Marketing automation for SaaS startups
Cold outbound, in-product onboarding emails, content distribution — built so a 2-person founding team can punch above weight.
The SaaS startups marketing problem
We've worked with SaaS startups operators. Here's what keeps breaking.
Your CAC is mostly tool subscriptions
Pre-PMF SaaS often spends more on tools than on ads. HubSpot Starter alone is $50/mo, Apollo is $59/mo, Smartlead is $39/mo — that's $148/mo before you've sent a single email.
PLG vs SLG churn the same playbook
Founders run a hybrid PLG (free trial sign-ups) + SLG (cold outbound to ICPs) motion. Two different toolsets usually. Conduit unifies both in one contact graph.
Founder-led marketing doesn't scale
Founders write the cold emails, schedule the posts, send the newsletters — until they can't. Conduit Flows automate the repeat work so the founder spends their time on the 20% that compounds.
How Conduit fits SaaS startups
Outreach (founder-led cold outbound)
Multi-channel sequences (email + LinkedIn) to ICP-fitting contacts. BYO sender domains, warmup, deliverability dashboard.
Enrichment (B2B lead intelligence)
Waterfall enrichment (cache → Brave → BYO Apollo / Hunter) keeps cost down while you find product-market fit.
Flows (PLG onboarding + activation)
Trigger-based emails on sign-up, first-action, day-3 inactive, etc. Webhook-driven from your app.
Publisher (content distribution)
Long-form blog → snippets across X, LinkedIn, IG, Threads, Reddit. AI generates per-channel variants from one brief.
Link-in-bio (founder profile)
Branded link page on founder Twitter / LinkedIn bio. Click attribution feeds back to contact graph.
Docs (deal docs + Stripe Connect)
Send NDAs, MSAs, order forms via magic-link. Stripe Connect for self-serve credit-card commit on sign.
The pre-PMF tooling trap
SaaS founders pre-PMF default to a tool stack that resembles a Series B company's — Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Outreach.io, Apollo, ZoomInfo. The fully-loaded cost is $5,000+/mo, which is reasonable at $1M ARR and absurd at $5k MRR.
Conduit's Starter tier ($97/mo) is built for founders. The base contact graph, sequence engine, inbox, and publisher are enough to run the entire pre-PMF GTM motion. Growth ($397/mo) adds white-label + multi-workspace for when you start agencies or partners helping with marketing.
PLG + SLG in one contact graph
Most modern B2B SaaS startups run hybrid PLG + SLG: free trial sign-ups + cold outbound to ICPs. Standard tool stack: PostHog / Mixpanel for PLG, Apollo + Outreach.io for SLG. Two contact graphs, two sets of data, no unified view of "every person who's touched the product".
Conduit's contact graph is the unifier. A cold-outbound contact who signs up for free trial keeps their cold-outbound history. A PLG free-trial user who answers a sales email keeps their in-app behavior history. One record, one timeline, end-to-end visibility.
Composite scenarios
Hypothetical agency scenarios drawn from real engagements. Names are illustrative.
Composite: 2-founder pre-seed B2B SaaS
$5k MRR, 2 founders, marketing budget effectively $0. Using free tiers of Mailchimp + Linktree + Buffer + Notion docs for sales.
Conduit Starter ($97/mo) became the entire marketing stack. Cold outbound at 50 emails/day kicked in pipeline. Reached $25k MRR in 8 months.
Composite: Series A vertical SaaS, 10 employees
$1.5M ARR, 4-person GTM team. Stack: HubSpot Pro ($890/mo), Apollo Pro ($99/user × 3 = $297), Smartlead ($94), Loom ($15). Tool spend: $1,300/mo.
Conduit Atelier ($997/mo) replaced Smartlead + Apollo (kept HubSpot as CRM, integrated via webhook). Net saved $400/mo and improved cold outbound deliverability.
Composite: solo founder SaaS, $40k MRR
Indie SaaS founder. Runs newsletter (Beehiiv $99/mo), Twitter automation (Hypefury $25/mo), cold outbound (Lemlist $99/mo).
Conduit Growth ($397/mo) replaced Lemlist + Hypefury + the newsletter front-end (kept Beehiiv for hosting). Saved $174/mo and got unified contact graph.
Right-sized pricing for SaaS startups
Pre-PMF (<$10k MRR): Starter ($97/mo). Post-PMF ($10k-$100k MRR): Growth ($397/mo). Scaling ($100k+ MRR): Atelier ($997/mo). Most SaaS founders save $200-$800/mo by replacing 3-5 separate tools.
SaaS startups — FAQ
- Is Conduit a CRM?
- Conduit has CRM features (contact graph, deal pipeline, activity log) but is not a Salesforce / HubSpot replacement for complex sales orgs. For 1-10 person GTM teams, Conduit IS the CRM. For 25+ person teams, integrate Conduit with HubSpot / Salesforce via webhook.
- Does Conduit integrate with my SaaS app?
- Yes — webhook + REST API. Push sign-up events, in-app behavior, billing events from your app to Conduit. Conduit fires Flow logic in response.
- Stripe integration?
- Yes — Conduit listens for Stripe webhooks (subscription created, payment failed, subscription canceled) and triggers Flows. Useful for churn prevention sequences.
- Can I run founder-led cold outbound?
- Yes — primary use case. Set up your founder@yourstartup.com sender domain with DKIM / DMARC / SPF, warm it up over 2-3 weeks, then run multi-channel sequences (email + LinkedIn) at 30-50/day per sender.
- PLG email sequences?
- Yes — webhook-triggered sequences on sign-up, activation, retention. Branching on user properties or in-app behavior.
- Newsletter hosting?
- Conduit can send newsletters but doesn't host public archives. For public-facing newsletter sites, keep Beehiiv / Substack and use Conduit for subscriber management + segmentation.
- Pricing as we scale?
- Conduit pricing is per workspace, not per contact or per send. Your bill stays flat as the list grows — predictable cost as you scale.
- Migration from HubSpot Marketing Hub?
- Plan 2-3 weeks. Export contacts, lists, and sequences from HubSpot. Recreate Flows in Conduit. Most teams keep HubSpot as the CRM of record and use Conduit for outreach + email + social.