Does this work on a WordPress site with no shop?

Yes, with one limitation worth knowing up front. A site with forms and bookings and no checkout has no order to report, so it tracks referrals only. To pay partners per sale, connect the platform that takes the money, usually Stripe, alongside it.

Do I need to edit theme files or use a page builder?

No. WooCommerce sellers upload a plugin. Everyone else adds one line with any headers-and-footers plugin. Neither route touches a template, so a theme change does not break tracking.

I use WooCommerce. Should I read this page or the WooCommerce one?

The WooCommerce page. It covers orders, coupon codes, refunds and store credit in detail. This page exists for the WordPress sites that sell some other way, and for anyone deciding which of the three routes they are on.

What happens when a customer gets a refund?

The commission is reversed. Refunds that land inside your payout window remove the sale and its commission before anything is paid out. Once that window has closed the payout has already gone out, so the sale stands, which is exactly what the window is for.

How long does a referral stay attributed?

Sixty days by default, and you can change it. The click is stored in a cookie with a local-storage fallback, so it survives a browser that blocks one but not the other.

Can I use a membership plugin instead of WooCommerce?

Yes, as long as something reports the payment. Membership tools that bill through Stripe are covered by the Stripe route: the membership signup is the referral, and Stripe reports the money and the renewals.

WordPress Affiliate Software

Three ways to run a program on WordPress

What Referly tracks on a WordPress site depends on how the site takes money. A WooCommerce store gets the plugin. A site selling through Stripe gets one line in the header. A site with forms and bookings tracks referrals, and needs a payment platform alongside it before anyone can be paid per sale.

No theme file is edited on any of the three.

Create my program Find my route

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

Your WordPress site

WooCommerce storeThe plugin. Orders, coupons, refunds.
Stripe or membershipsThe script. Payments and renewals.
Forms and bookingsThe script. Referrals only.

Find your route

Which of these is your site?

Pick one and the rest of this section changes: what gets tracked, the four steps, and what that route genuinely cannot do.

What arrives in Referly

YesOrdersTotals, line items, tax, shipping and currency.
YesCoupon codesA code per partner, created in WooCommerce for you.
With a conditionRefundsReversed inside your payout window.
YesStore credit payoutsA partner's balance issued as WooCommerce credit.

Your four steps

1
Download the Referly plugin and upload it under Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin.
2
Activate it, then paste your program id into the Referly panel and connect.
3
Optionally add WooCommerce REST API keys to turn on coupons and per-product rates.
4
Pick a rate and invite your first partners.

What this route cannot do

NoThere is no subscription schedule to follow, repeat orders are tracked as new orders, not as renewals.
NoPer-product rates and per-partner coupon codes both need the optional REST API keys.

Read this even if you skipped it

A form is not a sale

The single most common misunderstanding on this keyword, stated plainly.

Plenty of WordPress sites have no checkout. If yours collects enquiries, bookings or applications and invoices people afterwards, Referly can record the referral. who sent them, when, and from where, but it cannot record a sale, because nothing on the site takes money.

There are two honest ways to run a program in that situation. Pay a fixed amount per qualified lead, which many services businesses prefer anyway. Or connect the platform you actually invoice through — usually Stripe — and pay on the sale when it closes.

What no affiliate tool can do is invent revenue from a page that has no checkout on it. Anything promising otherwise is describing the first option and calling it the second.

All three routes at once

What Referly tracks on WordPress

Most rows below say partial, and that is not a hedge — it is the fork. Each one names which route it applies to.

ReferralsSales

What Referly tracks in WordPress
Referral tracking — A signup, trial or new customer is recorded against the partner who sent them, before any money moves.	Yes
Sale trackingDepends on how you sell. A WooCommerce store or on-site Stripe checkout reports sales; a forms-and-bookings site reports referrals only.	With a condition
Recurring commissions on renewalsRenewals are tracked when you sell subscriptions through Stripe. WooCommerce orders are tracked one order at a time.	With a condition
Refunds reverse the commissionA refund inside your payout window removes the sale and its commission. Once that window closes the sale stands.	With a condition
Coupon-code attributionWooCommerce coupons and Stripe promotion codes are both matched to a partner. A forms-only site has no coupon to match.	With a condition
A discount code per partnerCodes are created for you in WooCommerce or Stripe, whichever you sell through.	With a condition
Per-product commission rulesAvailable once the WooCommerce REST API keys or a Stripe connection are in place.	With a condition
Collection-level rules — Target a whole collection instead of listing its products one by one, and new products in that collection inherit the rate.	No
Commission net of tax — Tax is subtracted before the commission is calculated, so you are not paying a percentage of money that belongs to a tax authority. On by default, and switchable.	Yes
Commission net of shippingDeducted on WooCommerce orders, which are the only ones that carry shipping.	With a condition
Pay partners in store creditAvailable on the WooCommerce and Stripe routes.	With a condition
Connects without a developer — The plugin installs from the WordPress admin, and the script goes in with a headers-and-footers plugin.	Yes
Connect from the dashboardYou connect whichever processor you sell through, then paste your program id into the plugin.	With a condition
Carries your own click id — An `rsubID` on the inbound link travels all the way to the sale, so an ad platform or a network can match the conversion back to its own click.	Yes
Syncs partners into a list — Partners are added to a named list or group in your email platform as they join, so onboarding and announcements go out from the tool you already write in.	No
Pays partners through it — Money actually leaves through this platform. Referly hands it the batch, and it moves the funds to each partner.	No
Pays everyone in one batch — One approval sends every partner what they are owed, rather than one transfer at a time.	No

Customer stories

Programs already running on Referly

Three businesses, three different stacks.

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

The tracking script

What the one line actually does

Two of the three routes use it, so it is worth knowing what it is.

Link parameters: ref, via or aff, you choose which one your links use.
Cookie window: 60 days by default, configurable per program.
Fallback: Local storage, for browsers that block one but not the other.
Your own click id: An rsubID travels through to the sale for ad platforms to match.

It goes in via a headers-and-footers plugin rather than into the theme, so switching themes does not break tracking, the failure mode that ends most self-installed setups.

Selling with WooCommerce? That page goes deeper

FAQ

What WordPress owners ask

The questions founders ask in the first ten minutes.

Start for free Book a demo