Let people move up the list by referring friends
A referral waitlist turns your queue into the growth channel. Everyone who signs up gets a position, a share link, and a reason to hand it out — each friend who joins moves them closer to the front of the line.
What is a referral waitlist?
It is a pre-launch signup list where each member's position depends on how many friends they refer. Robinhood used it to collect roughly a million signups before launch, and the mechanic still works: KickoffLabs gives every member a live position, a personal share link, and automatic emails when they move up — no engineering required.
How people skip the line
Position is the reward, and everybody can see theirs.
A visitor signs up and immediately sees their place in line and a share link that is theirs alone.
Every verified friend who joins pushes them higher in the queue — and drops the people who did not share.
Open access from the top down, so your most motivated advocates arrive first and bring an audience with them.
A queue that recruits for you
Members see their rank update as referrals land, which is what keeps them sharing after the first click.
Turn the top of the queue into a competition with a waitlist leaderboard or a launch giveaway.
Unlock early access, swag, or a discount at 3, 5, and 10 referrals with milestone rewards.
Automatic emails at signup, at every milestone, and on launch day mean the list is still awake when you open the doors.
Fraud detection flags self-referrals and disposable addresses before they move anyone up the line.
Referral waitlist variations
Start with position-only, then add the mechanic your audience responds to.
Prelaunch waitlist
The pillar page: everything a pre-launch signup list can do, mechanic by mechanic.
Learn more
Waitlist with a giveaway
Add a launch-day prize so referrals earn entries as well as a better position.
Learn more
Waitlist leaderboard
Rank the whole list publicly and reward the top referrers when you launch.
Learn more
Milestone rewards
Give every member something to unlock, not just the handful at the front of the queue.
Learn more
What all of the campaigns have in common is using the KickoffLabs page. We use this platform to test the market… see what people feel about our product.
Valentina Lin — Marketing Director, Longham
How can you run a KickoffLabs campaign?
We're flexible. Run it in an embedded widget, a popup, a hosted page — or connect an existing form.
Everything a referral waitlist needs, built in
Just a sample of what you get with KickoffLabs — on every plan.
Automatic emails at signup and at every reward milestone.
Unique discount codes delivered on entry or at reward levels.
Show entrants where they stand and keep sharing competitive.
Fake entries and self-referrals flagged automatically.
Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Kit, AWeber, Zapier, webhooks.
Conversion, action, and referral effectiveness reports — no extra scripts.
Collect verified phone numbers to make sure leads are real.
Test pages without losing conversions to a bad variation.
Our customers have collected over 100 million leads
Almost half came from KickoffLabs contest actions and referrals. What are you waiting for?
Referral waitlist questions
- How does a referral waitlist work?
- Each person who signs up gets a queue position and a unique share link. When someone joins through that link, the referrer moves up the list. Positions update live, and KickoffLabs emails members when their rank changes so they keep sharing.
- Is this the same thing Robinhood did?
- Yes. Robinhood's pre-launch page let people skip ahead by referring friends, and it built a waitlist of about a million people before the product shipped. The mechanic is what KickoffLabs automates.
- Do I need a prize to run a referral waitlist?
- No. Early access is usually reward enough, which is what makes a referral waitlist cheaper to run than a giveaway. If your audience needs more of a push, you can add milestone rewards or a launch-day prize.
- How do I stop people from gaming their position?
- Referrals only count once the referred person confirms, and built-in fraud detection flags self-referrals, duplicate signups, and disposable email domains before they affect anyone's rank.
- What should I do with the list on launch day?
- Open access in waves from the top of the queue down. The people at the front referred the most friends, so they convert best and they bring an audience with them when they post about getting in first.
Plan the launch around the list
The playbooks, templates, and integrations behind a pre-launch waitlist.
How other teams built a launch list before they had a product to sell.
Waitlist pages built for the launches people actually run.
Every member, position, and referral syncs to the platform you email from.
Start the list before you start the launch
Give every signup a position, a share link, and a reason to bring the next person.
Start a referral waitlist