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
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Competitor pricing checked .
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.
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.
- 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.
“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
“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
“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.
FAQ
Referral software questions
The questions buyers ask in the first ten minutes.
14-day free trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime
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.
Keep comparing
Fraud prevention
Email and IP matching, hold or reject, proxy detection. The checks every referral runs through.
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