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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An affiliate tracking tool for large B2C eCommerce businesses like GAP and Honey (not for B2B SaaS companies)
Impact was built in 2008 when third-party cookies were the norm. While they’ve tried to modernize and adapt to first party cookies with their Universal Tracking Tag (UTT) their system still depends on a redirect “bounce hop” a quick, invisible detour through an Impact domain before sending a visitor to your site. Modern browsers increasingly block or skip these tracking hops. This means tracking never fires leads to unattributed referrals, missing conversions, partner disputes, and ultimately an unreliable affiliate program.
Impact is one of the most expensive affiliate platforms in the industry. Most SaaS companies pay between $10,000–$30,000/year, despite the platform being built for enterprise eCommerce rather than SaaS. More modern, SaaS-native platforms like Dub Partners or PartnerStack often cost less and provide more accurate, dependable tracking thanks to first-party cookies.
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".
When looking at Rewardful pricing, and comparing it (like I'm sure you are) to PartnerStack and others that handle payouts and the entire partnership management side of things, realize that all you're paying for is basic reward tracking with Rewardful. Everything else is manual and painful.
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