What happens to the commission when a customer churns?

It stops with the payments. Commission is calculated per payment, so when the subscription ends there are no further payments and no further commission. Anything already earned and past its holding period still pays out. You are not clawing back a partner's history, you are just not paying for revenue that no longer arrives.

Do partners keep earning after the first year?

That is your rule to set. A recurring commission with no cap pays for the life of the subscription. You can also cap it by number of payments or number of months, or step the rate down: start at 30% and drop to 15% after the twelfth payment, for example. Step-down schedules are available from Business.

Can I pay a different rate for annual plans than monthly?

Yes, through product-based commission. Each Stripe product or price can carry its own rate, so an annual plan and a monthly plan on the same account pay differently. Advanced commission rules go further and can fire on the order amount, the product, the landing page, the statement descriptor or the coupon used. Both are available from Business.

My marketing site and my app are on different domains. Does tracking survive?

Yes, with cross-domain tracking, which carries the attribution from yoursite.com to app.yoursite.com and into the Stripe Checkout Session. It is available from Business. On a single domain the standard tracker handles it on every plan.

I'm on Paddle, not Stripe. Does this work?

Yes. Referly tracks sales from Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee, Polar, Zylvie, Shopify and WooCommerce, and every integration is included on every plan. Subscriptions billed through Paddle behave the same way as Stripe subscriptions: each payment is a sale, and the commission rule is applied to it.

How do I stop a partner signing up through their own link?

Self-referral protection blocks it, and fraud prevention flags the patterns it cannot block outright: matching emails, matching IP addresses, proxy and VPN clicks. Flagged commissions hold for your review instead of paying out automatically. Fraud protection is on every plan, including Startup.

Can I move my program from Rewardful without losing history?

Yes. Direct import brings affiliates, links and referral history across from Rewardful, FirstPromoter, Tolt, Tapfiliate, PartnerStack, Trackdesk, Partnero and Dub, and there is no charge for the migration. Existing links keep working, because the affiliate identifiers come across with the data.

What counts toward my monthly affiliate revenue cap?

The sale value of orders attributed to an affiliate in that calendar month, not your total revenue. Startup covers $10,000 a month of affiliate revenue and Business covers $30,000. Above that, Enterprise is uncapped. Revenue that no affiliate touched does not count.

For SaaS and AI companies

Affiliate Software for SaaS

Only pay for revenue that sticks

Connect Stripe in one click. Every renewal, upgrade, downgrade and refund updates the commission automatically, so partners are paid on revenue you kept.

Create my program Book a demo

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

Live in 10 minutes
0% of your sales, on every plan
Free migration from Rewardful, Tolt and 6 more

Priya Raman

priya@northwindlabs.com

Add SaleEdit

Affiliate

Maya Okonkwo

Source

Stripe

Revenue

$3,770.00$3,480.00

Net Profit

$3,045.00$2,813.00

Payment history

Recurring · 20% then 10% after 12 payments

DateRevenueRewardStatusPayout

Payment 12$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Payment 11$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Payment 10$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Payment 9$290.00$58.00Not rewardedAcceptedRefundedUnpaidRefunded

Payment 8$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Paid to Maya Okonkwo

$725.00$667.00

11 payments at 20%, 1 at the stepped 10% rate. The refunded payment never entered a batch.

Payment 9 refunded

Reward reversed before the payout ran.

The problem

Most affiliate tools track a sale, not a subscription

They read the first invoice and stop. Everything that happens next to that customer is invisible to them.

Connects to

Stripe

Paddle

Chargebee

Polar

Affiliate software for SaaS has to track a subscription, not a sale. Referly connects to Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee or Polar and recalculates commission on every renewal, upgrade, downgrade and refund, so a partner is paid on revenue you actually kept.

One subscription, four events

Northwind Labs · $290 / mo

What happensA generic toolReferly

First paymentTrackedTracked

RenewsInvisibleCommission paid again

UpgradesStill paying the old rateRecalculated on the new amount

RefundsAlready paid outCommission reversed

How it works

Set the rule once. Stripe does the rest.

One commission plan, applied to every payment a subscription ever makes.

Partner program
Created March 4, 2026
Base Plan
1
What type of reward do affiliates receive?
Affiliates receive a direct cash commission.
Cash Commission
15%30%per sale
The affiliate will earn commission on every payment made by a customer, for as long as the customer continues to make paymentsThe affiliate will earn commission on the first 12 payments made within 24 months by a customer
On purchaseNo time limit24 monthsUnlimitedFirst 12 payments
2
What will trigger a commission?
A commission is triggered when a referred customer makes a purchase.
Customer makes a purchase
3
Commission changes over time
The rate steps down once the initial period ends.
Initial period
30% · For the first 12 payments made by the customer
Then
15% · For all future payments made by the customer
Step the rate down
Advanced rules
Order Amount
Product Purchased
Coupon Used
Statement Description
Landing Page
Payment history
Stripe
Month 3$290.0030% of $290$87.00
Month 4$490.00Upgraded to Scale$147.00
Month 5$490.0030% of $490$147.00
An upgrade raises the commission the month it happens. A downgrade lowers it.
Payment history
Refunded
Month 6$490.0030% of $490$147.00
Month 7$490.00Refunded in StripeNot rewarded
Month 8$490.0030% of $490$147.00
Reversed before the payout ran, so there is nothing to claw back afterwards.
Duration
Recurring
Payment 11316
Payments 1 to 12
30%
Payments 13 to 15
15%
From payment 16
Ends, 24-month cap

Partner program

Created March 4, 2026

Base Plan

What type of reward do affiliates receive?

Affiliates receive a direct cash commission.

Cash Commission

15%30%per sale

The affiliate will earn commission on every payment made by a customer, for as long as the customer continues to make paymentsThe affiliate will earn commission on the first 12 payments made within 24 months by a customer

On purchaseNo time limit24 monthsUnlimitedFirst 12 payments

What will trigger a commission?

A commission is triggered when a referred customer makes a purchase.

Customer makes a purchase

Commission changes over time

The rate steps down once the initial period ends.

Initial period

30% · For the first 12 payments made by the customer

Then

15% · For all future payments made by the customer

Step the rate down

Advanced rules

Order Amount

Product Purchased

Coupon Used

Statement Description

Landing Page

Explore commission plans

Attribution

How a click becomes a tracked subscription

Four hops. The domain changes at the second one, which is where most tools lose the sale.

01The click
A partner's link lands on your marketing site. The tracker records the affiliate.
yoursite.com/?ref=maya
02The domain hop
They cross to your app. Cross-domain tracking carries the attribution over.
app.yoursite.com
03The checkout
Your server attaches the affiliate id to the Stripe Checkout Session.
client_reference_id
04The webhook
Stripe fires, and Referly records every payment that subscription makes.
checkout.session.completed

Captured on every click

gclidfbclidmsclkidttclidli_fat_idtwclidutm_*

Reads the sale from

Default cookie window: 60 days
Configurable from: 1 day to 1 year
Ad click ids: gclid · fbclid · msclkid
Plus: ttclid · li_fat_id · twclid
UTM parameters: All five, per click
Proxy and VPN: Flagged on every click
Server to server: Postbacks in and out
Cross-domain tracking: From Business

How tracking works The Stripe integration

The difference

Four things that happen to every subscription

And what each kind of tool does about them.

Referly

A generic affiliate tool

A spreadsheet

A customer upgrades in month four

Recalculated on the new amount
Still paying the original rate
Found in the quarterly review

A customer refunds

Reversed automatically
Manual clawback, if noticed
Never reconciled

Your site and app are on different domains

Carried across (from business)
Cookie lost at the hop
Not tracked at all

Paying 40 partners in 9 countries

One batch (from business)
Export a CSV, pay by hand
Your Sunday

When a simpler tool is the better buy

Selling a one-time licence that never renews? None of this earns its keep, and a link-only tool at a lower entry price will track that sale perfectly well. Referly is worth paying for when the second payment matters as much as the first.

Referly compared with Rewardful FirstPromoter alternatives

Run your own numbers

What one customer is worth to a partner

The gap between the two figures is why partners take a recurring program seriously and ignore a one-payment one.

Your numbers

Average subscription$290 / mo

Monthly churn4%

About 24 months of payments, capped at the 24-month window modelled here

Commission rate20%

Step the rate down after 12 payments

Halves the rate from payment 13. Available from Business.

Model refunds

Reverses the commission on 5% of payments, the way a refund does.

Commission earned with Referly

$1,322

24 payments at 20%, less $70 reversed on refunds.

With a first-invoice-only tool

$58

One payment, one commission. The renewals are invisible to it.

Over one customer's life, the difference is $1,264 of commission your partner either earns or doesn't. Multiply it by the number of customers they send you. That is the whole argument for tracking the subscription instead of the sale.

Customer stories

SaaS founders already running this

Three subscription businesses, their partner programs, and the numbers from their own Referly accounts.

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: 10+ yrs
running programs

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

SaaSEmail

“The team answers in what feels like a tenth of a second. Amazing product, saved us a boatload of money. 10/10, no bugs.”

Tomer Levi

Founder, Mailin

Pricing

One flat price. 0% of your sales.

Referly never takes a percentage of your revenue or your affiliates' commissions, on any plan. Startup covers $10,000 a month of affiliate revenue, Business covers $30,000.

FAQ

Questions SaaS founders ask

Unsure whether your billing setup fits? A 20-minute call answers it faster than this page can.

Create my program Book a demo

It stops with the payments. Commission is calculated per payment, so when the subscription ends there are no further payments and no further commission. Anything already earned and past its holding period still pays out. You are not clawing back a partner's history, you are just not paying for revenue that no longer arrives.

Where to go next

Comparison

Referly vs Rewardful, feature by feature

Read

Integration

How the Stripe integration tracks subscriptions

Read

Alternatives

The Rewardful alternatives worth a look

Read

Guide

How to recruit your first affiliates

Read

Glossary

What a recurring commission actually is

Read

Also selling physical goods?

Affiliate software for ecommerce

Read

For SaaS and AI companies

Affiliate Software for SaaS

Only pay for revenue that sticks

Connect Stripe in one click. Every renewal, upgrade, downgrade and refund updates the commission automatically, so partners are paid on revenue you kept.

Create my program Book a demo

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

Live in 10 minutes
0% of your sales, on every plan
Free migration from Rewardful, Tolt and 6 more

Priya Raman

priya@northwindlabs.com

Add SaleEdit

Affiliate

Maya Okonkwo

Source

Stripe

Revenue

$3,770.00$3,480.00

Net Profit

$3,045.00$2,813.00

Payment history

Recurring · 20% then 10% after 12 payments

DateRevenueRewardStatusPayout

Payment 12$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Payment 11$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Payment 10$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Payment 9$290.00$58.00Not rewardedAcceptedRefundedUnpaidRefunded

Payment 8$290.00$58.00AcceptedPaid

Paid to Maya Okonkwo

$725.00$667.00

11 payments at 20%, 1 at the stepped 10% rate. The refunded payment never entered a batch.

Payment 9 refunded

Reward reversed before the payout ran.

The problem

Most affiliate tools track a sale, not a subscription

They read the first invoice and stop. Everything that happens next to that customer is invisible to them.

Connects to

Stripe

Paddle

Chargebee

Polar

One subscription, four events

Northwind Labs · $290 / mo

What happensA generic toolReferly

First paymentTrackedTracked

RenewsInvisibleCommission paid again

UpgradesStill paying the old rateRecalculated on the new amount

RefundsAlready paid outCommission reversed

How it works

Set the rule once. Stripe does the rest.

One commission plan, applied to every payment a subscription ever makes.

Partner program
Created March 4, 2026
Base Plan
1
What type of reward do affiliates receive?
Affiliates receive a direct cash commission.
Cash Commission
15%30%per sale
The affiliate will earn commission on every payment made by a customer, for as long as the customer continues to make paymentsThe affiliate will earn commission on the first 12 payments made within 24 months by a customer
On purchaseNo time limit24 monthsUnlimitedFirst 12 payments
2
What will trigger a commission?
A commission is triggered when a referred customer makes a purchase.
Customer makes a purchase
3
Commission changes over time
The rate steps down once the initial period ends.
Initial period
30% · For the first 12 payments made by the customer
Then
15% · For all future payments made by the customer
Step the rate down
Advanced rules
Order Amount
Product Purchased
Coupon Used
Statement Description
Landing Page
Payment history
Stripe
Month 3$290.0030% of $290$87.00
Month 4$490.00Upgraded to Scale$147.00
Month 5$490.0030% of $490$147.00
An upgrade raises the commission the month it happens. A downgrade lowers it.
Payment history
Refunded
Month 6$490.0030% of $490$147.00
Month 7$490.00Refunded in StripeNot rewarded
Month 8$490.0030% of $490$147.00
Reversed before the payout ran, so there is nothing to claw back afterwards.
Duration
Recurring
Payment 11316
Payments 1 to 12
30%
Payments 13 to 15
15%
From payment 16
Ends, 24-month cap

Partner program

Created March 4, 2026

Base Plan

What type of reward do affiliates receive?

Affiliates receive a direct cash commission.

Cash Commission

15%30%per sale

On purchaseNo time limit24 monthsUnlimitedFirst 12 payments

What will trigger a commission?

A commission is triggered when a referred customer makes a purchase.

Customer makes a purchase

Commission changes over time

The rate steps down once the initial period ends.

Initial period

30% · For the first 12 payments made by the customer

Then

15% · For all future payments made by the customer

Step the rate down

Advanced rules

Order Amount

Product Purchased

Coupon Used

Statement Description

Landing Page

Explore commission plans

Attribution

How a click becomes a tracked subscription

Four hops. The domain changes at the second one, which is where most tools lose the sale.

01The click
A partner's link lands on your marketing site. The tracker records the affiliate.
yoursite.com/?ref=maya
02The domain hop
They cross to your app. Cross-domain tracking carries the attribution over.
app.yoursite.com
03The checkout
Your server attaches the affiliate id to the Stripe Checkout Session.
client_reference_id
04The webhook
Stripe fires, and Referly records every payment that subscription makes.
checkout.session.completed

Captured on every click

gclidfbclidmsclkidttclidli_fat_idtwclidutm_*

Reads the sale from

Default cookie window: 60 days
Configurable from: 1 day to 1 year
Ad click ids: gclid · fbclid · msclkid
Plus: ttclid · li_fat_id · twclid
UTM parameters: All five, per click
Proxy and VPN: Flagged on every click
Server to server: Postbacks in and out
Cross-domain tracking: From Business

How tracking works The Stripe integration

The difference

Four things that happen to every subscription

And what each kind of tool does about them.

Referly

A generic affiliate tool

A spreadsheet

A customer upgrades in month four

Recalculated on the new amount
Still paying the original rate
Found in the quarterly review

A customer refunds

Reversed automatically
Manual clawback, if noticed
Never reconciled

Your site and app are on different domains

Carried across (from business)
Cookie lost at the hop
Not tracked at all

Paying 40 partners in 9 countries

One batch (from business)
Export a CSV, pay by hand
Your Sunday

When a simpler tool is the better buy

Referly compared with Rewardful FirstPromoter alternatives

Run your own numbers

What one customer is worth to a partner

The gap between the two figures is why partners take a recurring program seriously and ignore a one-payment one.

Your numbers

Average subscription$290 / mo

Monthly churn4%

About 24 months of payments, capped at the 24-month window modelled here

Commission rate20%

Step the rate down after 12 payments

Halves the rate from payment 13. Available from Business.

Model refunds

Reverses the commission on 5% of payments, the way a refund does.

Commission earned with Referly

$1,322

24 payments at 20%, less $70 reversed on refunds.

With a first-invoice-only tool

$58

One payment, one commission. The renewals are invisible to it.

Customer stories

SaaS founders already running this

Three subscription businesses, their partner programs, and the numbers from their own Referly accounts.

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: 10+ yrs
running programs

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

SaaSEmail

“The team answers in what feels like a tenth of a second. Amazing product, saved us a boatload of money. 10/10, no bugs.”

Tomer Levi

Founder, Mailin

Pricing

One flat price. 0% of your sales.

Referly never takes a percentage of your revenue or your affiliates' commissions, on any plan. Startup covers $10,000 a month of affiliate revenue, Business covers $30,000.

I'm a brandI'm an agency

Startup

Annual2 months free

$75

/ month

Launch your affiliate program and get your first partners earning

No credit card required

Track up to $10,000 in monthly affiliate revenue
Up to 200 affiliates and 500 referrals a month
1 affiliate program, 1 team seat
All payment integrations included
Link and coupon code tracking
Branded affiliate portal in 15 languages

Business

Annual2 months free

$149

/ month

Scale your program with automation, white label and deeper control

No credit card required

Track up to $30,000 in monthly affiliate revenue
Unlimited referrals, up to 1,000 affiliates
Automated payouts through PayPal and Wise
White label portal with your own domain
Tax form collection built in (W-9 and W-8)
API access, webhooks and the customer referral widget
5 affiliate programs, 5 team seats

Enterprise

Billed annually

Starting from

$399

/ month

Everything Referly offers, with a team behind you

Everything in Business included
Up to unlimited monthly affiliate revenue
All three add-ons included
Influencer Discovery with 500 invitations per month
Up to 10 programs and unlimited team seats
Dedicated success manager and priority support
Managed migration from your current platform
Custom development support for your use case

View full plans and comparisons

FAQ

Questions SaaS founders ask

Unsure whether your billing setup fits? A 20-minute call answers it faster than this page can.

Create my program Book a demo

It stops with the payments. Commission is calculated per payment, so when the subscription ends there are no further payments and no further commission. Anything already earned and past its holding period still pays out. You are not clawing back a partner's history, you are just not paying for revenue that no longer arrives.

Where to go next

Comparison

Referly vs Rewardful, feature by feature

Read

Integration

How the Stripe integration tracks subscriptions

Read

Alternatives

The Rewardful alternatives worth a look

Read

Guide

How to recruit your first affiliates

Read

Glossary

What a recurring commission actually is

Read

Also selling physical goods?

Affiliate software for ecommerce

Read

Affiliate Software for SaaS

Most affiliate tools track a sale, not a subscription

Set the rule once. Stripe does the rest.

How a click becomes a tracked subscription

Four things that happen to every subscription

What one customer is worth to a partner

SaaS founders already running this

One flat price. 0% of your sales.

Questions SaaS founders ask

Where to go next

Affiliate Software for SaaS

Most affiliate tools track a sale, not a subscription

Set the rule once. Stripe does the rest.

How a click becomes a tracked subscription

Four things that happen to every subscription

What one customer is worth to a partner

SaaS founders already running this

One flat price. 0% of your sales.

Available Pricing Plans

Startup

Business

Enterprise

Questions SaaS founders ask

Where to go next

Available Pricing Plans

Startup

Business

Enterprise