Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover monetization & payments. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Ko-fi | Refersion | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $12 | From $39 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | 3% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Monetization & Payments, Memberships & Subscriptions, Tips & Donations | Affiliate & Referral, Monetization & Payments |
| Works with | YouTube, Twitch | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Tips, memberships and a shop with no platform cut
Ko-fi takes nothing from tips on the free plan, which no other platform of its size does. Memberships, commissions and digital downloads all work from the same page. It is lighter than Patreon in every direction, which is often the point.
Our note
The best free option for somebody who mostly gets tipped, and worth weighing against Patreon the moment memberships become the larger half of the income. Do the Gold arithmetic yourself rather than taking the upgrade prompt's word for it.
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Affiliate programs for ecommerce brands
Refersion tracks affiliate sales first-party, without a third-party cookie, which is what keeps attribution working now that browsers throw those away. Its marketplace is the other half: affiliates browse offers and apply, so a new program is not starting from an empty list. Pricing charges a percentage of affiliate-driven sales on top of the monthly fee, and that percentage falls as the plan gets dearer.
Our note
The percentage on top is what separates this from Tapfiliate's flat pricing. A program doing $20,000 a month through affiliates pays around $640 here and $89 there, so Refersion has to win on the marketplace to be worth 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.
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