Refersion - the practical guide.

Refersion is an affiliate and influencer tracking SaaS built for ecommerce, with deep native integration into Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce. It lets brands run their own programme - own the publisher relationships, own the data, set the commercial terms - without paying network override fees on top of commissions.

DTC and ecommerce brands ready to manage affiliates and influencers in-house. Particularly strong for brands recruiting their own creators and ambassadors and wanting first-party tracking inside Shopify. Less of a fit when you need access to an established publisher network from day one - use Awin or ShareASale.

Plans start around USD 99/month for Professional, scaling to USD 249/month for Business and custom Enterprise pricing. Tiers are gated by tracked monthly orders and feature depth. There's also Refersion Marketplace for opt-in publisher discovery, with separate fees.

Right when you want to own the programme, avoid network override fees and run affiliate/influencer in one place tied to Shopify orders. Wrong fit when you have no ability to recruit and need a network's publisher base, or when you're at enterprise scale and need impact.com's contract granularity.

Owning the programme means owning recruitment - budget time or agency spend for outreach. Tracked-order tiers can push you up plans faster than expected during peak. Marketplace publishers skew small; they help cold-start but won't replace network reach. Reporting is solid but less deep than enterprise platforms.