Design Partner Program

Help build the operating cadence tool we wish had existed for 16 years.

We're working with a small group of founders running $1M-$10M ARR SaaS to shape what Upbeat becomes. In exchange for honest feedback and a 12-month commitment, you get founder-level pricing locked in for the life of your company, direct access to the team, and real influence over what we build next.

Apply now → How it works

What you get

Three things that compound over twelve months.

— 01 Founder access

30 minutes with Nick, every other week.

Direct working sessions with the founder. Your screen shares, your gripes, your wishlist. No customer success layer between you and the team building the product. Most design partners use the time to walk through their actual scorecard each cycle.

— 02 Hands-on implementation

We help you stand up the cadence.

Setting up your first scorecard, picking the right metrics for your stage, integrating your stack — we do this with you, not for you. Most design partners are running a real weekly cadence inside 30 days. We've done this enough times to know the patterns.

— 03 Roadmap influence

The product gets built around your needs.

The next integration we ship is one a design partner actually needs. The next feature we prioritize is one a design partner actually asks for. You're not a feedback survey — you're co-designing the product alongside us.

The terms

$99/month. For the whole company.

Same pricing whether you have 5 users or 50. We're optimizing for partnership and shared learning, not seat-by-seat economics.

Monthly
$99
For the whole company, unlimited users
Commitment
12 months
Real cadence change takes 90+ days to show value
After year one
Locked in
Founder pricing stays with you for the life of your company
Spots available
Limited
We can only do this well for a small number of companies at a time

Who this is for

The right fit, honestly described.

✓

This is for you if...

  • You're running a SaaS company between $1M and $10M ARR
  • You have a leadership team and want a real weekly operating cadence
  • You're frustrated by metrics that live in five different tools and never get reviewed together
  • You're willing to give honest feedback — because that's the whole point of the program
  • You want to be on a first-name basis with the people building your tools
✗

This isn't for you if...

  • You're pre-revenue or below $1M ARR — the cadence Upbeat enforces doesn't fit yet
  • You're above $10M ARR — we're not built for your complexity, yet
  • You want a passive tool you set up once and forget about
  • You can't commit to the every-other-week working sessions
  • You're looking for free software in exchange for a logo on our site

Why the terms are what they are.

Why $99/month?
We want skin in the game, not free riders. Free always sounds better than $99, but in our experience free customers don't show up for the working sessions, don't give the honest feedback, and don't stay engaged long enough for the partnership to pay off — for them or for us. $99 is enough to make the commitment real, low enough to be a rounding error for a $1M+ ARR company.
Why 12 months?
Real cadence change takes 90+ days to show value, and we want to learn from a full annual cycle alongside you — your planning rhythm, your board prep, your quarterly resets. A 3-month or 6-month commitment doesn't let either of us actually evaluate whether the partnership is working.
What happens after 12 months?
You stay at design-partner pricing forever — no rate hikes, no surprises. If you decide not to continue, you walk away with no further obligation. If you continue, you're a founding customer at founding-customer pricing for the life of your company. We honor that commitment because the design partners are the people who made the product worth selling at all.
Why limited spots?
Because design partnership only works at small numbers. We can give 10 companies real founder time. We can't give 100. We'd rather work deeply with fewer companies and ship a product that's genuinely shaped by their feedback than spread thin and ship something generic.
What if I'm not selected?
We respond to every application within a week. If the program isn't the right fit right now — wrong stage, wrong timing, full roster — we'll tell you straight. We'll also keep you on the list for general availability pricing when we launch beyond the design partner phase.

Apply to the program

Tell us about your company.

A few questions to help us understand whether the program is the right fit. Takes 2 minutes. We respond personally within a week.

We respond personally within a week. No marketing automation, no nurture sequence — just a real reply from Nick or someone on the team.