If you're a B2B SaaS company and are curious as to which of the above you should choose and are looking to actually invest in your partnership strategy (actually working on increasing your referral MRR), look no further than Dub Partners & PartnerStack. If you've taken a look at our Top Picks section, I'm here to tell you that the far majority of them (that have a affiliate/referral channel) are using PartnerStack—It's no coincidence. They will seamlessly integrate into your Stripe, making the whole payout and reconciling process a breeze.
If you're simply looking for a barebones affiliate tracking tool, think "link clicks, nothing more", then one of the affiliate tracking tools FirstPromoter will do the job. Just keep in mind that going this path, you're going to have a less automated reconciling process when it comes to payouts/refunds and the likes. We genuinely only recommend going this path if you aren't yet trying to roll out a proper partnership strategy.
There is only one thing for certain, and that's to stay away from Impact if you are a B2B SaaS company. I don't know how else to put it... They were built for large B2C eCommerce brands like GAP and coupon sites like Honey. They've somehow managed to change their branding around the SaaS space (largely due to getting a few big-name SaaS companies like HubSpot and ClickUp but don't let that fool you).
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The referral category deserves a bit of an explanation because we continually see confusion arise when it comes to the competitors in this space. You'll often hear terms like "affiliate", "referral", "link tracking", and "partner portals" all used interchangeably.
And with that, not all referral tracking tools are created equal, nor are they focused on the same needs. They can actually be broken up more into 5 main sub-categories:
Affiliate tracking tools are focused primarily on one-way link tracking (think Amazon Affiliate links), by which the end-user usually has no idea money is being made off of their purchase. This is also because the end user rarely gets an incentive for using the link, maybe an extended free trial, or it can even be just a way for them to support their favorite creator.
More of a 2-way relationship—the purchaser usually knows that a transaction is taking place, might even be a benefit to the end-user (e.g. get $50 credit for signing up).
This is where things get a bit more difficult, as you're not really going to get referral functionality out of the cheaper affiliate software options mentioned above.
So if you're planning on having a more serious partnership strategy around referral tracking (especially important if you're a higher ticket SaaS product or focused on larger seat counts like mid-market/enterprise).
3rd party license management. This is more common in the IT space where an IT services company may purchase software licenses in bulk, and then resell them to customers of theirs, billing them directly, and making margin. Think for example a Google Workspace reseller.
It's more uncommon, convolutes things quite a bit (for both the partner and software company), as it introduces difficulties such as sales tax onto the reseller partner.
We've seen this work well mainly for companies that solely sell their software as a white-labeled solution, and their sole software sales motion is to their resellers. This takes a lot to get right.
Strategic partner initiatives & distribution. If you're just starting out your partnership, affiliate, or referral strategy, this is where this category comes into place. The reason being is that they can actually help you build out your partnership ecosystem.
So yes, you should definitely work to build out your affiliate and referral partners, but a partner ecosystem platform software will actually make it their mission to find great partners that'll promote your software for you. Some of the best companies already have deep relationships with some of the top affiliate sites out there (e.g. Forbes Advisor). The leader in this category is Dub Partners & PartnerStack. There's a reason why about 50–60% of the apps listed on this site that have partner programs use them. More on this below.
Displaying lists of partners & discovery for customers. The main company that we see leading this category is PartnerPage. They also have a deep relationship and integration with PartnerStack.
Example customers include: Zapier, Airtable, Notion, FullStory
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Dub is the modern link attribution platform for you to create short links, track conversions, and run affiliate programs.
Whether you're looking for a full-fledged affiliate/partnership tracking platform (Dub Partners), or you're just looking for the most modern link shortener on the market, Dub is the answer for both.
Dub Partners is a product that their team has been building in stealth and just dropped. It's the most modern and powerful affiliate and referral tracking platform on the market. Because Dub originated as a link tracking platform, they've thought through how to give the most robust and solid tracking of any of the other platforms on the market.
With Dub Partners, we know exactly what content we post across our site and YouTube is leading to the most revenue for our partner companies. Once you experience this, you can't live without it (as a creator or the software company). They automatically handle all the tax compliance and global payouts, no manual admin work required (unlike half-baked affiliate platforms like Rewardful).
While PartnerStack used to be our favorite affiliate platform (as an affiliate partner), Dub Partners has taken our top pick spot as it's just everything PartnerStack was, and more, at a better overall price as well. It's abundantly clear that they've worked directly with top affiliates to build what the software companies need to excel, as well as the creators/influncers. This can't be said about any other platform on the market (from our experience at least).
Read this post around starting an affiliate program to see exactly where Dub Partners fits into the affiliate tracking space when compared to the best affiliate & referral platforms out there, the leading platforms in the space are quite flawed when you actually start looking more deeply into it.
Get 20% off your first 3 months of Dub Partners.
Let us save you the time and research: whether you're a creator, marketer, or a company looking for a link infrastructure there is no better solution than Dub—trust us, we've tried them all.
Dub is the most modern link shortening/analytics platform. If you've tried to use Bitly's analytic dashboards (or Short's), but they are horrendously kludgy 🙈 So much so, that they cause dread to even go into the back-end.
Dub on the other hand, provides a minimal UI, providing you with the analytics in crystal clear dashboard. With Dub you can easily spin up short links, QR codes, add tags for organization, and even enable things like password protection, expiring links, or geo-targeting.
All of this, AND they have the most generous free tier of all the tools out there to try it out. If you're looking for a new link shortener, Dub is hands down the best on the market.
PartnerStack is a partner ecosystem management platform that helps companies build an manage their partnership programs (along with affiliate/referral tracking).
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).
That said, when comparing it to the newer entrants in the space like Dub Partners, it's pretty difficult to choose PartnerStack over it, as Dub Partners has better pricing, a more user-friendly interface, and is actually a full-fledged link tracking platform at the core, leading to better analytics and tracking (for both you and the affiliate partner).
We've used just about every modern solution in the market, from FirstPromoter, to Rewardful, to Referral Rock, 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), well, up until Dub Partners launched onto the scene.
Basic affiliate and referral tracking for SaaS.
FirstPromoter is an affiliate platform that shares the same core problems seen in the Rewardful review. Your affiliates will not care about your program, they will avoid logging in because they are juggling multiple FirstPromoter accounts (this point cannot be understated, and only the highest impact affiliate partners will be frustrated by it). You will be stuck chasing invoices, sending payments one by one, requesting W-9's, sending 1099's, and W-8BENs (to everyone). All of this and you don't even get the tracking needed to see what is actually working (for your affiliate partners, and thus yourself).
Compared to modern affiliate tracking tools that are completely disrupting the space, like Dub Partners, FirstPromoter ends up just feeling incredibly dated and inconvenient for everyone. When we see FirstPromoter, we don't believe you're taking your affiliate program seriously.
An affiliate tracking tool for large B2C eCommerce businesses like GAP and Honey (not for B2B SaaS companies)
If you are a B2B SaaS company, stay away from Impact. Let me explain: Impact was initially built specifically for large B2C eCommerce brands like GAP and coupon sites like Honey (does that sound like you?).
That said, they've saturated that market and saw the B2B SaaS space as another market to go after. Because of that, they updated their branding to include the SaaS space (largely due to getting a few big-name SaaS companies like HubSpot and ClickUp but don't let that fool you).
There's a reason why the leading B2B SaaS affiliate & referral tracking companies only work with B2B SaaS. Managing affiliates for physical product purchases from an eCommerce store and managing store coupons is a completely different beast than the recurring revenue model of SaaS.
An analogy would be someone that wants to build a web app using a tool like Shopify, all with absolutely no use for an eCommerce store. Shopify has mastered eCommerce. The software that even integrates with Shopify is eCommerce solution-focused. Using Impact for your B2B SaaS affiliate program is using the wrong tool for the wrong job.
If you're a software company, you should use one of the best affiliate platforms that was built for B2B SaaS on day one. In-fact, they actively avoid working with eCommerce companies, because it makes sense, right?
Our recommendation? Dub Partners (it's our top pick), as it was built for recurring revenue models (you know, 3–4 "SKU's"), so they actually understand the concept of free trials, extended onboarding, and subscription tracking, with deep analytics, all without trying to retrofit an archaic platform (Impact).
Manage your affiliate and customer referral programs seamlessly — and get started with the affiliate marketing software built for SaaS professionals, digital creators and marketers.
Rewardful is an affiliate management platform that falls short where it matters most: making life easy for partners. Your affiliates will not care about your program, in fact they will avoid logging in because they are juggling 30+ separate Rewardful accounts. You will be stuck chasing invoices, sending PayPal payments one by one, and drowning in hundreds of tiny transactions… all while your affiliates have zero idea which of their content is converting.
While It technically works for setting up an affiliate program quickly (great, you have a program). The problem is it's a half-baked solution that will directly impact your partners' willingness to promote you.
What's half-baked? I mean just look at their "one-click PayPal Payout" feature that they advertise. Not even they use it for their own internal affiliate program on Rewardful. What do they do? They pay for a totally separate payout provider called Tipalti (super outdated mind you), but that's their solution, because of how poorly their PayPal payout option works at scale. So they sell you the feature in marketing, but don't even use their own feature, but rather a competitor.
Compared to tools like Dub Partners or PartnerStack, Rewardful feels a generation behind and will be the reason you go from thinking "affiliate is a growth channel" to instead "affiliate is a headache".
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