Executive Summary

Many solo and small-team SaaS makers struggle with brittle, cookie-based referral and attribution that either forces them onto expensive enterprise products or into fragile DIY solutions — roughly 3M SMBs and indie makers currently spend about $400/year each on these tools, a ~$1.2B addressable market. Lossy browser tracking and complex integration drain revenue and engineering time for teams that need a reliable, low-friction invite flow. You could build an API-first URL shortener purpose-built for invite links: short, signed invite tokens that redirect server-side, record deterministic attribution, emit webhooks, and expose SDKs and a lightweight dashboard for rewards and conversion analytics. Offer simple tiered pricing (indie-focused low ACV), turnkey Stripe and Supabase integrations, and optional fraud-detection and exportable data for customers who want to own the signal. Market timing is favorable: cookie deprecation is pushing companies toward link-based, server-side attribution, and the rise of composable stacks (Stripe, Vercel, Supabase) means many teams can integrate a focused solution quickly. The ~$1.2B market and growing micro-SaaS segment give clear demand for a cheaper, developer-friendly alternative. You can differentiate by being privacy-first and developer-centric — deterministic invite tokens, robust server-side redirects, clear APIs, and a lean, affordable pricing model will beat both generic shorteners and heavyweight referral platforms. Be upfront that competition is medium and the hard parts are reliability, fraud prevention, and building the integrations/UX that make adoption trivial for non-engineering founders.

Market Opportunity

Track SaaS invite links with a URL shortener to avoid costly referral platforms targets a $1.2B = 3M SMBs & indie SaaS makers × $400 ACV (annual spend on referral/attribution tools and light marketing automation) total addressable market with medium saturation and a year-over-year growth rate of 12% YoY — driven by growth in referral marketing, affiliate programs, and increased demand for privacy-friendly attribution (Source: Grand View Research & industry reports 2023-2024).

Key trends driving demand: Privacy-first attribution — browser cookie deprecation pushes companies to server-side and link-based attribution, making invite-link tracking more reliable.; Micro-SaaS & indie growth — an increasing number of solo and small-team SaaS products demand affordable, composable tooling rather than enterprise suites.; Composable stacks adoption — developers prefer API-first services and managed infra (Stripe, Supabase, Vercel) which lowers integration friction for lightweight referral products..

Key competitors include Viral Loops, FirstPromoter, ReferralCandy, Branch Metrics.

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Track SaaS invite links with a URL shortener to avoid costly referral platforms

Executive Summary

Market Validation

Market Opportunity

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