01What UpPromote does well
UpPromote has the only genuine free tier in this comparison set, and Referly does not have one. Up to $3,000/mo in referral revenue, one program, free. For a small Shopify store that is not a trial, it's a working affiliate program at $0. The install is Shopify-native with a Built for Shopify badge, it lives in the App Store next to your other apps, and the company has published 50 case studies. If you sell only on Shopify and you're small, UpPromote is free and Referly is $75. There is no argument to have at that size.
02Where UpPromote stops
Three limitations, all structural rather than pricing tiers:
- 1Shopify only. No Stripe, no subscription billing, no SaaS lifecycle. A subscription's renewals, upgrades and churn never recompute a commission because the product never sees them.
- 2A percentage of every referred sale, forever. 2% on Growth, 1.5% on Professional, 1% on Enterprise, on top of the plan price, on every successful referral, with no cap.
- 3No tax-form collection. W-9s and W-8s for your affiliates stay your problem, at any plan.
03What Referly adds on top of the tracking
The usual wedge. Stripe and Shopify together, is only half useful here, because UpPromote's buyer often has no Stripe. So the honest comparison is about what happens as the program grows.
Referly's bill is flat: $75 covers $10,000/mo in affiliate revenue, $149 covers $30,000/mo, and 0% of sales on every plan. Commissions follow subscriptions through renewals, refunds and churn if you ever add recurring revenue. Payouts batch through PayPal or Wise, W-9/W-8 collection and EU invoices arrive at Business, and the marketplace plus Influencer Discovery add recruitment supply. The listing needs a Marketplace Licence, Discovery is a $199/mo add-on.
04Pricing: free vs $75
UpPromote starts free and Referly starts at $75/mo. Under $3,000/mo in referred sales there is nothing to compare. UpPromote costs nothing and works.
Past the free tier the shapes diverge. UpPromote Growth is $29.99 + 2% of referred sales: at $5,000/mo referred that's ~$130/mo, at $10,000/mo it's ~$230/mo, and it keeps climbing with your revenue. Referly is $75 flat to $10,000/mo of affiliate revenue, then $149 flat to $30,000/mo. The crossover is effectively the free-tier boundary: at $3,000/mo referred, UpPromote's required Growth plan already bills ~$90 against Referly's flat $75, and the gap only widens from there.
Referly has no free tier. That stays true everywhere on this page.
05Who should choose UpPromote
A Shopify store doing under $3,000/mo in referred sales, it's free, it's native, and it does the job. Or a store past that which values the App Store install and accepts the percentage as the cost of staying native. No subscription revenue, no US tax-form obligations, no multi-platform ambitions.
06Who should choose Referly
A store whose referred sales have outgrown the percentage. At $3,750/mo referred, the 2% fee alone equals Referly's entire $75 plan price. A brand adding a subscription, a membership or any Stripe-billed product next to the store. Or a program whose payout and tax admin has become real work: batch payouts, W-9s and self-billing invoices live inside Referly from Business up.
