Customer referral software

ViralPayouts vs ReferralCandy

ViralPayouts has no monthly fee, pays your affiliates for you and pays recruiters on every program. You pay 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3%, and nothing in a month when nobody sells. With ReferralCandy, paying affiliates for you is optional or extra and does not say it has two-tier recruiting. It costs $9 to $799 a month + 0.25% to 10.5% of transactions.

Every figure for ReferralCandy comes from its own pages or named review sites, checked 12 October 2026. Sources are listed at the bottom.

Why brands pick ViralPayouts over ReferralCandy

Best fit: A digital/SaaS or Stripe-checkout brand that wants partners to recruit other partners (two-tier) and to be found in a public directory, without a monthly fee.

$0 a month
No plan and no setup fee. 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3% at $10,000 a month.
Payouts done for you
One invoice per program. ViralPayouts sends every partner and recruiter their money and collects tax forms.
Recruiters built in
Customer links and recruit links on every program, with the override set your way and reversed on refunds.

Start a program free

Side by side

	ReferralCandy	ViralPayouts
Price	$9 to $799 a month + 0.25% to 10.5% of transactionsTerm: None; month-to-month, cancel anytime from dashboard	$0 a month. 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3% at $10,000 a month.
Setup fee	Not stated	None
Fee for paying affiliates	No ReferralCandy markup; PayPal, Venmo and bank transfer carry provider pass-through fees; Tremendous virtual debit cards free	Included in the fee above: no charge to the brand for sending payoutsPartners pay Whop's own fee when they withdraw to their bank
Pays your affiliates for you	Optionalvia PayPal and Tremendous (brand funds); or self-managed	Yes You fund by bank transfer; we pay every partner
Two-tier recruiting	Not stated	Yes Two levels on every program: share of commission, share of sale or fixed. Paid on approved sales, never sign-ups
Public program directory	No	Yes Partners browse and join with one account
Tracking	referral links; custom coupon codes per partner; JavaScript/plugin/email install; API purchase registration	First-party links with click IDs, signed server-to-server events, Stripe Checkout webhook
Coupon tracking	Yes	Yes A code per partner, per program
Mobile app tracking	Not stated	App installs, sign-ups and purchases reported from your server through the signed event API, with bounties on them. No SDK to ship in your app.
API, webhooks, MCP	API	REST API for brands and partners with an OpenAPI spec, an MCP server for AI agents, a signed event API and partner postbacks
Integrations	Shopify & Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento 2, Klaviyo	Stripe Checkout, Shopify orders, any backend via the event API

ReferralCandy plans in full

Basic: $9 a month, plus 10.5% of transactions. All features on every plan. Success fee = % of referred purchase subtotal (after discounts, before tax/shipping) on net-new customers' first three orders only; never on the reward. Extra stores $20/month each at main store's fee rate. No fee on trial sales.
Grow: $79 a month, plus 3.5% of transactions. All features
Scale: $249 a month, plus 1.5% of transactions. All features
Enterprise: $799 a month, plus 0.25% of transactions. Dedicated onboarding and account manager

Pricing source

Where ViralPayouts comes out ahead of ReferralCandy

What ReferralCandy offers

Ecommerce brands, Shopify first (also BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, custom stores), wanting customer referral programs plus a hand-picked affiliate/creator program in one app.

Customer referral software · G2 4.5 (110 reviews) · Capterra 4.5 (387 reviews)

Why ViralPayouts is the better choice

Two levels built in (partner commission plus recruiter override); ReferralCandy has only milestone tiers
No monthly fee; fee is 10% falling to 3% of partner payouts versus $9-$799/month plus a % of referred revenue
Public directory where partners browse and join programs; ReferralCandy explicitly has no marketplace
ViralPayouts pays affiliates for the brand via Whop; signed server-to-server event API and Stripe Checkout webhook suit SaaS/digital products

What ReferralCandy users say

Paraphrased from public reviews. Follow each link to read the original.

Praise

Support is repeatedly called fast and helpful during setup and troubleshooting g2.com
Easy to set up; long-time users say it just works in the background for years capterra.com
Merchants like running referral and affiliate programs in one app with Shopify and Klaviyo integrations apps.shopify.com

Complaints

Creates many discount codes that clutter the Shopify discounts area; design tool felt archaic apps.shopify.com
Some merchants paid fees with zero referral sales from the program apps.shopify.com
Limited customisation (email templates hard to edit), restrictions like one program per account and PayPal USD-only payouts g2.com
Suspicious-referral alerts give too little detail to act on capterra.com

About ReferralCandy

In their words:: "Referral & affiliate programs, built for high-growth brands" (homepage H1); title: "Referral & Affiliate Program Software for Ecommerce"
Company:: Founded 2010 (launched on the Shopify App Store September 2010, under parent company name Anafore) · Founded in Singapore per About page; Shopify App Store listing says 'Based in United States' · Founders Dinesh Raju and Zach Cheng; originally under parent company Anafore (About page)
Team:: 28 ('Twenty-eight of us. Most in Customer Success.')
Named customers:: Branch Basics ($1.5M+ referral revenue, 10% referral rate), Toki ($500K affiliate sales at 41X ROI), Farm Hounds ($600K lifetime referral sales, 22.25% referral rate), Butter (Shopify review quoted on homepage)
Website:: referralcandy.com

Try ViralPayouts on test money

Set your commission and recruiter override, see what each sale costs you, and run it on the test network before a real partner joins. No monthly fee.

Start a program See pricing

More comparisons

All comparisons

Sources for ReferralCandy (15), checked 12 October 2026

ReferralCandy is a trademark of its owner. ViralPayouts is not affiliated with ReferralCandy. Prices and features change: check referralcandy.com before you decide. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we will fix it.