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.
Referral programs priced per advocate
Affiliate programs for startups, priced by payout
Genius Referrals | Tolt | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $71 | From $69 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| API | Yes | Yes |
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.
Referral programs priced per advocate
Genius Referrals runs customer referral schemes rather than affiliate marketing, which is a different job: the people doing the referring are buyers rather than publishers, and the rewards go both ways. Plans are metered on new advocates a month with a stated overage rather than a cliff, so a good month costs a known amount. Payout automation is an add-on rather than a tier. Existing advocates are not counted twice, which the page states, and that is what stops the meter running on people who joined last year.
Our note
The 20-cent overage is worth more than it looks, because it turns a good month into a known cost rather than an upgrade conversation. Check that your program really is customer-to-customer before buying here, since the pricing meter counts advocates and an affiliate program with ten hard-working publishers would waste the whole allowance.
Only on this side
Affiliate programs for startups, priced by payout
Tolt runs an affiliate program for a subscription business: a branded portal for partners, tracking that survives a Stripe checkout, and payouts that go out automatically rather than as a monthly chore. Tiers are drawn around how much affiliates earn each month rather than how many of them there are, so recruiting widely costs nothing until the recruiting works. Affiliates and referrals are uncapped on every plan. Automatic payouts carry a processing fee on top of the subscription.
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.
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
|---|
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
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| Runs on | Web | Web |
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| Covers | Affiliate & Referral, Giveaways & Referrals | Affiliate & Referral |
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| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
|---|
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
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| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
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| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
|---|
Our note
Work out which payout band you will land in before comparing this with a per-affiliate tool, because the tier boundary is the whole price and it moves with success rather than with effort. Pick Rewardful or FirstPromoter instead if you want Stripe-native tracking above all else; pick this if the branded partner portal is what you are buying.