While we're fans of both Dub Partners and PartnerStack (we genuinely believe they're the 2 leading affiliate tracking platforms), Dub Partners is a newer product that understands links and attribution at the core, so it gives us far more data than PartnerStack on what content is actually leading to the largest accounts. It's also priced better as well, and if you were to pick only 1, we'd recommend Dub Partners.
We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
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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:
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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.
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