Making the work
Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover affiliate & referral. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Run your affiliate program inside WordPress
Run your own affiliate program
AffiliateWP | Post Affiliate Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $299 | From $89 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | 30 days |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export |
Run your affiliate program inside WordPress
AffiliateWP puts the affiliate program on the same WordPress install as the shop, so there is no third party taking a slice of every sale and no separate system to reconcile. Lifetime and recurring commissions, multi-tier payouts and personalised affiliate URLs are all in the paid plugin. Because it is a licence rather than a platform, the cost does not rise with what affiliates earn. Someone without a WordPress site cannot use it at all, which is the whole shape of the trade.
Our note
Budget the standing price rather than the first-year one, because the footnote is explicit that renewals are full price and this is the number you will pay every year after the first. Against Tolt or Rewardful the arithmetic is simple: a licence wins once your affiliates are earning enough that a percentage would exceed a few hundred dollars a year.
Only on this side
Run your own affiliate program
Post Affiliate Pro is the software behind an affiliate program you run yourself, tracking clicks and sales back to the partner who sent them and paying out on your terms. Plans are sized by tracking requests a month rather than by how many affiliates you sign, so recruiting is never the thing that raises the bill. It has been around long enough that most shopping carts already have an integration for it.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
| Not stated |
| Their cut | None | Not stated |
|---|
| Runs on | Web | Web |
|---|
| Covers | Affiliate & Referral, Website Builders | Affiliate & Referral |
|---|
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
|---|
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
|---|
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
|---|
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
|---|
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Our note
Count your monthly clicks before choosing, because tracking requests are the only thing separating an $89 plan from a $649 one. If a promotion is still running when you sign up, the first year is materially cheaper than the list price suggests.