Customer referral software

ViralPayouts vs ReferralHero

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 ReferralHero, paying affiliates for you is optional or extra and does not say it has two-tier recruiting. It costs $0 to $399 a month.

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

Why brands pick ViralPayouts over ReferralHero

Best fit: An online brand wanting two-tier partner recruiting, discovery via a public directory, and payouts handled without a subscription or per-payout 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

	ReferralHero	ViralPayouts
Price	$0 to $399 a month	$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	Per-payout fee: 2.5% + $0.50 (capped at $20), 4.5% + $0.50, or 6.0% + $0.50 depending on funding method and currency; $30 per payout chargeback; paid by brand or deducted from recipient. Overages: $1.50 per 1,000 emails over 25,000/month; $0.005 per mobile-attribution subscriber over 10,000	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 ReferralHero Cash Payouts (bills brand's payment method on file, then pays advocate's connected bank); ReferralHero calls itself 'solely a technical facilitator'	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	unique referral links; QR codes; offline name matching; coupon codes	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	Yes	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, webhooks	REST API for brands and partners with an OpenAPI spec, an MCP server for AI agents, a signed event API and partner postbacks
Integrations	HubSpot, Salesforce, GoHighLevel, Zoho, ServiceTitan	Stripe Checkout, Shopify orders, any backend via the event API

ReferralHero plans in full

Free Forever: $0 a month. Up to 25 subscribers, all PRO features, ReferralHero branding
PRO (pricing page): $199 a month. Up to 10,000 members; API, webhooks, coupon codes, anti-fraud; no reCAPTCHA/SMS verification
PREMIUM (pricing page): $399 a month. Up to 50,000 members; adds reCAPTCHA and SMS verification
Basic (llms.txt): $249 a month. 1,000 subscribers, 1 campaign, 100K automation emails/month, SMS automation, cash and gift-card payouts
Pro (llms.txt): $399 a month. Unlimited subscribers and campaigns, 500+ integrations, REST/JS API, iOS/Android SDKs on annual plan
Pro + Done For You: price not published. Custom; managed strategy, design, setup and optimisation

Pricing source

Where ViralPayouts comes out ahead of ReferralHero

What ReferralHero offers

B2C and local service businesses (dentists, med spas, home services/solar, clinics), plus fintech, SaaS and mobile apps, wanting referral, affiliate/partner, waitlist or contest programs with offline word-of-mouth tracking.

Customer referral software

Why ViralPayouts is the better choice

Two levels built in (partner + recruiter override, separate recruit link); not found in ReferralHero
No monthly fee and no separate payout processing fee; ReferralHero charges $199-$399/month plus up to 6% + $0.50 per payout
Public directory and one partner account across programs
Simpler, published fee (10% falling to 3% of partner payouts) vs inconsistent pricing pages

What ReferralHero users say

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

Praise

Dentist reports families love to refer and more new patients monthly (vendor-hosted testimonial) referralhero.com
Solar company turned customers into 183 active ambassadors and 100+ referrals (vendor-hosted testimonial) referralhero.com

Complaints

None found.

About ReferralHero

In their words:: Title: "ReferralHero: AI-Powered Referral & Affiliate Program Software"; H1: "Track & Grow Referrals" (rotating: Customers, Clients, Patients...)
Company:: Founded Launched by 2016 (About page: first 1 million subscribers January 2016; Product Hunt February 2016) · LD Innovations, LLC, 'the parent company of ReferralHero, d/b/a ReferralHero' (Terms)
Named customers:: SlimDental (testimonial), Oregon Shines (solar; 183 ambassadors, 100+ referrals), ePesos ('doubled our loan applications in one month')
Website:: referralhero.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 ReferralHero (13), checked 12 October 2026

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