Software Comparison · October 2026 · 7 min read
FirstPromoter vs Rewardful vs AffRef (2026)
Three Stripe-native referral platforms at three different price/feature points. Honest comparison on pricing, integration speed, features, and who each one is actually built for.
Three popular SaaS referral platforms. Three very different positions in the market. Three different ideas of what an indie founder should be paying for.
Upfront: AffRef is the tool we make. Everything below is as honest as we can make it. We'll point out where Rewardful and FirstPromoter beat us, where we beat them, and where it's a wash. By the end you should be able to pick.
Headline comparison
| Feature | FirstPromoter | Rewardful | AffRef |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $49/mo | $49/mo | $49/mo |
| Commission-on-commissions fee | 0% | 9% on Starter | 0% |
| Revenue cap on entry plan | $5k MRR tracked | $7.5k/mo attributed rev | None |
| Stripe integration | Native | Native | Native (via API) |
| Shopify-native option | Limited | No | Yes (primary) |
| Affiliate marketplace | No | No | No |
| API access | Yes | Higher tier | Yes (all tiers) |
| Multi-currency | Higher tier | Higher tier | Higher tier |
| Custom domain | Higher tier | Higher tier | Enterprise |
| Built-in payouts | No (manual) | No (manual) | No (manual) |
Pricing as of October 2026. Verify on each vendor's pricing page — these change.
The 1-line summaries
- FirstPromoter — the polished, mid-market choice. No commission cut, slightly more flexible API than Rewardful, less famous brand.
- Rewardful — the most-recognised SaaS referral brand. Cleanest dashboard. The commission-cut + revenue cap on the entry tier matter more than the brand strength for most indie founders.
- AffRef — flat-rate, no caps, no commission cut. Works for both SaaS and Shopify in one platform (others only do SaaS or only do Shopify). Younger product with fewer pre-built integrations.
Pricing in depth — where the divergence is
All three have a $49/mo entry tier, but what you actually pay diverges quickly. Real cost at three different scales:
| Scenario | FirstPromoter | Rewardful | AffRef |
|---|---|---|---|
| $3k/mo affiliate revenue (early) | $49 | $49 + 9% of commissions paid | $49 |
| $15k/mo affiliate revenue (scaling) | $49 | $99 (forced upgrade) | $49 |
| $50k/mo affiliate revenue (real program) | $129 | $149 | $99 |
Calculated against publicly-listed pricing. Commission cut assumes ~20% commission rate on attributed revenue.
At early-stage you're paying roughly the same on any platform. The differences appear at scale. AffRef and FirstPromoter stay flat through the $15k scenario; Rewardful's revenue cap forces an upgrade.
Integration speed
All three are Stripe-native. The integration patterns differ slightly:
- Rewardful: drop their
rewardful.jsscript on your marketing site, then passclient_reference_idat Stripe Checkout. Their backend reconciles. Fastest "no-code" path. SDK is ~30KB on every page. - FirstPromoter: similar script + a server-side webhook. Slightly more manual.
- AffRef: no SDK. Capture
?ref=in a first-party cookie yourself (5 lines of JS), pass it as Stripe metadata, POST to our API from your existing Stripe webhook. Full walkthrough here. Roughly 30 minutes end-to-end.
If you want a no-code path, Rewardful wins. If you want the integration to be auditable, testable, and survive future provider changes, AffRef's pattern wins. FirstPromoter sits in the middle.
Where each one genuinely wins
FirstPromoter wins on:
- Feature depth at mid-market price. MLM tiers, custom attribution rules, advanced fraud detection — all on the Starter plan.
- Track record. Several years of operation, large existing customer base.
- No commission cut on any plan.
Rewardful wins on:
- Brand strength. The first SaaS-referral tool most founders Google. Established trust.
- Dashboard polish. Cleanest UI in the category.
- No-code setup. If you don't want to write any code, their
rewardful.js+client_reference_idpattern works zero-config.
AffRef wins on:
- Flat-rate pricing. No revenue caps, no commission cut, no surprise tier-forcing.
- Dual-platform: SaaS via API + Shopify via webhook in one product. If your business is multi-channel (SaaS plus a Shopify side-store), no other platform on this list covers both natively.
- API-first architecture. Auditable, testable, swappable.
- First-party tracking by default — same robustness against Safari ITP that we built for Shopify customers carries over to SaaS.
Decision tree
- Pre-revenue / under $5k MRR, no engineering capacity: Rewardful. The no-code setup is the cheapest path to a working program.
- $5k–$50k MRR, want polish, can write a Stripe webhook: FirstPromoter. Best feature-to-price ratio at mid-market.
- Indie / vibe-coded / multi-platform (SaaS + Shopify): AffRef. The pricing math wins at $10k+ revenue and the multi-platform support is unique.
- $100k+ MRR, enterprise B2B, partner-program needs: PartnerStack (different category — see our alternatives post).
Where to go from here
If you pick AffRef, 7-day free trial; pick "SaaS / Custom App" when you create your first brand. Our Next.js walkthrough + Stripe setup guide have framework-specific integration code. If you want to weigh more options first, our broader alternatives post covers the full landscape.