Running an affiliate or referral program without the right tool can quickly turn into a mess: manual tracking, coupon leaks, poor attribution, and scattered communication. As DTC brands look to scale through word-of-mouth, influencer content, and customer referrals, having a platform built to manage these programs is very important.

Two of the most popular platforms in this space—Refersion and Social Snowball—offer different approaches to running affiliate campaigns. Refersion is a platform-agnostic digital marketing tool for affiliate management. Social Snowball, on the other hand, is a Shopify-native solution for all types of word-of-mouth programs focused on automation and UGC tracking.

If you're a Shopify brand trying to decide between the two, this comparison breaks down both platforms by pricing, features, automation, and use cases so you can make the right choice for your business.

Overview: Refersion vs Social Snowball at a glance

For medium to enterprise brands, Social Snowball automates most of your processes, offers TikTok Shop integration, and has advanced features like gifting and fraud protection. Whereas, Refersion works well if you want more traditional tracking and a lower starting cost, but don’t mind manual workflows.

Here’s how they differ from each other:

• Refersion
  
  • Ideal for: Small to mid-sized brands running traditional affiliate and ambassador programs with some manual control.
  • Pricing: Starts at $39/month + % of affiliate sales (up to $599/mo).
  • Key features: Custom commissions, post-purchase sign-up, affiliate tracking, and tax form handling.
  • Shopify integration: Native app, but setup and features feel traditional with fewer automation hooks.
  • Automation level: Moderate—onboarding and payouts need manual steps
  • Payout options: One-click PayPal and manual options.

• Social Snowball
  
  • Ideal for: Mid to enterprise-level DTC brands on Shopify scaling with automation, influencer content, and user-generated content.
  • Pricing: Starts at $199/month + 3% of revenue generated through Social Snowball. Enterprise plans are available with custom pricing and 0% revenue share.
  • Key features: Instant affiliate activation post-purchase, Safelinks to prevent coupon leaks, gifting campaigns, influencer management, TikTok Shop integration, UGC tracking, and Klaviyo and Postscript integration.
  • Shopify integration: Deep, native integration—automatically turns every customer into an affiliate on checkout.
  • Automation level: High—onboarding, tracking, payouts, gifting, and content saving are all automated.
  • Payout options: Bulk payouts via Tremendous or Trolley (cash, gift cards, donations).

Category

Refersion

Social Snowball

Best for

Small to mid-sized brands looking for a basic affiliate tool

Medium-to-enterprise DTC brands

Pricing

From $39/mo + % of sales

From $199/mo + 3% of revenue

Key features

Custom commissions, tax forms, PayPal payouts

Fraud protection, gifting, UGC tracking, TikTok Shop, marketing integrations

Shopify integration

Native integration available

Native integration available, built for Shopify

Automation

Partial automation

Fully automated workflows

Payouts

Manual + PayPal

Bulk payouts via Tremendous/Trolley

Refersion: Traditional affiliate platform with broad compatibility 

Best suited for: Small to mid-sized brands (great for beginners) that want a general-purpose affiliate tool with standard tracking and commission features.

Refersion is a plug-and-play affiliate marketing platform built to support merchants across Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and more. Refersion affiliate tool offers flexible commission structures, basic tracking, and a customizable affiliate portal, making it a solid fit for brands looking to run traditional affiliate programs.

Pricing: Starts at $39/month plus 3% of affiliate-attributed sales. Higher plans go up to $599/month with lower revenue shares and more advanced features.

Key features

• Affiliate tracking: Track clicks, conversions, and orders using first-party cookies for better attribution accuracy.
• Post-purchase affiliate sign-up widget: Add a widget to your thank-you page so customers can join your affiliate program right after checkout.
• Manual and bulk onboarding: Add affiliates one by one or upload lists in bulk. There’s no self-serve automation.
• SKU and email-level tracking: Match affiliate sales to specific products or customer emails for more granular insights.
• Performance reporting: View clicks, conversions, revenue, and payout history by affiliate. Segment reports by campaign or offer type.
• Affiliate portal: Affiliates can log in to track their earnings, grab links, and manage their profile.
• One-click PayPal payouts: Use integrated PayPal payouts or export CSVs to pay affiliates manually.
• Multi-store support: Manage affiliate programs for multiple storefronts (available on the Scale plan).
• App integrations: Works with Klaviyo, ReCharge, Bold, Yotpo, and more (30+ integrations).

Pros

• You can use Refersion even if you're not on Shopify. It works across various ecommerce platforms.
• You get flexibility in how you define and assign commissions by SKU, sale type, or customer.
• You have access to built-in tax form collection, which helps manage payouts in the US.
• You can connect it to your broader martech stack with integrations and API access.

Cons

• You’ll need to onboard affiliates and manage outreach yourself manually. Refersion doesn’t offer built-in tools to discover or recruit new partners.
• The platform UI feels outdated, and several users report it’s not intuitive, especially if you're managing a busy store or setting it up solo.
• Reporting is limited and not customizable. You may struggle to pull detailed insights (like commission by SKU or order) unless you work through API support or request manual exports.
• Affiliate marketplace lacks quality control. Within the Refersion marketplace, many of the available affiliates are coupon sites, with little visibility into their social presence or performance history.
• You might get fast customer support responses during onboarding, but ongoing help can be slow or unresponsive.

Choose Refersion if:

• You're not exclusively on Shopify and want platform flexibility.
• Your affiliate program relies on blogs, content sites, or email-based creators.
• You prefer traditional commission management over influencer automation.
• You're comfortable with some manual setup and maintenance.
• You don’t need modern affiliate tools like fraud protection, gifting, or social UGC tracking.

Social Snowball: Affiliate, influencer, and referral programs on automation

Best suited for: Medium to enterprise-level ecommerce brands on Shopify, especially those with lean teams looking to scale affiliate, referral, and influencer programs without manual work.

Social Snowball is a Shopify-native platform built to automate every part of your affiliate, referral, and influencer programs. It turns your customers into affiliates instantly after checkout, tracks referral sales across platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and handles payouts, gifting, and content management, all from one user-friendly dashboard, with no manual work required.

Pricing: Starts at $199/month + 3% of revenue driven through Social Snowball. 

Key features

• Multiple program setup: Run different types of affiliate programs at once (customer referrals, creator campaigns, and influencer partnerships), each with their own rules, commissions, and signup flows.
• Safelinks (fraud protection): Every affiliate link auto-generates a single-use discount code on click to prevent coupon code leaks and abuse.
• Instant post-purchase affiliate activation: Turn every customer into a new affiliate right from the thank-you page—no signup friction or approvals needed.
• TikTok Shop integration and tracking: Track creator performance, save TikTok Shop UGC, and attribute sales directly from social media content.
• Unified affiliate + referral dashboard: Run customer referrals, affiliate programs, and influencer collaborations in the same interface.
• Automated influencer management: Create sign-up forms, send gifts, assign tiers, and bulk manage payouts.
• Gifting campaigns: Send products to creators or top affiliates directly from your dashboard to boost engagement and content creation.

• Tiered commissions and gamification: Segment affiliates by performance, apply custom commission tiers, and run challenges, leaderboards, or giveaways.
• UGC tracking and media library: Automatically save affiliate-tagged posts and TikTok videos to a searchable media library. Track views, sales, and ROI.
• Bulk payouts via Tremendous or Trolley: Send instant payments in cash, gift cards, or donations without any spreadsheets.
• Integration with subscription apps for recurring commissions: Integrate with subscription apps like Stay AI, Skio, etc, to set up recurring commissions for sales generated through subscriptions.
• Automated communication flows: Integrate with SMS and email marketing tools like Klaviyo, Sendlane, or Postscript to auto-send milestone updates, reminders, product launch alerts, and payout notifications.
• Centralized analytics dashboard: See unified revenue attribution across Shopify and TikTok Shop. Track top performers, content ROI, and sales channels.

Pros

• You get a fully automated system that removes manual onboarding, payouts, and content tracking.
• It’s built natively for Shopify, which means cleaner integration, faster setup, and real-time revenue attribution..
• You can manage referrals, affiliates, and influencers all in one place without juggling multiple tools.
• The UI is intuitive and modern, making it easy for your team and affiliate partners to use.
• Social Snowball supports advanced strategies like post-purchase activation, gifting, and social UGC tracking.

Buoy, a hydration brand, replaced its messy, manual affiliate setup with Social Snowball to streamline onboarding, payouts, and tiered commissions. In just 12 months, they drove $400K+ in affiliate revenue, cut CPA to under $20, and reduced affiliate management time by 80%.

Cons

• If you're not on Shopify, you won’t be able to use the platform. It’s Shopify-exclusive.
• Due to the high price point, it’s not suited for smaller brands with limited traffic.
• It’s optimized for performance-based growth. Not a fit if you're only looking for static brand ambassador programs or flat-fee influencer deals.

Choose Social Snowball if:

• You're a fast-growing Shopify brand that wants to scale affiliate, referral, and influencer programs on one platform.
• You want to auto-convert customers into affiliates right after checkout without any manual approval.
• Your team is lean, and you need automated workflows for onboarding, payouts, gifting, and communication.
• You're managing high affiliate volume and want flexible bulk payouts.

How to choose the right platform

Choosing between Social Snowball and Refersion comes down to your brand’s size, goals, tech stack, and how much manual work your team can manage. Both platforms offer affiliate management tools, but they’re built for different types of brands.

Here are some factors to help you decide which platform fits your needs best:

• Team size: 
  
  • If you’re a lean team that can’t afford manual workflows, Social Snowball is built for automation. 
  • But if you have more hands on deck and prefer flexibility across platforms, Refersion works well.
• Budget:
  
  • Social Snowball’s higher price point reflects deeper automation and broader program coverage.
  • Refersion starts at a lower monthly cost, making it a better fit for smaller budgets or brands just setting up their affiliate program.
• Program type:
  
  • If you want to set up customer referrals, influencer, and affiliate programs in one place, choose Social Snowball.
  • If you're running traditional affiliate programs with bloggers or publishers, Refersion covers the basics.
• Automation:
  
  • Social Snowball handles onboarding, link generation, payouts, gifting, and communication automatically.
  • Refersion requires more manual setup and ongoing admin.
• Affiliate vs influencer vs referral focus:
  
  • Choose Social Snowball if you want a unified tool for affiliates, influencers, and referrals, with TikTok and UGC tracking built in.
  • Choose Refersion if your primary focus is running an affiliate marketing program via content creators.
• Existing tech stack:
  
  • If you’re on Shopify and use tools like Klaviyo, Postscript, or TikTok Shop, Social Snowball offers direct, deeper integrations.
  • Refersion is platform agnostic, supporting all ecommerce platforms but with shallower integration.
• Integration needs:
  
  • If you’re using only Shopify and want everything to sync in real time, Social Snowball is the better choice.
  • If you need a platform that works beyond Shopify or plan to manage multiple storefronts, Refersion is more flexible.

Ready to implement influencer marketing strategies with the right tool?

The right platform helps you launch faster, automate the busywork, track every sale, and scale your program without adding to your team’s workload.

If you’re looking for an affiliate software to manage customer referrals, influencer campaigns, and affiliate tracking in one place, Social Snowball is built for you. From post-purchase activation to gifting and UGC tracking, it’s designed to automate every step.