Chargebee Affiliate Program Integration
Every invoice in the subscription, attributed
Referly listens to the whole Chargebee lifecycle. A new subscription becomes a referral before any money moves, every successful payment becomes a sale on its own commission schedule, and a refund reverses what it earned.
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What Chargebee sends, and what it becomes- subscription_createdA referralbefore any money moves
- payment_succeededA saleand the first commission
- payment_succeededAnother saleevery renewal, on its own schedule
- payment_refundedA reversalthe commission goes back
The grid, first
What Referly tracks in Chargebee
Straight to it, because that is what you came for. Fourteen rows, each read from what Chargebee reports. Hover a label for the detail.
Referral tracking — A signup, trial or new customer is recorded against the partner who sent them, before any money moves.
Sale tracking — Every completed payment arrives as a sale with its amount, products and currency, and a commission is calculated from it.
Recurring commissions on renewals — Renewals arrive as their own payments, so a partner can be paid for a set number of payments, a set number of months, or for the life of the customer.
Refunds reverse the commission — A refund reverses the commission it earned, so a partner is not paid for revenue you gave back.
Coupon-code attributionAttribution runs on links. Chargebee coupons are not matched to a partner.
A discount code per partner — Referly creates the discount code inside your platform when a partner joins, so you never mint codes by hand.
Per-product commission rules — Referly reads your product catalogue, so a rule can pay one rate on one product and a different rate on another.
Collection-level rules — Target a whole collection instead of listing its products one by one, and new products in that collection inherit the rate.
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.
Commission net of shippingChargebee invoices carry no shipping line, so there is nothing to deduct.
Pay partners in store credit — Instead of cash, a partner's balance can be issued as credit inside the platform they already shop in.
Connects without a developerTwo setup jobs need someone technical: a customer custom field, and a webhook you create in Chargebee.
Connect from the dashboardYou paste an API key and site id, then add the webhook in Chargebee yourself.
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.
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.
Pays partners through it — Money actually leaves through this platform. Referly hands it the batch, and it moves the funds to each partner.
Pays everyone in one batch — One approval sends every partner what they are owed, rather than one transfer at a time.
The problem
Three things that go wrong with subscription commissions
None of them show up in a demo. All of them show up in month four.
The commission changes when the plan does
A customer who upgrades mid-year should earn the partner more, not the amount from the plan they left. Referly recalculates per payment against the invoice that actually arrived.
The first invoice is not the interesting one
In subscription billing the money is in payment nine, not payment one. A tool that only records the first sale is measuring the wrong thing.
Reversals have to be reversible
A refund reverses the commission, and if the refund is itself undone the reversal is too. Balances that only move one way go wrong the first time support makes a judgement call.
In practice
One subscription, two commissions, thirty days apart
The referral lands when the subscription is created. The first payment produces a sale and a commission at the opening rate. Thirty days later the renewal produces another, at whatever the schedule says the second period pays.
- YesReferly reads your Chargebee item prices, so rates can differ per plan
- YesTax on the invoice is deducted before the rate is applied
- YesA refunded payment reverses its commission, and the reversal can be undone
- YesMulti-currency invoices convert into your program's currency
Before you start
Two things you set up inside Chargebee
This is the most hands-on connection Referly offers, and neither of these is automated from our side. Both are one-off, both take a few minutes, and knowing about them now is better than finding out on day three.
Schedules
Three ways to decide when a partner stops earning
Stepped rates work alongside all three, so a schedule can pay 20% on the opening invoice and 4% on everything after it.
By number of payments
20% for the first 3 payments
The partner is paid on a fixed count of invoices, whenever they arrive. A monthly plan pays out over three months; an annual plan over three years.
By number of months
20% for 12 months
A window rather than a count. Everything invoiced inside it pays, however often the customer is billed.
For as long as they pay
20%, no end date
Set the number of months to zero and the schedule never closes. The partner keeps earning while the subscription does.
Tiers work on referral count or on revenue, so a partner can move up a rate band as they bring more. Recurring commissions are on Business and up.
Customer stories
Programs already running on Referly
Three businesses, three different stacks.
“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
Setup
Connect Chargebee in four steps
Four steps, three of which need someone technical. That is more than any other integration here, and it is stated in the note underneath rather than discovered later.
Add a customer custom field in Chargebee
A single-line text field named pushlap_affiliate_id, on the Customer object.
Needs a developerPaste your Chargebee API key and site id into Referly
Referly validates the credentials against your Chargebee site before saving them.
Create the webhook in Chargebee
Point it at Referly, API version 2, subscribing to the subscription, payment and refund events.
Needs a developerPass the partner id at checkout, then invite partners
Set the custom field from the drop-in script, the API or a payment link, then set your rate.
Needs a developer
Chargebee is the most hands-on connection Referly offers: the custom field and the webhook are both created by you, in Chargebee, and none of it is automated from our side. In exchange you get the full subscription lifecycle, every renewal arrives as its own payment, and a refund reverses the commission it earned. Coupon codes are not matched to partners here; attribution runs on links.
Guides
Step by step for Chargebee
Written for the checkout you actually have.
Chargebee Drop-In
You use Chargebee Drop-In for Checkout or Subscriptions
Difficulty: mediumNo developer neededChargebee Payment Links
You use Chargebee Payment Links on your website
Difficulty: mediumNo developer neededChargebee API
You use Chargebee API for Checkout or Subscriptions
Difficulty: hardDeveloper needed
FAQ
What Chargebee teams ask
The questions founders ask in the first ten minutes.
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Two things, and they are both one-off. You add a customer custom field named pushlap_affiliate_id, and you create the webhook that points at Referly. Neither is automated from our side, which is the honest answer and the reason we put it in step one rather than in a footnote.
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