ReferralCandy vs Viral Loops Comparison 2026
ReferralCandy runs a referral program for a store and charges $39 a month plus a 10.5 percent success fee on the sales it brings in, a percentage that falls as you move up its tiers. Viral Loops charges a flat $35 a month with no success fee at all, but the templates it ships, a waiting list, a milestone giveaway, a refer-a-friend, are priced by how many participants run through them rather than by sales. ReferralCandy suits a store with steady, higher-volume sales where the flat fee beats the percentage. Viral Loops suits a one-off launch with a known audience size.
Refer-a-friend for a shop, on a success fee
Referral programs from templates, per campaign
At a glance
- Viral Loops starts cheaper, at $35.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
ReferralCandy | Viral Loops | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $39 | From $35 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial (they differ) | 7 days | 14 days |
| API |
ReferralCandy
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.
Viral Loops
Referral programs from templates, per campaign
Viral Loops ships templates for the referral mechanics that already worked for somebody else, a waiting list, a milestone giveaway, a straight refer-a-friend, and lets you run one without building it. Participants import and export as a list, so it plugs into whatever you already send email with. Pricing rises with the number of participants rather than with features.
Why people weigh these two
- Viral Loops instead of ReferralCandy
- Viral Loops builds a referral push from a template sized to one campaign, rather than a standing program billed against ongoing sales.
- ReferralCandy instead of Viral Loops
- ReferralCandy runs on a success fee plus a $39 base for online shops specifically, a narrower fit than Viral Loops' template range across other launches.
Which one should you pick
Choose ReferralCandy if your store already sells steadily and you would rather pay a percentage than build anything yourself: every plan has every feature, and the 10.5 percent fee on the entry tier applies only to net-new customers the program brings in. Do the arithmetic before picking a tier, since the break-even between the first two plans lands near $600 a month in referred revenue, past which the dearer plan is actually cheaper.
Choose Viral Loops if you are launching something once, a waiting list or a milestone giveaway, and want a flat bill with no cut of sales: $35 a month covers the entry tier with import and export on every plan. The 14-day trial gives full features but caps at ten participants, enough to prove the mechanic works and nothing about scale. Anybody running an ongoing store referral program with real sales volume should price ReferralCandy's fee against this flat rate first.
Common questions
- Does Viral Loops take a cut of sales like ReferralCandy does?
- No. Viral Loops charges a flat monthly fee starting at $35, priced by how many participants run through the campaign. ReferralCandy charges $39 a month plus a 10.5 percent success fee on the net-new sales its referral program brings in.
- Which is cheaper, ReferralCandy or Viral Loops?
- It depends on sales volume, not just the sticker price. Viral Loops' flat $35 a month never changes. ReferralCandy's $39 a month plus 10.5 percent can cost far more once referred sales are real, though its own numbers show a dearer tier becoming the cheaper choice past about $600 a month in referred revenue.
- Can I try either one before paying?
- Yes, on different terms. ReferralCandy gives a 7-day trial. Viral Loops gives 14 days of full access to its Growing plan, capped at ten participants, enough to test the mechanic and not enough to run a real campaign.
- Which one includes full API access on the cheapest plan?
- ReferralCandy does, on every tier including the entry plan. Viral Loops reserves the API for its second tier and above, so the $35 entry plan does not include it.
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