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.
| Viral Loops | ViralSweep | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $35 | From $49 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | 7 days |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| 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 | 1 |
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.
Our note
The ten-participant cap on the trial is the thing to plan around: it proves the mechanics work and tells you nothing about scale. Against UpViral this is cheaper at the entry tier and gives away less of the API.
Sweepstakes and contests that stay compliant
ViralSweep runs the giveaway and, more to the point, runs the legal side of it: official rules, entry records, winner selection and the bonding a US sweepstakes needs above a prize threshold. Gleam is cheaper and lighter. This is the one to use when the prize is big enough that getting it wrong matters.
Our note
Gleam does the mechanics for less. The reason to pay four times as much here is the rules, the records and the bonding, which only matter above a prize value most creators never reach.
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.