The headline figure is the partner's reward, not their opportunity
The program's headline, "Intro a company. Earn $1,500,000+", is written for partners. It tells a partner how far rewards can go across the companies they introduce, not what any one company is paid. Copied into a message to an owner, it answers a question the owner never asked, and many owners will read it as a figure for their own company.
The arithmetic shows why the figure belongs to the partner. On a company's first qualifying transaction the reward is the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; Actual Supplier Payout is the compensation SourceX actually pays the referred company. Illustrative: a USD 100,000 payout to the company means a USD 55,000 reward, a USD 400,000 payout means USD 70,000, and a transaction below the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction earns nothing unless SourceX agrees in writing. SourceX has published no typical payouts, so the reward figure tells the owner nothing about what their records might earn, and it tells you nothing about what your introduction will produce.
There is a quieter cost too. An opener built on the partner's money tells the owner whose interest comes first. The owner's real question is "why me?", and a message that cannot answer it in the first two sentences will be read as a mass mailing, whatever its signature says.
The company-specific relevance worksheet
Fill six slots before writing a word of the message. Each slot names where the answer must come from and when to leave it empty. A slot filled by guesswork is worse than an empty one, because it puts a claim in the owner's inbox that the owner can see is wrong.
| Slot | Question | Where the answer must come from | Specific enough when | Leave it empty when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Record type | Which records did the owner mention? | The owner, in conversation | It names a record ("design review comments"), not a category ("data") | You inferred it from their industry |
| 2. Years covered | From when, and roughly how many years? | The owner or their system administrator | There is a start year | Nobody has said |
| 3. System | Where do the records live? | The owner | A system or system type is named | You only know their software from a logo |
| 4. Who created it | Did the company's own staff write these records, or do they belong to clients? | The owner, with counsel later | "Our engineers wrote them" | They are client deliverables, which are usually not a fit |
| 5. Dated event | Is something about to change? | The owner, with a date | A migration, system retirement, sale or deletion date | The only date is a quarter-end or your own target |
| 6. CEO said yes | Has the CEO agreed to hear about SourceX? | The CEO, directly or through the person who owns the relationship | A dated yes | There is no yes yet, so nothing is sent |
Then run two tests on the opening you draft from the filled slots.
The name-swap test. Replace the company's name in your first two sentences with a competitor's. If the sentences still read as true, they are about the industry, not the company. Rewrite them until a swap would make them false.
The correction test. Could the owner correct a detail in your opening, a year, a system, a date? If yes, you have written something specific enough to be checked. An opening the owner could not possibly correct ("your business has valuable data") contains no information.
Slot 6 is a gate, not a detail. SourceX usually finds an introduction not a fit when the decision maker did not know it was coming, and in this program the decision maker is the CEO, who authorizes a licensing discussion and signs. If you have not yet asked, start with how to ask an owner for permission.
An engineering firm, a consumer brand and an IT consultancy, run through the slots
All three are Illustrative: invented companies and facts, with no outcome implied for any of them.
- A. A 140-person civil engineering firm whose founder is CEO. At lunch on 14 October she mentioned project files, design review comments and RFI logs going back to 2011 in the firm's document management system, which moves to a new system in March. She said she would like to hear about SourceX.
- B. A 300-person consumer apparel brand. The partner knows it is large and "into AI". Its main records are customer orders and consumer data. Nobody has asked the CEO anything.
- C. A 95-person IT consultancy. During a confidential security review, the partner saw a detailed ticket archive going back years. The owner has never mentioned it, though she did say she is open to "anything useful".
| Slot | A. Engineering firm | B. Apparel brand | C. IT consultancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record type | Design review comments, RFI logs, project files | Unknown beyond "data" | Seen in confidential work, so unusable |
| Years covered | Since 2011 | Unknown | Unusable |
| System | Document management system | Unknown | Unusable |
| Who created it | Review comments are the firm's own; delivered drawings may belong to clients | Consumer data, usually not a fit | Unknown |
| Dated event | System move in March | None known | None known |
| CEO said yes | Yes, 14 October | No | General openness, not a yes to SourceX |
| Name-swap test | Fails a swap, as it should | Passes a swap: generic | Cannot be written yet |
| Verdict | Write the message | Send nothing; there is no specific reason to give | Ask an open question about the records she keeps, then fill the slots from her answer |
Company C is the hard case. The partner holds a strong reason and cannot use it. What was seen during confidential work stays there; the message can only be as specific as what the owner chooses to tell you. The list of what stays out of an introductory email covers the same boundary from the email side.
One message to company A, written both ways
Reward-led
Subject: A USD 50,000 minimum from your data?
Hi Mara, quick one: SourceX pays a USD 50,000 minimum per company for data introductions and your firm looks like a great fit. Worth a call this week?
Relevance-led
Subject: Your design review history and the March system move
Mara, at lunch on the 14th you said the project files and design review comments going back to 2011 move to the new document system in March. Fifteen years of review comments written by your own engineers is the kind of record SourceX looks at when it licenses company data for AI training; whether yours fit is their call after review, and nothing is licensed unless you sign.
One disclosure: I'm in SourceX's referral program, so if your firm licenses records I'd receive a reward from SourceX based on what it pays the firm, the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap, never taken from your payment. If it's worth fifteen minutes before the move, here's the link: [partner link]. If not, just ignore this.
| Element | Reward-led | Relevance-led |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | The partner's minimum reward | Her records, their span and her system move |
| Name-swap test | Passes: any firm's name fits | Fails: only her firm fits |
| What the owner may infer | That a USD 50,000 minimum is on offer to the firm | That a review decides and she signs or doesn't |
| Disclosure | Hidden inside a misleading figure | One plain line: payer, base, formula, never deducted |
| Timing | "This week," for no stated reason | The March move she described |
| Ask | A call | One link and an easy no |
The reward-led version is also wrong on a fact: SourceX does not pay "per company for data introductions". It pays the referred company for licensed data, and pays the partner a reward only after that company has been paid and the other conditions are met. For the full two-paragraph email, the introduction email builder takes the relevance line from slots 1 to 5 as its "why they could be a fit" field.
Where the reward goes, and how much of it to explain
In the message, the reward takes one sentence, placed after the company's reason and before the link. It should name the payer (SourceX), the base (what SourceX actually pays the company), the formula (the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap) and the fact that it is never deducted from the company's payment. The FTC's endorsement FAQ treats a financial relationship as a material connection, one that can change how much weight people give a recommendation, and says a disclosure has to be hard to miss and in plain words. A footnote or a link labeled "disclosure" does not meet that bar. The Guides are written for advertising, and a one-to-one introduction is not necessarily an ad, but the placement rule suits it.
Behind that sentence sits more detail than the owner needs, and you should know it before writing. The Actual Supplier Payout excludes separately itemized taxes and expense reimbursements, and the reward is never calculated on SourceX's fees or revenue. The USD 50,000 floor applies once per referred company, to its first qualifying transaction; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15% of their Actual Supplier Payout, and a transaction below the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction earns nothing unless SourceX agrees in writing. Before a reward is payable, the Acquisition Partner must issue final written acceptance of the complete, validated dataset with handoff completed, its payment to SourceX must clear, the company must receive its compensation, SourceX finance must sign off and SourceX must hold your tax and payment details; payment is then due within 60 calendar days after the later of that acceptance and that handoff. Credit is decided from dated records that include written introduction evidence, and your sent message becomes part of them: one partner per company, for the earliest valid introduction in the 90-day attribution window, with credit waiting on the company's own verified application. If you want to explain the reward at more length to a curious owner, see explaining the reward in an introduction email; to model your own numbers privately, use the referral earnings calculator.
Fit facts the message can name, and what it leaves to SourceX
A message can mention the published fit facts that you know hold, and should not assert the ones you do not know. The screen is a peak headcount of 50 or more full-time employees (contractors do not count), a documented history of operations, rights to license and an authorized contact, the CEO. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English.
Three things stay unknown until SourceX reviews the company: whether its records match SourceX's current data needs, whether client contracts limit reuse of any records, and what a license would cover. For company A, that means the message says review comments "may" fit and leaves the delivered drawings question to SourceX's rights review. Partners never ask for files, samples or logins. Questions stay at metadata level: what exists, roughly how much, over which years, in which system and who owns it.
One next step, and no clock you invented
Close with one action the owner controls: the application link, or a reply to arrange a call, not both. Say that silence is a fine answer. The only legitimate timing is a documented event the owner gave you, such as company A's March system move; "this week", "while spots last" or "before the program changes" are pressure with nothing behind them.
SourceX has not published response or conversion data for any message style, so this page claims none. A channel partnerships manager who wants evidence across partners can record, for each message, whether the opening passed or failed the name-swap test, then count owner replies and verified applications for each group after a quarter.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Once a company fills slots 1 to 6 and your opening fails the name-swap test, register for a partner link, test the company's facts on who qualifies and make sure your disclosure line matches the program terms before you send.