Stripe Referral Program Software
Connect Stripe once. Pay partners per sale.
Referly reads your Stripe account and turns it into a referral program. New customers are tracked as referrals, every payment is tracked as a sale including renewals, and a refund inside your payout window takes the commission back.
It works with Checkout Sessions, Payment Links, the Pricing Table, the Buy Button and coupon codes.
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Attributed
The gap
Stripe takes the money. It doesn't split it.
Four things a partner program needs that a payment processor has no reason to have.
- 01
Which partner sent this customer
Stripe records the charge. It has no idea a creator, a review site or an agency put the customer in front of you.
- 02
What the commission should be on renewal four
A schedule that pays 20% on the first payment and 4% for a year is a rule, and Stripe has nowhere to put a rule.
- 03
Holding the money until the refund window closes
Stripe will happily refund a charge you already paid a commission on. Something has to sit between the two.
- 04
A W-9 from a partner in Ohio and a payout to one in Lagos
Collecting tax forms and paying forty people in nine currencies is a different job from taking a card payment.
Attribution
A charge arrives. The commission is already worked out.
Referly listens to your Stripe account directly. There is no import, no nightly sync and no spreadsheet in between, the row appears while the customer is still on the thank-you page.
- YesCheckout Sessions, Payment Links, the Pricing Table and the Buy Button
- YesCoupon codes attribute on their own, and take priority over links
- YesTax is deducted before the rate is applied
- YesRenewals arrive as their own payments, on their own schedule
What connects
What Referly tracks in Stripe
Fourteen things, each read from what Stripe reports rather than from a feature list. 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.
- Yes
- Sale tracking — Every completed payment arrives as a sale with its amount, products and currency, and a commission is calculated from it.
- Yes
- 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.
- Yes
- Refunds reverse the commissionA refund inside your payout window removes the sale and its commission. Once that window closes the payout has already gone out, so the sale stands.
- With a condition
- Coupon-code attribution — A customer who types a partner's discount code at checkout is attributed to that partner, with no link click and no cookie involved.
- Yes
- A discount code per partner — Referly creates the discount code inside your platform when a partner joins, so you never mint codes by hand.
- Yes
- 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.
- Yes
- 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 shippingShipping is deducted on the checkouts that report it. Subscription renewals carry none.
- With a condition
- Pay partners in store credit — A partner's balance can be issued as Stripe customer credit instead of cash.
- Yes
- Connects without a developerPayment Links, the Pricing Table and coupon codes need no code. A custom Checkout Session needs one field passed through.
- With a condition
- Connect from the dashboard — One authorisation from inside Referly. No API keys are pasted anywhere.
- Yes
- 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
Every row above is read from what Stripe actually reports to Referly, not from a feature list. Hover a label for the detail.
Recurring
Decide how long a renewal keeps paying
Three schedules a Stripe program actually uses, on a $299 monthly plan. Every number below is the arithmetic, not an estimate.
20% on the first payment, then nothing
The simplest schedule, and the one most programs start on. A partner is paid once per customer they bring.
Schedules are set per commission plan, so a partner group you recruited through an agency can pay differently from the creators who found you.
Refunds
The commission goes back too
When Stripe reports a refund, Referly finds the sale it belongs to and removes it, along with the commission it earned. The partner’s balance drops in the same second, before anything has been paid out.
This works because commissions are held for your payout window first. A refund inside that window is reversed. Once the window closes the payout has already gone out, and the sale stands, which is the whole reason the window exists, and why shortening it to zero is a bad idea.
Setup
Connect Stripe in four steps
Two of them are one click each. Only step three touches code, and only if you build your own checkout.
Step one
One authorisation screen from inside Referly. Nothing is pasted into Stripe, and no secret key ever leaves your account.
charge.succeededcharge.refundedcustomer.subscription.createdThese are the events Referly listens to. It never creates a charge and never moves money.
Step one
One authorisation screen from inside Referly. Nothing is pasted into Stripe, and no secret key ever leaves your account.
These are the events Referly listens to. It never creates a charge and never moves money.
Only step 3 touches code, and only if you build your own Checkout Sessions. Coupon codes attribute on their own, and they take priority over links when a customer uses both. Commissions are held for your payout window before they can be paid, and a refund inside that window removes the sale.
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
The short version
What you would build yourself
Five jobs, and where each one lands if Stripe is all you have.
| The job | Stripe alone | With Referly |
|---|---|---|
| Records who sent the customer | NoNot its job | YesLink, coupon code, or your own click id |
| Works out the commission | NoNot its job | YesPer payment, on a schedule you set |
| Holds it until the refund window closes | NoNot its job | YesYour payout window, per program |
| Collects a W-9 or W-8 | NoNot its job | YesIn-house, before a payout can run |
| Pays forty partners in nine countries | Stripe Connect, if you build it | YesPayPal, Wise, bank transfer or store credit |
Comparing Referly against other affiliate platforms instead? See the head-to-heads.
Guides
Step by step for Stripe
Written for the checkout you actually have.

Stripe Sessions API
Integrating stripe if you're using Stripe Sessions API (calling the Stripe API in your own code)
Difficulty: mediumDeveloper needed
Stripe Pricing Table
You use Stripe Payment Table on your website
Difficulty: mediumNo developer needed
Stripe Payment Links
You use Stripe Payment Links on your website
Difficulty: mediumNo developer needed
Stripe Buy Button
You use Stripe Buy button on your website
Difficulty: easyNo developer needed
Stripe Coupon Codes
Use coupons to track affiliate sales
Difficulty: easyNo developer needed
FAQ
What Stripe sellers ask before connecting
The questions founders ask in the first ten minutes.
14-day free trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime
Not for most setups. Connecting Stripe is one authorisation screen, and the tracking script is one line in your head tag or one tag in Google Tag Manager. Payment Links, the Pricing Table, the Buy Button and coupon codes all attribute without any code. Only a custom Checkout Session needs a field passed through, and it is one field.
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