PartnerStack

PartnerStack is one of the main leaders in this space. They try to be more than just an affiliate tracking (think link click and attribution tracking).

We've used just about every modern solution in the market, from First Promoter to Rewardful to Referral Rock to Impact, and more. The first few are just basic affiliate link tracking solutions, which often also have a higher churn, because just setting up affiliate link tracking is not the same as building out your partnership go-to-market (GTM) initiative (which PartnerStack is aiming to help with).

They are essentially the gold standard when it comes to a SaaS focused partnership platform (they also have the best UI/UX).

Competitive Analysis

As mentioned, you need to be aware of what companies are just affiliate (link tracking), and which ones are that and more. PartnerStack will also track submitted referrals (via form), which is heavier weight than just an affiliate program, and also manage all of the payouts on-top of that.

Let's take Impact for example, an affiliate tracking tool that was created to manage B2C promotions, like that of GAP and Levi's (don't use them if you're a SaaS company, please... their UX is also atrocious—even just signing up to them as an affiliate is the most confusing thing ever).

There's a reason that about 50–60% of our Top Picks use PartnerStack (birds of a feather flock together).

API

Not only does PartnerStack have a robust API for vendors (you), conveniently enough via Zapier, but they also have an API for the partners/affiliates side (us). This is fantastic because talk about gamifying the process and encouraging the team.

For example, you want your partners to create content and posts around promoting your product, right? Well it's also exciting for us when we see a new referral goes though (e.g. we're seeing the impact that's coming from the work we put in). So being able to say set up a Slack alert for when we get a new referral is motivating. We can do that with PartnerStack. No other affiliate tracking tool seems to care about making some part of the API available to the partner/affiliate though, which is just again where PartnerStack actually cares about the partner experience, not just the vendor experience.

Pricing

Because they are trying to be more than just affiliate tracking, the price-tag is quite a bit higher than most of the competitors (that are anywhere from $50–500/mo for just affiliate link tracking). PartnerStack starts at 5-figures per year, although, if you're a sizable SaaS though doing at-least $1m/ARR, it's definitely a company you should be seriously considering.

They did just recently launch a startup program though which brings it down to a 4-figure investment for the first year, but this is restricted based on company size and funding.