I think the closer you get to B2C and self-service freemium, the more you can look to B2C-type affiliate models in SaaS.

But generally in SaaS I found the % that payments to partners and affiliates would range from 10-50% of first year ACV depending on how much work the affiliate/partner did.

Some examples that I think are in the ballpark:

• 10% if it's just a raw lead, with minimal qualification, i.e. just a lead source / first touch.
• 10-20% if it's a qualified lead, but nothing more than that.
• 20-30% if it's a real prospect that has been vetted by the partner/affiliate, but not closed.
• 40-50% if it's a closed customer, delivered with a signed contract / payment, or ready to sign.

40-50% may sound like a lot but is most common is complex enterprise sales where the partner does a lot of heavy lifting. While that may sound expensive, in the enterprise it can actually be cheap, because typically the cost to acquire a customer is 100-150% of first year ACV. If a partner can bring it in for 40-50% ... you've saved a ton. Even if you also/double comp your own sales reps. And maybe gotten an incremental customer you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

In the end for us, to simplify, we just paid 25% of first year ACV to all partners and affiliates of all types, with a few exceptions. And we didn't play any games. If they were first touch, we paid, always, period. It seemed to work fine and pencilled out.

Paying on more than first year ACV (i.e., also as % of subsequent years) is fair in some cases, but complex to implement. I'd say it's less common that just paying a % of first year ACV, unless you are talking about channel partners or others that deliver ongoing value to the end customer, not just a warm hand-off.