You have agreed a percentage with a creator, and something has to decide which sales count. The number you argue about at month end is whatever the tracking software recorded. These tools also run customer refer-a-friend programs, a different configuration and not the subject here. The worry people arrive with, that the cheap plan caps how many creators you can sign, is the wrong one.
What an attributed sale is made of
Three parts. The capture is the moment the tool learns a creator was involved: a click on a link carrying a parameter, or a coupon code typed at checkout. The identifier is what gets stored against that visitor. The conversion event is your store or billing system reporting that money moved. The identifier breaks, because it must survive on somebody else’s device for days.
Link and coupon attribution fail differently. A link needs the parameter intact and the identifier to persist, and Rewardful sets a first-party cookie when a visitor follows one. A coupon needs neither, and Tapfiliate presents coupon tracking as attribution without links, suited to influencer and offline promotion. That resilience is the weakness: a code credits its owner whether or not the buyer saw that creator.
First touch credits the first creator in the chain, last touch the most recent, and the brand picks. Rewardful lists first or last touch attribution on its cheapest paid plan; Tapfiliate states a last cookie counts rule. And check the tool can see your sales: Rewardful’s FAQ answers using it without Stripe or Paddle with a flat no.
The entry plan does not cap creators, it caps attributed revenue
Read on each vendor’s pricing page 2026-09-08, linked under Sources.
| Vendor | Entry plan | What the price meters | Next tiers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rewardful | Starter, $49 | $7,500 a month from affiliates. Unlimited affiliates | $99 to $15,000; $149 and up above |
| FirstPromoter | Starter, $49 | $5,000 a month affiliate revenue. Max 1000 affiliates | $99 to $15,000 unlimited affiliates; $149 and up |
| Tapfiliate | Launch, $89 | 50 affiliates, 5000 clicks, 500 conversions. Overage $1.50 and $15 per 1000 | $179 unlimited affiliates, 100 000 clicks; custom |
| Post Affiliate Pro | Starter, $89 | 10 000 tracking requests, meaning impressions, events, clicks and sales. Unlimited affiliates. Extra $5 per 10k | Pro $139 for 1M, Ultimate $269 for 6M, Network $649 for 20M |
| LeadDyno | Lite, $49 | 50 active affiliates. Unlimited clicks and conversions on all plans | Essential $129 for 150, Advanced $349 for 500, Unlimited $749 |
| GoAffPro | Hobby, free | Unlimited affiliates, sales, revenue. Suggested under 100 daily orders | Premium $49, Business from $99 |
| UpPromote | Free, $0 | 1 program, 1 coupon per affiliate, and a line reading $3,000 referral review per month | $29.99 plus 2% of referral sales, $89.99 plus 1.5%, $199.99 plus 1% |
| Trackdesk | Business, $299 | 5 seats, 10 active offers, 100 coupon tracking | $359 uncapped; PLUS from $1,199 |
Rewardful, GoAffPro and Post Affiliate Pro put unlimited affiliate wording on their cheapest tier and meter attributed revenue or tracked requests instead. UpPromote meters neither, taking a percentage of referral sales on top of the subscription. Two do count people: LeadDyno’s Lite states 50 active affiliates, its whole ladder built on that, and Tapfiliate’s Launch states 50. At twelve creators that is fine. At two hundred it is the whole problem. Same argument as what the meter counts in link tooling.
What happens at the threshold is stated on some pages, not others. Post Affiliate Pro and Tapfiliate publish overage rates, so passing an allowance is a bill, not a stoppage. Rewardful’s help centre says the customer is notified and upgraded as affiliate revenue grows, and the limit counts full sale value, not commission. FirstPromoter states its bands but not what crossing one does. Where a page is silent, do not assume it degrades gracefully.
The attribution window is a program setting, not usually a price tier
On every self-serve tool checked the window is configured inside the program, not sold as a tier. The phrase to look for is cookie time or cookie lifetime. Rewardful states a default 60 day window, configurable per campaign, defined as how long a click stays eligible for attribution. Tapfiliate’s default is 45 days, capped at 365.
Tapfiliate’s pricing page does carry a customizable cookie time row, marked on all three tiers with ticks rather than numbers, so it does not say what values a tier allows. The trap is on the same page: the 7, 14 and 30 beside Launch, Scale and Enterprise are trial lengths, as its FAQ confirms, not attribution windows.
The ceiling on a long window is whether the identifier survives, not the plan. Rewardful documents first-party cookies because third-party cookies have been squeezed by browsers, and Tapfiliate requires cookies enabled in the store and browser. A window is permission to credit, not proof the evidence exists. [EVIDENCE NEEDED: a vendor or browser document stating a maximum lifetime a browser will honour for a first-party tracking cookie.] So: open the trial, find the cookie time field, put that number in the deal.
Where the attribution quietly fails
- The code that escapes. A coupon posted to a deals forum credits its creator for buyers who never saw them. The reverse hurts too: a buyer clicks the link, then applies a site-wide code, and neither mechanism cleanly claims the sale.
- Renewals. Rewardful exposes maximum commissions per customer and maximum commission period, so a program can pay on the first three payments, stop after twelve months, or both. Tapfiliate separates recurring commissions, paid on each renewal, from lifetime commissions, which tie the customer permanently to the first affiliate.
- Cross-device. The click happens in a social app’s in-app browser, the purchase on a laptop that evening: two cookie jars, one lost referral.
- Refunds and chargebacks. Rewardful has a days before commissions become due setting and advises aligning it with your refund policy. Tapfiliate defaults conversions to pending and subtracts an already paid commission from the affiliate’s balance if disapproved.
- Anything that strips the parameter. Tapfiliate’s article on missing referrers lists direct entry, bookmarks, links opened from an email or messaging app, HTTPS to HTTP transitions, privacy extensions, proxies and rel=”noreferrer”. A shortener or redirect chain is the same failure, which is why a link convention that survives a handoff matters, and why analytics may separately report the referral as direct.
The half of the category that does not publish a price
Impact’s pricing URL redirected on 2026-09-08 to a get started page: a demo request for brands, a marketplace signup for creators, no figure. PartnerStack publishes three named plans, Launch, Growth and Enterprise, each with a book your demo button instead of a price; its FAQ says pricing depends on program size, feature needs and support level. Everflow’s page is a pricing request form, and the revealing part is what it asks: monthly affiliate payouts, banded under $10K, $10K to $50K, $50K to $250K, and $250K to $1M and above. A quote-only vendor is not expensive, it is unpriced, and the only way to learn the number is to ask for it.
What to settle before the commission deal is signed
Picture a skincare brand agreeing 15% with a creator posting to Instagram and a newsletter. Six terms, and the test is whether a stranger reading it a year later computes the same number.
The window, in days. “60 days from last click”, not “a reasonable period”. First or last touch. Name one, or two creators in a chain both believe they are owed. Coupon, link, or both. If both are live, say which governs when they disagree. Renewals. “First payment only”, “every renewal for twelve months”, or “every payment”. The clawback period. “Payable 30 days after the sale, refunded orders reversed”, matched to your refund window. Payout timing. When confirmed money leaves, and any minimum balance first.
The tool enforces three of the six once configured: the window, the touch rule, and whether renewals earn. It cannot arbitrate the other three: which mechanism wins a conflict, what the clawback means in practice, and when money moves. Then getting the creator agreement signed is the next step.
FAQ
Can I run a creator commission program on a free plan?
Two of these publish one. GoAffPro’s Hobby plan is free and states unlimited affiliates, sales and revenue, suggested for merchants under 100 daily orders. UpPromote’s Free plan is $0 with one program and a line reading $3,000 referral review per month; its Growth card states 300 for the same field, so confirm the unit before treating it as a revenue cap. The first upgrade is forced by revenue or tracked volume, not by adding creators.
What happens when the program passes the plan’s revenue threshold?
Only Rewardful states it plainly: the customer is notified and moved to a higher plan as affiliate revenue grows, and the limit counts full sale value including renewals. Post Affiliate Pro and Tapfiliate publish overage rates, so exceeding an allowance is billed. FirstPromoter states the bands but not the consequence. Where a page does not say whether tracking stops or overage is charged, get that in writing before launch.
Sources
All fetched 2026-09-08.
- Rewardful pricing
- Rewardful revenue limit
- Rewardful cookie validity
- Rewardful campaign settings
- Rewardful third-party cookies
- FirstPromoter pricing
- Tapfiliate pricing
- Tapfiliate cookie duration
- Tapfiliate coupon codes
- Tapfiliate missing referrers
- Tapfiliate refunds
- Tapfiliate recurring commissions
- Post Affiliate Pro pricing
- LeadDyno pricing
- GoAffPro pricing
- UpPromote pricing
- Trackdesk pricing
- PartnerStack pricing
- Everflow pricing
- Impact get started
followedapp is published by the team behind RecurPost, and RecurPost is covered here under the same rules as every other vendor. Prices verified 2026-09-08 on vendor pages. Not Watchdog data, not on the re-verification schedule.