What's the main difference between Referly and Tolt?

What automation costs. Tolt's Basic plan pays affiliates manually; automated payouts start at $99/mo and take a 2% processing fee on every payout, per their own pricing page. Referly's automated payouts, from the Business plan, carry no percentage. Referly also adds Shopify tracking, a marketplace and portal tax forms that Tolt gates or lacks.

Is Tolt a good product?

Yes, clean, fast and honestly scoped. Setup in around 15 minutes is a fair claim, the trial requires no card, and at $69/mo with $10,000/mo of headroom the entry plan is priced sensibly. For a small manual-payout program it does the job with no waste.

Does Tolt charge a transaction fee?

Not on sales. The percentage lives in payouts: automated payouts on Growth, Pro and Enterprise carry a "2% processing fee" per their pricing page, and Basic doesn't have automated payouts at all. Referly's transaction fee is 0% and its payout automation adds no percentage on top.

When should I choose Tolt over Referly?

When your program is small enough that manual payouts are genuinely fine, a handful of affiliates, one program, Stripe billing, and you'd rather hold the $6/mo difference. Under those conditions Tolt is simpler and cheaper and this page has no quarrel with it. The moment you want payouts automated, their 2% attaches to every one and the arithmetic moves the other way.

Can I move my affiliates from Tolt to Referly?

Yes, with a direct Tolt importer. Affiliates, links and commission rates arrive mapped, free on any plan. Click history stays in Tolt, so close out accrued commissions there first and overlap the two tools for a few days to check attribution.

How does Referly's pricing compare to Tolt's?

Tolt starts at $69/mo and Referly at $75/mo, both covering $10,000/mo at entry, so Tolt is $6 cheaper for a manual-payout program. The comparison inverts once you automate, because Tolt's fee scales with payouts and Referly's does not: at $20,000/mo in affiliate revenue Tolt is $99 plus 2% of $4,000 in payouts, or $179, while Referly's Business plan is $149 flat with tax forms and EU invoicing included and covers $30,000.

Tolt Alternative

Automate payouts without paying 2% of them

Tolt's cheapest plan pays by hand. Automating costs 2% of everything you pay out, forever.

Start the migration See the full comparison

14-day free trial · No credit card required · Free migration, including a direct import from Tolt

Your current tool

Tolt

Affiliates
Links
Commissions

Referly

Referly's direct Tolt importer maps affiliates, referral links and commission rates. Free on every plan.

Referly is a Tolt alternative whose automated payouts carry no percentage fee. Tolt's $69 Basic plan is manual payouts only; automation starts on Growth at $99/mo and takes a "2% processing fee" on every payout, with W-9/W-8 collection and 1099 filing gated to the same tier. At $20,000/mo in affiliate revenue that is $179 on Tolt against $149 on Referly, which also tracks Shopify and includes a marketplace.

Credit where due

Where Tolt is the right answer

We say what they do well before we say what they do not. That is the reason you can believe the rest of the page.

Tolt's Basic is $69 to Referly's $75 and matches the same $10,000/mo entry cap, so at the entry band Tolt is genuinely the cheaper product and this page will not argue otherwise. It is clean and quick. A 15-minute setup is fair, the 14-day trial needs no card, and there is very little to configure before the first affiliate link works. A small program paying a handful of affiliates by hand each month gives up almost nothing by choosing it.

The comparison changes on the day you stop paying by hand. Automation is not on Basic at all, and on Growth it carries 2% of every payout, so a program paying out $4,000/mo pays $80 a month for the automation itself. That is the number this page is about, not the $6 difference in sticker price.

What you actually pay

The same program, priced by both

At this size Tolt costs 1.2× what Referly does. The gap comes from the percentages and the plan cliffs, not the sticker price.

Referly

Business plan: $149

Every month$149

Business, covers up to $30,000/mo

Tolt

Growth plan: $99
2% of payouts: $80

Every month$179

Growth, covers up to $20,000/mo

Priced with payouts automated, the case Tolt's 2% fee actually applies to. At $20,000/mo in affiliate revenue that fee is $80 on top of their $99 plan, or $179 against Referly's $149. Run the same panel with manual payouts at $10,000/mo and Tolt wins by $6, which is the honest other half of this page.

Assumes $20,000/mo in affiliate revenue, 200 active affiliates, 20% commission, with payouts automated — priced by each vendor's own published rates.

The other side

Where Tolt stops

Three real limitations, each one traceable to a sentence on their own website.

Payouts

Basic is manual payouts only. Automation starts on Growth at $99/mo and carries, verbatim, a "2% processing fee" on everything you pay out. The automation fee compounds forever.

Source: tolt.com/pricing

Tax

"Collecting W-9/W-8 forms and filing 1099s" is a Growth-and-above line item. On Basic, the year-end paperwork for US affiliates is entirely yours.

Source: tolt.com/pricing

The Basic walls

Two programs, three partner groups, three seats. The $69 plan is sized for one small program run by one or two people. A second brand or a bigger team is a $99 conversation.

Source: tolt.com/pricing

Referly vs Tolt, full comparison table

Compiled from real research into both platforms. The same rows appear on every alternatives page, so you can compare any two of them.

Comparison	Referly	Tolt
Entry price / month	$75 (Startup)	$69/mo (Basic)
Real cost at $10,000/mo	$75/mo on Startup	$69/mo on Basic
What the price meters on	Affiliate revenue	Affiliate revenue
Revenue cap, entry plan	$10,000/mo	Up to $10,000/mo earned from affiliates
Next tier	$149 (Business), $30,000/mo cap	$99 (Growth), Up to $20,000/mo
Transaction or payout fee	0% transaction fee	2% payout processing fee
Stripe
Shopify
WooCommerce
Paddle
Chargebee, Polar, Zylvie		Chargebee only
Coupon-code tracking	Every plan, including Startup	Not stated
Cookie window	60 days default, configurable	Not stated
W-9 / W-8 collection	Business and above, TIN encrypted at rest	W-9/W-8 + 1099 filing on Growth ($99) and above
EU self-billing invoices	Business and above, with VIES VAT validation
Automated payouts	Business and above, through PayPal and Wise with no percentage fee	Growth+ only, with a 2% processing fee
Affiliate marketplace	Built in
Influencer Discovery	$199/mo add-on, 500 invitations/mo
Branded portal on your domain	Business and above	Not stated
Portal languages	15 + custom languages you define	Not stated
Sub-affiliate tiers	2 levels, Business and above	Not stated
Free tier	Referly has none
Trial	14 days, no card	14 days, no card
Refund policy	Standard	Not stated
Direct import into Referly	n/a	Direct importer
Bulk approve, decline and edit	Bulk approve and decline affiliates	Not stated
Cancel without contacting support	Self-serve in billing settings; billed via Stripe	Not stated
Per-link and per-affiliate reporting	Link-level and per-affiliate, every plan	Not stated
Payout proof and audit trail	Proof required on manual payouts, with an audit trail. Business and above for automation	Auto payouts Growth+, with a 2% fee
New-sale and new-affiliate alerts	Email alerts to program owners	Not stated

Which one should you choose?

An honest look at which of Referly and Tolt is right for you, including the reasons to stay where you are.

Choose Referly if

01You want payouts automated without surrendering 2% of every one of them
02You're near $20,000/mo, where Tolt totals $179 with the fee and Referly is $149
03Shopify and WooCommerce revenue should sit in the same program as Stripe
04W-9s, W-8s and EU self-billing invoices in the portal, plus a marketplace recruiting for you

Choose Tolt if

01You're under $10,000/mo and genuinely happy paying a handful of affiliates by hand
02At that band $69 beats $75, and the 2% never applies because you never automate
03You want the least product between you and a working affiliate link
04A 14-day trial with no card suits how you evaluate tools

Free migration

Switch from Tolt without losing your history

A direct Tolt importer carries affiliates, links and commission rates across. Free on every plan, including Startup.

Read the Tolt migration guide

Scope and plan
~30 min
List your campaigns, commission rules and open payouts. Decide what happens to commissions accrued but not yet paid.
Export and map
~30 min
Export affiliates from Tolt. Referly's direct Tolt importer maps affiliates, their referral links and their commission rates.
Configure and import
~1 hour
Recreate your commission plans in Referly, run the import, and swap the tracking script and the payment connection.
Verify and go live
3 to 7 days overlap
Run both in parallel, compare attributed sales daily, then switch off Tolt.

What does not come across

Historic click data and per-click attribution history stay in Tolt. Referly imports your affiliates, their links and their commission rates; it does not import Tolt's click log. Commissions already accrued in Tolt should be paid out from Tolt before you switch.

Read the Tolt migration guide

Referly vs Tolt vs everyone else

Five facts on each of the other tools. If you are weighing up a third option, its page is one click away.

Referly, Tolt and four other affiliate platforms compared on entry price, meter, fees, Stripe, Shopify and tax forms
	Referly	Tolt	Rewardful	FirstPromoter	UpPromote	impact.com
Entry price	$75/mo	$69/mo	$49/mo	$49/mo	Free	Not published
Meters on	Affiliate revenue	Affiliate revenue	Affiliate revenue	Affiliate revenue	Referral revenue	Not published
Fee on top	0% transaction fee	2% payout processing fee	0% transaction fee	Transaction fee: not stated	1-2% of successful referral sales	Not published
Stripe						Not published
Shopify						Not published
Tax forms	Business and above	Growth ($99) and above				Not stated

Fee footnote: Referly's 0% is a transaction fee. The optional agency client-billing fee (5% / 2.5% / 1%) and the opt-in Referly Payouts rail (5% / 8%) are separate, and neither one touches a sale. See all alternatives

Customer stories

Take their word for it

The founders and affiliate managers behind three fast-growing programs, in their own words.

EcommerceFitness

“Affiliates drive a serious share of our revenue across three countries. Since we moved to Referly everything runs from one place, tracking has been spot on, and our partners get paid without me chasing spreadsheets.”

Alexander Koppers

Affiliate Manager, Moov

$6.9M

in total affiliate-driven revenue

1,154
active affiliates: 19,017
affiliate sales: 1,240,030
clicks tracked

SaaSSite builder

“We have been running affiliate programs for over a decade, and ours is one of the biggest parts of how OptimizePress grows. Referly is the first platform where an operation with thousands of partners actually feels manageable, from recruiting new affiliates to tracking every sale they send.”

James Dyson

Founder & CEO, OptimizePress

7 figures
in affiliate-driven sales: 4,554
active affiliates: 10,536
referrals

Mobile appAI writing

“This platform is quite simple and easy to use, and you can start attracting people to your affiliate program very quickly. A big plus is that the founder, Ayo, is super responsive.”

Ilfat Khayrullin

CMO & Co-founder, Letterly

300K+
app users: 689
active affiliates: 24,114
clicks tracked

FAQ

You probably have questions

All are honest, unbiased answers, even when not flattering.

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What automation costs. Tolt's Basic plan pays affiliates manually; automated payouts start at $99/mo and take a 2% processing fee on every payout, per their own pricing page. Referly's automated payouts, from the Business plan, carry no percentage. Referly also adds Shopify tracking, a marketplace and portal tax forms that Tolt gates or lacks.
Tolt starts at $69/mo and Referly at $75/mo, both covering $10,000/mo at entry, so Tolt is $6 cheaper for a manual-payout program. The comparison inverts once you automate, because Tolt's fee scales with payouts and Referly's does not: at $20,000/mo in affiliate revenue Tolt is $99 plus 2% of $4,000 in payouts, or $179, while Referly's Business plan is $149 flat with tax forms and EU invoicing included and covers $30,000.

Tolt Alternative

Where Tolt is the right answer

The same program, priced by both

Referly

Tolt

Where Tolt stops

Payouts

Tax

The Basic walls

Referly vs Tolt, full comparison table

Which one should you choose?

Choose Referly if

Choose Tolt if

Switch from Tolt without losing your history

Scope and plan

Export and map

Configure and import

Verify and go live

Referly vs Tolt vs everyone else

Take their word for it

You probably have questions

Other comparisons

Migrate from Tolt

Referly vs Tolt

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