Cobalia is a performance marketing marketplace for SaaS founders. You define the comp, you set the bar — up to five vetted, commission-only marketers compete for results, and you replace anyone not moving your numbers.
A two-sided market
Founders need pipeline they don't have to babysit. Marketers need products they didn't have to build. We close the gap — with rules the founder writes.
Unlike traditional affiliate platforms that manage an existing program, Cobalia is where SaaS founders find and filter the marketers who can actually sell their product — through a competitive slot system with a defined brief, a performance bar, and a rotation waitlist. No retainers. No platform lock-in. Founder-defined rules end-to-end.
For SaaS founders
01 / 02Agencies charge retainers whether or not they perform. Affiliate networks bury your listing in a firehose. Cobalia works the other way: post one brief, set your comp model and performance bar, and have up to five vetted, commission-only marketers compete for your product. Anyone not hitting your bar rotates out from the waitlist — no contract negotiations.
For marketers
Read the founder's brief, decide if it's worth your time, go to work. If you're rotated out later, your old links keep paying.
Brief-first, commitment-second: every listing shows you the ICP, proof assets, comp model, and performance bar before you claim a slot. No surprise expectations, no bait-and-switch compensation.
Old links
Survive swaps
Rotated marketers keep earning on customers they brought in.
Marketer signup
Free
No contracts, no minimums, no application fee.
How it works
No retainers, no proposal calls, no “synergy.” A clean loop between people who build and people who sell — on terms the founder writes.
ICP, best-fit and bad-fit buyers, proof assets, compensation model, and performance bar — all in one structured form. Up to 5 slots open per product.
Founder-first rules end-to-end
Marketers read the brief, decide if it's worth their time, and start selling. With only 5 slots per product the people in them actually pay attention.
Max 5 marketers per product
Founders set the performance bar — MRR generated, trials started, or any custom conversion metric. Underperformers are replaced from the waitlist through Competitive Rotation: the outgoing marketer's affiliate links stay live and keep paying on customers they already brought in. No commissions revoked. No contract negotiations.
Old links survive after a swap
FAQ
Some answers are honestly “still being decided.” We'll tell you which.
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We're onboarding founding partners now and aim to open marketer slots in Q3 2026. Waitlist signups get access in priority order — earliest signups get first pick of listings.
Founders choose their compensation model when publishing their brief. Three structures are supported: revenue share (a percentage of MRR from referred customers, paid monthly), flat per-acquisition (a fixed dollar amount per trial, signup, or paid conversion), and equity for early-stage products. There are no platform-mandated rates — a B2B SaaS founder might offer 20–30% rev share on the first 12 months of a customer's contract, while a PLG product might offer a flat $50 per paid activation. The founder sets the number, not the platform.
Scarcity, fit, and accountability. With only five slots per product the marketers in them actually pay attention to that product instead of treating it as one of a thousand affiliate links. Founders get focused effort, not a firehose.
The founder sets the performance bar in their brief — sales per quarter, MQLs, whatever they choose. Anyone who misses it rotates out and gets replaced from the waitlist. Their old affiliate links stay live so they keep earning on customers they already brought in.
Joining the waitlist is free for both founders and marketers — no retainer fees, monthly subscriptions, or upfront costs to publish a brief or claim a slot. Cobalia's transaction take rate has not been publicly announced. We'll publish the number before launch, and founding partners signing up now will know it before they commit.
Currently leaning toward an open marketplace where marketers do the filtering — the founder's brief is structured enough that it's clear which products are serious. This is one of the things we may revisit based on what we see in the early cohort.
Open question. Recurring aligns the marketer with retention; one-time is simpler. We'll likely let founders pick — same philosophy as the rest of compensation.
PartnerStack, Rewardful, and FirstPromoter are affiliate program management tools — they help you manage a large, existing partner base with automated tracking, payouts, and CRM integrations. Cobalia is a marketplace, not a management tool. Its purpose is to find and filter the first marketers who can actually sell your product, through a competitive slot system where underperformers are replaced. If you already have 50 active affiliates and need software to manage them at scale, those tools are the right answer. If you have zero to five marketers and you're trying to identify which ones can move your numbers on a performance-only basis, Cobalia is designed for that stage.
A performance bar is the minimum result a marketer must achieve within a defined period to retain their slot. Founders set this when publishing their brief — it can be expressed as trials started, paid conversions, MRR generated, or any custom metric that maps to actual business value. The bar is visible to all marketers before they claim a slot, so there are no surprise expectations. If a marketer does not reach it within the agreed window, the founder can rotate them out and promote the next marketer from the waitlist.
When a marketer leaves a slot — whether voluntarily or through a founder-initiated rotation — their affiliate links remain active and continue tracking conversions. Any customer they brought in before the rotation keeps generating commissions under the original terms. Historical commissions are not revoked. Marketers take on performance risk for new business, but have no downside on customers they've already converted.
Contact
Questions about how Cobalia works, partnership ideas, or just want to say hi — we read every message.
Or chat with us on Reddit: /u/isabasu
Stay in the loop
One short email when founder onboarding opens. Another when marketer slots go live. That's it. No drip campaigns, no “ultimate guides.”
Confirmed
Max 5 marketers per product
Real attention, not a firehose.
Confirmed
You pick the compensation
Rev share, flat fee, equity — founder's call.
Confirmed
You set the performance bar
Whatever metric matters to you.
Confirmed
Performance-based rotation
Underperformers swap out from the waitlist.
Confirmed
Founder writes the brief
ICP, proof assets, red flags. Marketers self-select.
Confirmed
Old affiliate links survive
Rotated marketers keep earning on past customers.
Still TBD
Take rate
Still being decided. Will be published before launch.
Still TBD
Recurring vs one-time commission
Open question. Likely founder's call.