Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover giveaways & referrals and affiliate & referral. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| GrowSurf | ReferralCandy | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $125 | From $39 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | 7 days |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | 10.5% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Giveaways & Referrals, Affiliate & Referral | Giveaways & Referrals, 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 |
Referral programs priced by participant
GrowSurf runs a refer-a-friend program for a product rather than a one-off giveaway: every participant gets a link, the rewards fire automatically, and the tax paperwork on the payouts is handled. It bills on how many people are in the program rather than on how many you refer, which is unusual and worth understanding before you launch.
Our note
The pricing model is the thing to think hardest about: paying per participant is generous if your referrals convert and punishing if they do not. Run the trial with real traffic before committing to a year.
Refer-a-friend for a shop, on a success fee
ReferralCandy runs the customer referral program for an online store: the reward, the emails chasing it, the fraud checks and the payout. Every plan has every feature and the tiers differ only in the split between a fixed monthly fee and a percentage of the sales the program brings in. Working out which tier is cheapest for you is real arithmetic, and the dearer plans can genuinely cost less.
Our note
Do the arithmetic rather than reading down the price column, because the cheapest plan is the most expensive one past a few thousand dollars of referred sales. The break-even between the first two tiers lands near $600 a month in referred revenue.
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.