time and resources for training, support, and relationship building. Each reseller needs thorough education and ongoing support.

• Brand control risks: Putting your product in resellers' hands means trusting them with your reputation. Poor service can hurt your brand.

• Customer feedback gap: Resellers create distance between you and end users, making it harder to get direct feedback or fix product issues quickly.

• Program complexity: You'll need dedicated teams and infrastructure to track performance and manage relationships as your program grows.

• Smaller profits: Resellers expect good compensation through revenue sharing or margins, which means less profit per sale.

Tech Partnerships

A tech partnership is a partnership that involves the integration of your product with a partner's product to enhance your product's functionality. It helps your SaaS startup accelerate the product roadmap, build collaborative products, and stay competitive.

Many SaaS founders mix up simple integrations with tech partnerships. Simple integrations connect two systems, while technology partnerships build collaborative product development, shared breakthroughs, and mutual growth strategies.

One industry expert puts it this way: "Tech partnerships are not just about app placement or marketplace creation, but about community building - valuing customers' demands and finding solutions that ease their search".

Example of tech partnerships

Let's explore a tech partnership involving the example of a CRM software and an email marketing platform. Here's how it might work:

• You (CRM Provider): Your CRM software has robust customer data management capabilities but lacks advanced email marketing features.

• Email Marketing Platform (Tech Partner): This platform specializes in creating and managing email campaigns but needs better customer data integration to enhance targeting and personalization.

• Integration: You collaborate to integrate your CRM with the email marketing platform. This allows seamless data flow between the two systems, enabling users to leverage customer insights from the CRM to create highly targeted email campaigns.

• Mutual Benefits: Your CRM users gain access to advanced email marketing tools, while the email marketing platform's users benefit from improved data integration and personalization capabilities. Both companies can co-market the integrated solution, attracting new customers and expanding market reach.

This tech partnership enhances both products, providing a more comprehensive solution for customers and opening up new opportunities for both companies.

When to pursue tech partnerships

Your startup should explore tech partnerships after finding product-market fit and running solid go-to-market strategies. You must show real value to potential partners.

You should also think about whether you have:

• Resources to support integration development and maintenance

• A stable API with good documentation

• Customer support capabilities for partner integrations

• Clear goals that line up with potential partner's objectives

Why you should build tech partnerships

Technology partnerships bring strong advantages:

• Better product capabilities without extensive in-house development save time and resources.

• Better customer experience through smooth workflows and less friction leads to higher customer retention. Companies with integrated solutions see up to 40% better customer retention.

• Market validation from partnering with prominent companies sends a strong signal about your solution's credibility to potential customers.

• Higher revenue from new customer acquisition and better retention.

Cons of tech partnerships for your B2B SaaS startup

While the benefits are substantial, tech partnerships also come with the following challenges:

• Technology partnerships need substantial investment of time and money. Success depends on how well the integration solves customer problems - unused integrations waste resources.

• Partner conflict happens when partners don't co-sell effectively or accidentally block each other's sales opportunities.

• Many startups lack enough resources to properly support integrations that need ongoing maintenance, especially with partner updates.

Strategic Alliances

Strategic alliances represent the highest form of business partnerships. These deep, long-term relationships let companies line up their goals and resources to benefit each other. They go beyond simple partnerships by integrating business objectives that create lasting growth opportunities.

Example of strategic alliances

Let's expand on the tech partnership between a CRM provider and an email marketing platform, turning it into a strategic alliance:

Starting Point: The CRM provider and the email marketing platform initially integrate their technologies. This integration allows CRM users to easily access advanced email marketing tools, while the email marketing platform gains better customer data for more precise targeting.

Transition to Strategic Alliance:

• Collaborative Development: The companies decide to work together on new features, deeply integrating email marketing into the CRM. They plan future innovations, like AI-driven customer insights and automated campaign management, with shared roadmaps.

• Joint Marketing Efforts: They launch co-branded marketing campaigns to highlight the benefits of their combined solution. This includes joint webinars, case studies, and industry events to showcase their partnership.

• Shared Revenue: The alliance includes a revenue-sharing model, so both companies benefit financially from the success of their integrated solution. This could mean shared subscription fees or performance bonuses.

• Unified Support and Training: The companies work together on customer support and training, ensuring users get seamless assistance and comprehensive resources for the integrated solution.

• Market Expansion: By leveraging each other's market presence, they enter new regions or industries, using their combined strengths to compete more effectively.

• Future Vision: The strategic alliance focuses on long-term innovation and growth. Regular strategy sessions keep both companies aligned and adaptable to market changes.

This alliance enhances both companies' offerings and gives customers a more comprehensive, integrated solution, creating a competitive edge.

When to pursue strategic alliances

Strategic alliances are extremely costly. Strategic alliances often require lengthy negotiations, typically taking between 12 to 18 months to finalize. Additionally, it can take a significant amount of time for these alliances to start delivering tangible value. So, if you're an early-stage startup, you should steer clear of strategic alliances.

Your B2B SaaS startup should think over strategic alliances after building market presence and stable operations. "Going into any B2B partnership is a huge commitment and not one to be taken lightly".

The right time to pursue strategic alliances comes:

• Your company has established a strong market presence in one industry.

• You have achieved significant growth and stability.

• You are looking to expand your product offerings or enter new markets.

• You aim to leverage complementary strengths with another company.

• You seek to enhance product capabilities or gain a competitive edge.

• You are prepared to invest substantial resources and commitment.

Why you should build strategic alliances

Strategic alliances can transform your growth path with substantial benefits:

• Market expansion opportunities: Partners open doors to new markets that you'd find hard or expensive to enter alone. Companies with strong alliance strategies double their market penetration while using 30% fewer internal resources.

• State-of-the-art acceleration: Partners bring fresh views that keep your offerings competitive. Strong alliance marketing can reduce new product development time by 50%.

• Risk mitigation: Shared risk becomes possible when entering new markets or launching products. Startups with tight budgets find this especially helpful.

• Increased credibility: Working with established companies boosts your reputation. About 78% of enterprise buyers prefer solutions from vendors who partner with their trusted providers.

Cons of strategic alliances for your B2B SaaS startup

These partnerships come with their challenges:

• Alignment difficulties: Merging two organizations' cultures and processes creates hurdles. Clear roles and good communication reduce conflict by 25%.

• Resource intensity: Successful alliances need significant time and ongoing management. You'll need dedicated teams and infrastructure.

• Legal complexities: Legal support is needed to establish formal binding agreements and unforeseen risks and obligations must be carefully defined.

• Potential dependency risks: Heavy reliance on partners can disrupt your business if the alliance ends. Maintaining operational independence becomes vital.

• Information security concerns: Sharing sensitive information creates risks if data gets misused. Strong data protection agreements become essential.

Beginner's Tip: Start with Affiliate and Referral Programs

While it can be tempting to go big on partnerships by forging strategic alliances with big brands, the best way to start with partnerships is by starting small.

Affiliate and reseller partnerships are the easiest to establish with minimal commitment, making them a great starting point for B2B SaaS companies looking to expand their reach. These partnerships allow you to leverage performance-based promotion and direct sales through trusted partners, all while keeping initial costs low.

To streamline this process, consider using Expando AI to manage your affiliate and referral programs effectively.