What is the difference between a referral program and an affiliate program?

A referral program rewards existing customers for bringing friends, usually with credit or a gift. An affiliate program pays partners cash commissions on sales. Different sharers, different rewards, different paperwork.

Do I have to give a discount, or can I reward customers another way?

Store credit, account credit, gifts and gift cards all work, and they usually protect margin better than a discount. Referly supports store credits, Stripe credits and custom reward units alongside cash.

How do I stop people referring themselves with a second email?

Email and IP matching, hold-for-review rules, and proxy and VPN detection. Referly runs all three on every referral. Self-referral is the most common way these programs quietly fail.

When does a referring customer need to give me a W-9?

In the US, once you pay one person $600 or more in a year. Credit rewards rarely get there; cash rewards can within months. Referly collects W-9 and W-8 forms in the portal on Business and above.

Can I run a referral program and an affiliate program at the same time?

Yes, and most companies end up doing both. In one tool, a customer who becomes a real promoter keeps one balance and one payout method. In two tools, you reconcile monthly.

What does referral software cost once the program works?

Compare the meter, not the entry price. ReferralCandy adds a success fee on referred revenue. Referral Factory and Referral Rock meter on people in the program. Flat-fee tools stay flat.

Best Referral Software

Reward customers. Pay partners. One system.

Referral software rewards customers for bringing friends. Affiliate software pays partners per sale. Half the people searching for one actually need the other. Sort it out in two minutes below.

Referral and affiliate in one
Fraud checks on every referral
Store credit, cash or gifts

Start for free Referral or affiliate?

14-day free trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime

Competitor pricing checked 10 August 2026.

Quick answer

Which referral tool fits you?

Referral software rewards existing customers for bringing friends. Affiliate software pays partners a commission on sales. ReferralCandy, Referral Rock and Referral Factory are customer-referral specialists. Tremendous delivers the rewards. Referly and Partnero run both models in one program. Pick by which side you are rewarding.

ReferralCandy

Ecommerce refer-a-friend, live this week. $39/mo plus a success fee.

Referral Factory

Custom mechanics without developers. From $200/mo.

Referral Rock

Customer and partner programs, B2B. $250/mo.

Tremendous

You run the program, they deliver the rewards. Free platform.

Partnero

Both models, flat fee, no revenue meter.

Referly

The same person might refer a friend and promote you to an audience.

The decision

Referral or affiliate? Answer this first

Half the people searching for referral software actually need affiliate software. One table settles it.

	Customer referral program	Affiliate program
Who promotes	Your existing customers	Partners and creators
What they get	A discount, credit or gift	Cash commission, often recurring
How they share	A personal link or code, in-app	Links and codes on their channels
Typical volume	Many people, small amounts	Fewer people, larger amounts
Tax paperwork	Rarely	W-9 and W-8 past $600/yr

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

The shortlist

Six tools, sorted by which side they reward

Four specialists, one reward rail, and two that run both models. Ours is honest about being affiliate-first.

ReferralCandy

The most established refer-a-friend product for stores. Live in a day.

One-click Shopify install, plus BigCommerce, WooCommerce and Magento
The success fee only touches a referred customer's first three orders
Fee falls from 10.5% to 0.25% as you climb the ladder

Limitation: The cheapest plan takes the biggest cut: $39/mo plus 10.5% of net-new customer revenue. Cutting the percentage means buying a bigger plan.

Best for stores that want a customer referral program this week.

Referral Factory

A program builder with a big template library. No developer needed.

Unlimited campaigns on every tier
Meters on users, so earnings never change the bill
All integrations and API from the entry plan

Limitation: Starts at $200/mo, several times the entry price of most tools here, and reward fulfilment stays your problem.

Best for marketing teams designing custom mechanics.

Referral Rock

Customer referral and partner programs in one, with a strong B2B fit.

Both program types without a second tool
No referral caps or overage fees
Month to month, no onboarding fee

Limitation: $250/mo for the one published plan, and the add-ons stack: an extra program is $100/mo, more members $125/mo.

Best for B2B companies running customers and partners side by side.

Tremendous

Reward delivery only: gift cards, prepaid cards and transfers in dozens of countries.

No platform or subscription fees at all
Funding from a US, EU or UK bank costs nothing
Huge catalogue of reward types

Limitation: Not a referral program. It will not track who referred whom or compute a commission. Payout rails cost 4% to 6%.

Best for teams that only need rewards delivered.

Partnero

Affiliate, referral and newsletter programs on one flat fee.

No revenue metering, ever
Three program types in one product
30-day trial

Limitation: Starter is one program and one seat. Extra seats are $29/mo each.

Best for teams running several program types on a predictable bill.

Referly

An affiliate engine with a customer referral widget on top: link, code and QR your customers share.

Non-cash rewards: store credits, Stripe credits, custom units
Fraud checks on every referral: email and IP matching, hold or reject
Tax forms ready for the day a referrer starts earning real money

Limitation: Affiliate-first, not a dedicated refer-a-friend product, and the widget is a Business feature, not on the $75 Startup plan. No free plan.

Best for companies where a customer can become a real promoter.

Side by side

What each one costs once the program works

Compare the meter, not the entry price.

Tool	Entry price	Meters on	Fee on success	Runs affiliate too?
ReferralCandy	$39/moBasic	Referral volume	10.5% on Basic, down to 0.25%. First three orders only
Referral Factory	$200/moBasic, 20,000 users	Users in the program	None	Referral only
Referral Rock	$250/moOperator, 10,000 members	Program members	None. No caps or overage	Customer and partner programs
Tremendous	Free	NothingYou spend what you send	4% to 6% on payout rails	A reward rail, not a program
Partnero	$59/moStarter, annual	Programs + seats only	None	Affiliate, referral and newsletter
Referly	$75/moWidget needs Business	Affiliate revenue	0%. No cut of sales on any plan	Affiliate-first, widget on top

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

1ReferralCandy's success fee applies to a referred customer's first three orders only. Referly's customer referral widget is a Business feature, not on Startup.

Run the numbers

What a two-sided reward actually costs

Share rate times acceptance rate sets the volume. Rewarding both sides roughly doubles each.

Customers a month2,000Share your link8%Friends who buy12%Referrer reward$15.00

Reward the friend tooroughly doubles acceptance, and the cost

Friend reward$15.00

New customers: 19; a month
Reward cost: $570; a month
Cost per customer: $30.00; compare to your CAC

The threshold nobody plans for: at $15.00 per referral, one enthusiastic customer only needs 40 referrals in a year to pass the $600 US reporting threshold. At that point they are a partner you owe money to, and you need a W-9 and a payout method rather than a discount code.

Before you pick

Where referral programs actually break

Where does the invite live?

An in-product widget converts. An email footer does not.

What is the reward?

Store credit protects margin. Cash leaves. Both beat a plain discount.

One-sided or two-sided?

Rewarding both sides doubles acceptance, and the cost. Model it first.

What stops self-referrals?

Email and IP matching plus VPN detection, or the numbers quietly lie.

What about tax forms?

Past $600 a year, a referrer needs a W-9 and you need a plan.

Does it survive success?

Success fees and member meters both grow with you. Flat fees do not.

The verdict

Which one should you pick?

Ecommerce, customers only, live this week

ReferralCandy

You only need rewards delivered

Tremendous

Customers who might become real promoters

Referly or Partnero

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

Pricing

One flat price. 0% of your sales.

Referly never takes a percentage of your revenue or your affiliates' commissions, on any plan.

I'm a brandI'm an agency

Startup

Annual2 months free

$75

/ month

Launch your affiliate program and get your first partners earning

No credit card required

Track up to $10,000 in monthly affiliate revenue
Up to 200 affiliates and 500 referrals a month
1 affiliate program, 1 team seat
All payment integrations included
Link and coupon code tracking
Branded affiliate portal in 15 languages

Business

Annual2 months free

$149

/ month

Scale your program with automation, white label and deeper control

No credit card required

Track up to $30,000 in monthly affiliate revenue
Unlimited referrals, up to 1,000 affiliates
Automated payouts through PayPal and Wise
White label portal with your own domain
Tax form collection built in (W-9 and W-8)
API access, webhooks and the customer referral widget
5 affiliate programs, 5 team seats

Enterprise

Billed annually

Starting from

$399

/ month

Everything Referly offers, with a team behind you

Everything in Business included
Up to unlimited monthly affiliate revenue
All three add-ons included
Influencer Discovery with 500 invitations per month
Up to 10 programs and unlimited team seats
Dedicated success manager and priority support
Managed migration from your current platform
Custom development support for your use case

View full plans and comparisons

FAQ

Referral software questions

The questions buyers ask in the first ten minutes.

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A referral program rewards existing customers for bringing friends, usually with credit or a gift. An affiliate program pays partners cash commissions on sales. Different sharers, different rewards, different paperwork.

Best Referral Software

Which referral tool fits you?

Referral or affiliate? Answer this first