The honest pitch
I do one thing well, which is build custom-coded websites for small service businesses. I do not do paid ads, SEO consulting, content strategy, branding from scratch, copywriting at scale, or business coaching. The owners I serve usually need help with at least one of those things, and sometimes all of them.
You probably do at least one of them, which means we have an obvious fit. I send the people I cannot help with strategy your way, and you send the people you cannot help with their actual website mine. The Partner Program is what formalizes that arrangement: a named relationship, tracked referrals, and recurring account credit.
The terms
- 20% account credit for the first 12 months on every client you refer who signs the monthly plan ($175/mo). That works out to $35 of credit per referred client per month, accruing on your ledger continuously.
- No cap. If you refer twenty clients in a year, you accrue credit on twenty.
- Tracked by named referral, not a cookie, not a UTM parameter that expires. The client says "X sent me," I tag you. I keep a partner ledger you can read at any time.
- Credit, not cash. Credit is redeemable against any current or future engagement with the agency — your own monthly plan if you sign on, hourly add-on work, a future custom build, training, or applied to a referred client's account at the partner's direction. No cash payouts, no Stripe transfers, no 1099 filings. Balances do not expire.
- No exclusivity. You can refer to other developers too. I am not asking you to choose me; I am asking you to think of me when the right client comes up.
Who this works for
The Partner Program is designed for service providers whose clients are small service businesses. Specifically:
- Marketing agencies who run paid ads, SEO, or social for service businesses but do not build sites in-house. You probably already have a "we recommend our friend X" line; this makes it formal and earns you ongoing account credit for it.
- SEO consultants who audit small-business sites and routinely conclude "your site needs to be rebuilt before any of this SEO work matters."
- Business coaches serving service-business owners who want a real website but do not know who to trust.
- Accountants and bookkeepers who handle the money for small contractors and inspectors and routinely hear "I need a better website but I do not know what to do."
- Industry-association members (NRCA, NAHI, NACHI, NEC, BIA, etc.) who interact with service-business owners professionally and trust them to send work back.
It does not work for: lead-gen platforms that resell leads (Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack), website-flipping services, or companies that already build sites and would be a direct competitor.
What I deliver to your client
So you know what you are referring to:
- Custom-coded site, no WordPress, no AI templates. Six live demo sites show the range.
- $0 design deposit on the monthly plan. The client pays $175/mo with nothing up front; the build starts immediately.
- 2–3 weeks from discovery call to launch.
- 95–100 Google PageSpeed on every site.
- Hosting, SSL, security, unlimited content updates included on the monthly plan.
- Direct support, the client emails me, not a queue.
- WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility baseline.
- Local-business schema and on-page SEO foundation that pairs cleanly with whatever ongoing SEO work you do.
- Clean static export available at any time, so the client is never locked in.
How to refer
Three options, in order of how I prefer them:
- Warm intro by email. Best conversion rate. CC me with a one-line "X meet Jon, Jon meet X" intro. I take it from there.
- Tell the client to mention you. They book a discovery call at /contact/ and write your name in the "tell me about your business" field. I credit you on the call.
- Use the partner-referral form. Fill in your details + the client's contact info on the referral form. I reach out to the client mentioning you sent me.
Onboarding
If this sounds like a fit, the onboarding is:
- Submit the Partner Program application at the bottom of this page.
- Twenty-minute call to make sure your client base is the right shape and I am the right developer for them.
- Sign the one-page partner agreement. Plain English, public terms, signed in Documenso.
- Add yourself as a referrer in my CRM. From here on, every referred client is tagged to you.
- Quarterly partner check-in: I send you a short report on referrals received, signed, and your year-to-date credit accrued.
Common questions
It is meaningful credit for you and sustainable for me. 20% of $175 is $35; over 12 months on a successful referral you accrue $420 of account credit. Twenty referrals a year is $8,400 of credit to your ledger. After 12 months accrual ends so the math works for me long-term.
Three reasons. (1) It keeps the program inside the engagement; if you become a client too, your credit zeroes out your own invoices. (2) It avoids the tax and money-handling overhead of cash payouts (no 1099-NEC filings, no Stripe holds, no banking changes to track). (3) It compounds: agencies who refer steadily build a real reservoir of credit they can deploy on their own work, training, or as a discount they direct to a referred client's account.
You accrued credit for months 1–3 and you keep what you accrued. Month 4 onward stops because the client is no longer paying. No clawbacks on credit already accrued or already redeemed.
Yes. Several agencies build their own site with me and refer clients to me. Each role has its own paperwork, and credit accrued from referrals zeroes out your own monthly invoice automatically.
Once you have referred 3+ clients who signed, I will list you on this site as a recommended partner (with your permission). I will write about you on the blog if there is a topic worth covering. Co-marketing is a relationship, not a transaction; it builds organically.
I credit who the client says. If you are confident you sent a client and they credited someone else, use the application form below; I will check the email trail. Disputes are rare and resolved by reading the actual records.