The most honest version is the company is paying for the tool. The most stretched version I’ve seen is a former employee of a company uses the tool in a personal capacity. Most commonly for newly launched things it means someone with an @company email has tried the tool (even if they didn’t pay). You could, for example, set up a waitlist and then let anyone with a logo-worthy email in.

> Most commonly for newly launched things it means someone with an @company email has tried the tool (even if they didn’t pay)

The current growth hacking play is to have people look through their personal network to find friends who work at those companies, then to have those friends say they’ll try the software

So it’s unlikely not even organic signups. It’s being pushed to friends and friends-of-friends who are unknowingly being used for their company affiliation.

I think this is way too far. For me personally, the threshold to put the logo is someone within the company is paying, even though the whole company is not in a contract. For example, you might not have a full fledged contract with Google, but one manager of a tiny team might have used her/his company credit card to pay for your tool. If the sum is below a certain threshold, they don't need to authorize or go through vendor vetting and all that.