This content provides a transparent, data-driven comparison between building a Software as a Service (SaaS) business and becoming an affiliate marketer using the GoHighLevel platform, aiming to help viewers choose the most suitable path based on their goals and desired lifestyle.
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Okay, so let's settle this. You're
probably wondering which path with GoH
High Level makes more money, and you've
probably seen loads of gurus who are
just talking theory. So, today we're
doing it for real. I'm going to crack
open my GoHigh Lee account so that we
can settle the SAS versus affiliate
debate once and for all. You're about to
see all of my raw numbers, so my SAS
revenue, my affiliate commissions to
find out which one truly pays more in
the long run. I'm showing you my
dashboards, my actual profits, and the
tough lessons that I learned so that you
can skip all of that. You can pick the
right path without wasting years on the
wrong one. So, for as long as I can
remember, and I get this question all
the time on calls, everyone in the goh
high level world wants to know, should I
build a SAS business or should I just
cash in on the affiliate program? And to
be honest, you've got experts on both
sides. You've got people that are
selling the passive income dream and
then you've got people over here which
is saying build an asset that you can
sell. But it's really rare to see
someone that is doing both of them just
open up their books and show you the
real results. And so, that's exactly
what I'm going to do today. So, I've
been using GoHigh Level for the past 2
years or so. And when I started, I
started all for the SAS. I saw the
opportunity of white labeling this
software, building my brand, building an
asset within my company. And I loved
that idea and that was my whole focus.
But then later on, about 6 months ago, I
then started diving into the affiliate
program. And it really opened my eyes to
the pros and cons of both of them, which
I'm excited to share with you today. And
to be honest, I really wish that someone
did a video like this cuz I was going
down a rabbit hole for ages. I was on
the Facebook community like, what one
should I do? and I felt like I never
really got to the bottom of it. So, I
just thought, do you know what? It I'm
just gonna open up everything. You can
see it all. You can decide for yourself
and then you can actually see which one
is right for you. So, I'll just quickly
explain to you why I've ended up doing
both. It's not because I don't like SAS.
It's not because I stopped doing that
and now I just do affiliate. I actually
run both of these at the same time. And
that's because I was all in on SAS and I
went to a GoHigh level event in London
and I met the founders and I met the
team and they approached me and said,
"Would you consider being an affiliate?"
and they spoke to me about their
endorsement program. And at the time I
was like, "No way. Why would I do that?
Why would I send my audience to you and
I only get 40% when I get 100% over
here?" But then I decided to zoom out a
little bit and look at the bigger
picture. And two things are true right
now. Number one is the smartest thing
you can do right now in 2026 is focus on
building your personal brand. The second
thing is that GoHigh Level is on a
massive upwards trajectory. They are
flying. their brand recognition, their
credibility is absolutely huge. So what
I realized was by partnering with Gohigh
Level and being endorsed by them and and
really kind of like connecting myself
with them, I get to leverage their
audience. So I get to leverage all of
their audience. I'm opened up into a
whole new network, but also I can
piggyback off their credibility.
Everyone is hearing about how amazing
GoHigh Level is. People are searching
for GoHigh Level. They come across me
and then they come across all the other
stuff that I do as well. So that's my
personal play. That's why I personally
have ended up doing the two of them. And
there are benefits to both sides. You
may decide at the end of this that you
are not into building your personal
brand. You don't want to do any of that.
You don't want to grow an audience. And
so you have one clear winner. You may
decide that actually doing both is right
for you. But whatever happens by the end
of this video, you're going to have a
really super clear path. Okay. So let's
dive into it. So the first thing I want
to cover is SAS. SAS stands for software
as a service. You'll probably hear this
all the time. And what does this really
mean? Basically, this means that you can
take go high level, you can white label
it, which means that you put on your
logo, your branding, your name, your
website domain, and you can essentially
sell it as if it is your own software
that you built yourself. You can then,
the best part about it is you can get
100% of the profit. So, all you do is
you pay your monthly subscription to go
high level. So, you pay your $497 per
month to go high level and then you get
to keep 100% of whatever people pay to
be on your software. And you can decide
whatever those subscriptions are. You
could have three tiers, 1 197, 297, 497,
997, whatever it is. It also doesn't
need to end in a seven, just FYI, but
you know what I mean. So, basically, you
can decide what you want to charge for
this software, and you get to keep 100%
of the profit. Nice. So, what I'm going
to do, I'm going to dive into my
dashboard now. I'm going to show you
exactly what my plans are. I'm going to
show you exactly what revenue I make and
how I make it across my SAS business.
Okay, so let's get into it. So, this is
the last month's revenue. So you can see
here the total revenue for last month
was 11,283.
The monthly recurring revenue 5,824.
We got seven new customers and 148 total
customers. Now just to let you know for
total transparency, I actually grew this
SAS and then grew it to a certain point
and then got really caught up in all the
agency done for you stuff. So I actually
ended up kind of stopping growing my SAS
and I haven't really done anything with
this for I don't know like eight months.
So, I still have customers coming in
because of the marketing channels that I
have. And that's great, but I really
don't push this. So, um that's only
because I'm just like a distracted
entrepreneur that's like, "Oh, let me do
this. Let me do this." And I got really
caught up in all the agency stuff. So,
um yeah. Anyway, so that's where we're
at. So, you can see here, these are the
overall numbers. Now, this is the really
interesting thing. So, here you've got
the SAS. So, you can see here, this is
the SAS, right? So, the monthly
recurring revenue is 5,625.
So that's what is bringing in like
guaranteed every single month unless
people churn our churn rate. So we
churned $197 last month. That means that
someone left. Um but it kind of goes up
and down. We got seven new customers in
one customer that went out. So kind of
like you know balances each other out.
So anyway, that's okay. Good revenue is
it is what it is. But if we go to
rebilling, this is where it gets really
interesting. So now the really
interesting thing about high level is
also there are other ways that you can
earn revenue with it. So one of the
biggest things is with with rebuilling
and reselling. So with email and SMS
costs and AI costs and things like that,
you can actually highle will charge you
for it as the kind of SAS owner, but
then you can put a markup on it so that
you can earn a profit for every single
email SMS that is sold. Now this might
not sound like a lot. It's like 0.01
cents for an email and then you can make
it 0.02 cents and you just add a cent
onto it, right? And you might think that
doesn't sound like a lot at all. Like
this is not going to be the thing that
helps me retire. But when you look at
this on scale, if you have a few
customers that are doing mass email
marketing or mass SMS marketing or loads
of dialing and making loads of calls,
this can really start to add up. So this
is exactly how this breaks down. So if
we look from September to January, uh
the total rebuilding revenue was 18,388.
the total cost of that. So, what highle
build me was $8,460
and I made $9,928
profit just by rebuilding. So, that
really bumps up my revenue. Even though
I'm not massively focused on growing my
subscribers or doing anything like that,
loads of my people that are on there,
I've got 148 customers, loads of them
are using email and SMS all the time.
So, this actually becomes a really good
revenue model. You can see the split
between how they spend on phone. So
that's SMS and phone calling, email,
WhatsApp, AI products, all of that.
[snorts] So really something to think
about with the SAS. You can really ramp
that up. If your clients are doing heavy
email marketing or SMS or anything like
that, then this can really start to ramp
up. So I just want to show you really
quickly what our kind of plans are.
We've had loads of different plans.
We've changed them all the time. Um I
had a founding members uh plan which was
$97 monthly, 970 for annual. Then we
have we don't use this one anymore but
we have a pro plan which is 1971 1970.
We also have like a 297 and 2997 and
then we also have 497 and 4997 as well.
And in here you can choose whatever you
want. So you can say in this plan they
get access to everything in this plan.
They only get access to funnels and
emails for example. It's completely up
to you. You have this SAS configurator
here where you can go through
everything. Not going to do a whole
training on that, but just to show you
what my plans are. And then also you can
go to reselling and you can see here all
of these things here. You can actually
resell and make a profit. So for
example, we High Level have the Go
Collab app, which is like communities
and courses. You can resell that. So you
could sell it for $79. High level are
going to charge you $49. So you're going
to make a $30 profit for every one of
your clients that decides to do that.
you can resell it for a profit. Same
with um AI employee. You can set this
for whatever price you want to set it
to. High level will charge you and then
um that's your profit. You can also do
it with, you know, WhatsApp, uh
WordPress, the ads manager, loads of
things. So, you can really start to
stack up your revenue on the SAS plan
and it makes it super exciting to kind
of play around with those numbers.
Actually, within my community, I've
actually got a spreadsheet which shows
you exactly how to figure out what your
margin should be, what you should resell
it for, for for what kind of profit. I I
it's kind of a calculator where you can
toggle between loads of stuff and it
enables you to set your pricing really
well. Okay, so of course, we can't talk
about revenue without talking about
costs. There are costs that are involved
in all of these and SAS compared to
affiliate has more costs involved
because you're actually running like a
full business. So the things that I pay
out for on my SAS obviously
traditionally you would pay for the 497
per month for go high level. As an
endorsed affiliate I don't pay that.
They actually pay that for me which is
super super cool. The other thing is
that I personally have a um GoHigh Lee
certified admin that works with me now.
He does all of my onboarding. He also
works onetoone with some of our clients.
I originally hired him because we were
running an agency. We're not running an
agency anymore, but I still like to keep
him on cuz he does all of my tech,
everything like that. You don't have to
have this. I also pay for Extendley. So,
Extendley is my white label support
service. They do all of my support
tickets for my clients. They can do all
of my onboarding if I want them to, but
HA does that for me. Um, they will also
do the chat, so they'll be in the chat
widget on the website and do all of that
stuff. So, they take care of all the
support. I actually ended up going with
extendly really early in my SAS journey
because I actually didn't know the
platform very well when I launched my
SAS and I didn't want to wait around
until I knew everything about it before
I got started. So I hired Extendi pretty
early doors and they took care of all my
support which was amazing. So that's 897
a month. It you can start less. It's
8.97 because of the number of sub
accounts that I have now and you kind of
pay more depending on how many sub
accounts you get. But when you're
starting out it can be really really
cost effective. And then the other thing
that I pay out for is my executive
assistant. So again, this is kind of
relative for all of my businesses. The
SAS and the affiliate are actually only
two of my revenue streams. I also make
money through selling AI audits. I teach
people how to become AI consultants and
how to get certified. We have an AI
audit software. I have other income
streams like that. So these are just two
of them. And I kind of leverage this
team to help me with all of those
different revenue streams. But anyways,
those are my costs that are associated
with SAS. So let's just look at the the
pros and cons of it. So, the pros of
building a SAS are your earning
potential is skyhigh. You decide how big
you want to build this. I know many,
many people that earn multiple multiple
thousands per month, and it's an amazing
revenue stream. It's really up to you
how much you want to earn. You're not
capped at all. You keep all of the
profits. So, you decide what your costs
are for this business, and then you can
keep all of those profits yourself. But
the main one is really that you're
building a real brand and a real asset.
So if ever you wanted to go and sell
your business, this is a really valuable
asset that makes your business more
valuable. And actually I have had loads
of offers from people who are wanting to
buy my SAS for multiple six figures. So
I've actually built something which is a
sellable asset which is super super
cool. And if you are looking to really
build like a legit business then this is
a great thing to add in. So those are
the pros but then of course you've got
the cons and the cons are just as real
as well. The main cons about it is that
this is a legit business. Everything is
relying on you. So the marketing, the
sales, the onboarding, the support, the
billing, and everything like that,
that's all to do with you, and you need
to sort that out. So if you don't want
any of that FAF, then you're going to
see that as a con. But perhaps you're
looking at this and you're like, "No, I
want to re I want to build a real
business. I want to get involved in all
of that," then this will be a great
business for you. I actually learned so
much through the process of building my
SAS that I've now gone on to build a
traditional SAS, like not a white label
one, and it taught me so much. So it
really helped me hone my skills in this
area. Okay, so now let's look at the
affiliate play. This model is way
simpler. Basically, all you do is you
say to someone, "Hey, do you want to try
Go High Level?" They sign up to go High
Level. You get 40% of their commission
every single time they pay their
subscription. So, as long as they're on
that platform, you get that 40% every
single month. And you don't have to deal
with anything. You don't have to deal
with the support, the onboarding,
anything after that is completely up to
them. With me, I genuinely really like
helping people do this, and I really
want them to stay for a long time. So, I
offer a weekly coaching call for anyone
who joins as an affiliate through me. I
also offer we have an extra tech clinic
because I've got her anyway, so I want
to utilize him. So, I offer that to my
affiliates. Um, we also offer a
one-on-one onboarding call. So, I'm able
to kind of leverage what I've got in my
SAS and offer more support, but you
don't have to do this. Many, many
affiliates just have people sign up and
they just leave them be. So, if you want
to do that, that's absolutely fine. So,
you get the 40% recurring commission,
but this is where it gets interesting.
If you refer someone and they end up
referring someone, you can actually get
a two-tier commission, which means that
you get 5% of what that secondary person
um spends on their subscription as well.
So, this is where it gets interesting
because you could introduce maybe a
massive influencer or someone that's got
a massive network. Say you say you sign
up Mel Robbins, for example, and Mel
Robbins goes out to her whole list and
she's like, "Hey, you all need to sign
up and join GoHigh Level." then you
would get 5% of all of all of her
network as well. Super super cool. Now,
I want to just share this with you
because before I joined Go High Level, I
was actually in a multi-level marketing
company for about 10 years and I built
to the very top of that company. But
here's what's really interesting about
this opportunity. So, when I was with
them, it was like health products and
every at the end of every month, it
would stop. So, like whatever you did
that month, you would start from zero
the very first day of the next month.
And so there was no kind of recurring
aspect of it. I had to go and hustle and
graft every single month in order to hit
my targets. With this, there's no
targets, by the way. There's no one
clamping down on you and being like,
"Ah, you [clears throat] need to do
this." But your commissions can start to
stack. So people will stop buying a
health product. They'll stop buying
protein shake. But it's very unlikely
that if they get set up on GoHigh Level
and they set up their business on there
that they're just going to keep swapping
and changing between software. They're
not going to. they're going to stay on
it for a long time. So that means
whatever I do this month [snorts] is
that's my commission. And then next
month I get all of that commission as
long as those people don't churn out and
quit and leave. Plus I get all of what I
do next month. And these commissions
start to stack. Which is why you see
affiliates that are earning 100 grand a
month because these commissions are
starting to stack from when they first
started. So I love that about it. I love
that you don't start from zero every
month. Um, and you can really start to
stack an amazing income. Okay. And then
we get to the affiliate portal. So, we
can look here. In total, I made 9,117.
So, I started back in August. Um, so you
can see here we started, first month was
$438. Then it went up to 1,322. Then it
jumped up a little bit and then it
jumped up to 1 n and we're already
ramping up. We're on the 20th of the
month at the moment and it's ramping up.
And remember, I make that every single
month. As long as they don't leave high
level, then then we've got that. Um, we
can also see that I got 32 new um,
referrals last month. And then there's
kind of these levels that you can hit as
well. So I am up to cadet 2. Um, so the
next goal will be to get to 10,000 in
total within one year and then 20,000.
Then it goes all up to the kind of
commander levels. By the way, there's no
female commanders that I have seen. So
I'm on a mission to be a first female
commander. They get this sexy little
bomber jacket and I really like this. I
really like the bomber jacket. Um, I'm
so easily pleased. But there's also
loads of other incentives that they do.
So you get loads of different links. If
they do a promotional campaign over the
holidays or they do, you know, different
kind of things that they do, they'll
always send you loads of promotional
assets and everything like that to help
you promote it. And there's an entire
community for it as well. So it's really
simple. There's not much to show you
here really. The kind of revenue and how
it grows. Um, this is growing month and
as I said, the commissions are just
stacking every single month. And I find
this so fun. This is like the easiest
part of any of my revenue streams. I
feel like this is just playing around
and yeah, I really like doing it. So
anyway, that is the back end of that.
Okay, so the costs involved in the
affiliate side of the program. I
personally choose to mainly promote on
YouTube. I find that works really,
really well. I just add a lot of value
on YouTube and people join my affiliate
program. So I have a YouTube editor. My
YouTube editor is around $400 a month
and then that's what helps me generate
the videos which actually become the
engine to to sign up to go high level.
And then of course I'm not paying a go
high level fee. I can also leverage the
team that I've got through my SAS. So,
you know, um Haydah and Kate, my
executive assistant, I'm able to
leverage that in order to build my
affiliate program as well. So, let's
talk about the pros and cons, shall we?
So, the pros here are massive. This is
about the closest you get to passive
income. I always like wse a little bit
of passive income because I don't think
anything is truly passive. You always
have to do work at one point. Like, my
videos generate a passive income now,
but I put a lot of work into creating
the videos in the first place. though.
Just just go easy on that passive income
thing. But this is about as close to it
as you're going to get once you refer
someone if you want to. The work is
pretty much done unless you want to do
like I do where you add extra support.
And of course, you have no stress of all
the other stuff, all onboarding and
support and all that. You don't have to
deal with any of that. You can just pass
them over. The cons though is that this
isn't really an asset that you own. So,
for example, if you were with a company
and they just went bust, then you would
lose that income overnight. It doesn't
matter that you worked for a year or
whatever and you you built up this
revenue. If the company goes out of
business, you have no business. Now,
this is why I partnered with GoHigh
Level because I really truly believe
that they will stand the test of time.
They're going to be around for a long,
long time. This is a solid solid company
and that's why I've decided to partner
with them. But ultimately, there is
still a risk. If I was to put all of my
eggs in this basket, then I do leave
myself vulnerable. So, this is why I
like to have the SAS, I have my
affiliate, I have my audience, my
consultancy, all of this other stuff
that I do as well. However, if you are
looking to build a business that you
want to eventually sell one day, then
you're not going to be able to sell an
affiliate income. So, it's something to
think about. Okay, so let's talk about
now which one pays more. Now, you may
look at this and it's a clear winner,
right? There is more revenue coming in
through my SAS. I got to a higher
revenue much quicker. I was able to just
set my price, ramp up those
subscriptions, and I was able to get to
a really good income. whereas I've been
doing the affiliate program now for you
know five six months and it's kind of
growing slowly. However, the most
important question to ask yourself is
not which one earns you more money
because they both earn more money. If
you go allin with either of these, you
are going to make a considerable amount
of money if you are committed and
focused and you are dedicated to the
process. But the number one question you
need to ask yourself is what is the
business that you want to build? What is
the lifestyle that you want to live? Do
you want to build a, you know, a legit
business with all of the different
departments and a team and things like
that and you want to build that or are
you just looking at this as like a
lifestyle business? Are you like, I just
want a revenue stream coming in so I can
go off and do all this other stuff that
I love to do. You have to ask yourself
that question first. You should never
build a business fueled solely on which
makes more money because you are going
to reach a point where you burn out and
this business doesn't feel good anymore.
Believe me, I've done this so many
times. So asking yourself that question
first is going to be so so invaluable to
you. Which business model fits the
lifestyle that you want? Please ask
yourself that question first. So let's
just wrap this up. So the affiliate
model is probably for you if you are a
content creator, an influencer, you love
creating content and kind of adding
value in the same way that I am right
now and you want to monetize that
audience that you build, then this is a
brilliant fit for you. If you want
passive income without the headache of
running a traditional business, this is
also a great business. And if you want
to get started fast without complexity
and you're like, I don't want to learn
how to do that stuff. I just want to
make money, then affiliate is a great
thing for you. The SAS model is perfect
for you if you dream of building a
sellable asset and a sellable brand. If
you're willing to get in the trenches
and you want to, you know, uplevel your
skills and learn how to build a team and
learn how to do systems and processes
and all of that stuff, to be honest,
it's still much less complex than every
other traditional business model. it.
There's so much stuff worked out for
you. But if you really want to get into
the nitty-gritty of business, then SAS
is going to be perfect for you. And
ultimately, if your main goal is to
maximize revenue, if you're like, I just
want the biggest earning potential, then
SAS is going to be the best fit for you.
But let me be really honest with you.
The real pro move, if you want to really
squeeze all the juice out of this highle
peach that you possibly can, is it a
peach or a lemon? I don't I don't even
know if it is some kind of specific
fruit, but anyway, orange. I think it's
orange. If you want to squeeze all the
juice out of this highle orange, then
the real pro move is to do both just
like I have. Do the SAS, master the
skills of doing it, learn, become
better, become great at building that
traditional business, but also couple
that with the affiliate program and use
it to grow your audience, grow your
credibility, and leverage what they have
already built and add that into your own
suite. By doing that, you're getting
both pieces. You're getting the skills
and the, you know, maximize income
potential, but you're also getting the
audience and the kind of personal brand
that comes with it. And of course, if
you want to do it like me, you can
actually use the revenue that comes from
the SAS to build out the whole
foundations that enable you to have
multiple income streams while the rest
of it then just becomes profit. That's a
super smart way of doing it. So,
deciding where to start is often the
hardest part, but as I said, ask that
question first. What is the business
that I want first? The business model.
What is the lifestyle that I want? What
do I want my day to look like daytoday?
How do I want to be spending my day? And
then work backwards from there. And that
will help you decide which model is best
for you. Or if you want to go pro, if
you want to like really go for it, then
put your hands together, my friends, and
you can do both business models. And I
can show you exactly how to do that. But
I want to give you something. So if you
decide that the SAS is for you, I have
an entire snapshot of this. So the
funnels, the onboarding, the systems,
the workflows, everything like that. You
can get all of that if you sign up to go
high level through my link on the SAS
plan. You need the 497 plan in order to
get on the SAS plan. Then you will get
my snapshot and you'll get all of my
coaching. I have a course, how to launch
your SAS in 30 days. Um, and you can get
all of that. And of course, if you do
want to go the affiliate route, again,
if you sign up through my affiliate
link, you'll join through that and
you're going to get access to weekly
coaching with me and all of that good
fun stuff, extra tech clinics, and I can
share with you exactly what I've done to
build that affiliate revenue and
everything that I've learned over the
last 12 years in this space. So, that is
it. All the links that you need are
below. I hope that's given you a little
bit more clarity. I hope it's given you
something to think about apart from just
which makes more money. And I hope you
appreciate the transparency of just
sharing my numbers as well. I know that
so many people will come on here and
they'll be like, "Look at me in my Lambo
and look at me doing this." But I just
really wanted to show you the real deal
so you can have the full picture and
then make a really informed decision cuz
there's a lot of out there and
I just wanted to show you the real deal.
So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this.
Please let me know below which route you
are deciding to go or if you've still
got questions and hopefully I will see
you inside our community very very soon. Bye.
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