Customer referral software

ViralPayouts vs Referral Factory

ViralPayouts has no monthly fee, pays your affiliates for you and pays recruiters on every program. You pay 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3%, and nothing in a month when nobody sells. With Referral Factory, paying affiliates for you is optional or extra and does not say it has two-tier recruiting. It costs $200 to $1,000 a month.

Every figure for Referral Factory comes from its own pages or named review sites, checked 12 October 2026. Sources are listed at the bottom.

Why brands pick ViralPayouts over Referral Factory

Best fit: A brand that wants pay-for-performance pricing, partners who recruit partners, and inbound partners from a public directory.

$0 a month
No plan and no setup fee. 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3% at $10,000 a month.
Payouts done for you
One invoice per program. ViralPayouts sends every partner and recruiter their money and collects tax forms.
Recruiters built in
Customer links and recruit links on every program, with the override set your way and reversed on refunds.

Start a program free

Side by side

	Referral Factory	ViralPayouts
Price	$200 to $1,000 a monthTerm: None on monthly; annual saves 20% but is non-refundable; card required for trial and auto-charged	$0 a month. 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3% at $10,000 a month.
Setup fee	Not stated	None
Fee for paying affiliates	None from Referral Factory; PayPal Payouts fees passed through by PayPal (US $0.25 per transaction; international 2% capped by country)	Included in the fee above: no charge to the brand for sending payoutsPartners pay Whop's own fee when they withdraw to their bank
Pays your affiliates for you	Optionalvia Brand's own PayPal Business account or Tremendous	Yes You fund by bank transfer; we pay every partner
Two-tier recruiting	Not stated	Yes Two levels on every program: share of commission, share of sale or fixed. Paid on approved sales, never sign-ups
Public program directory	No	Yes Partners browse and join with one account
Tracking	referral links; referral codes; CSV uploads; API	First-party links with click IDs, signed server-to-server events, Stripe Checkout webhook
Coupon tracking	Partly	Yes A code per partner, per program
Mobile app tracking	Not stated	App installs, sign-ups and purchases reported from your server through the signed event API, with bounties on them. No SDK to ship in your app.
API, webhooks, MCP	API, webhooks	REST API for brands and partners with an OpenAPI spec, an MCP server for AI agents, a signed event API and partner postbacks
Integrations	HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive, Intercom	Stripe Checkout, Shopify orders, any backend via the event API

Referral Factory plans in full

Basic: $200 a month. 20,000 users (referrers + invitees), unlimited campaigns, all integrations, webhooks and API, PayPal payouts. Shown at $100/month during an October 2026 'half price' promo for new customers
Pro: $400 a month. 40,000 users; white label, own domain, SAML SSO, teammates, guided onboarding. Shown at $200/month during October promo
Enterprise: $1000 a month. 'starting'; 100,000+ users, dedicated account manager, self-hosted data, custom HTML, invoice billing; 20% off annually

Pricing source

Where ViralPayouts comes out ahead of Referral Factory

What Referral Factory offers

'Referral-ready' businesses with existing word of mouth: mid-market, enterprise and multi-location firms in solar, SaaS, insurance, financial services, education, home services, wellness, crypto and similar; affiliates/partners are an optional add-on to the customer referral program.

Customer referral software · G2 4.8 (192 reviews)

Why ViralPayouts is the better choice

Two levels built in with recruit links and overrides; not found in Referral Factory
No monthly fee vs $200-$1,000+/month; ViralPayouts only charges 10% falling to 3% of what is paid to partners
Public directory of live programs partners can browse and join with one account
ViralPayouts pays partners for the brand via Whop; Referral Factory needs the brand's own PayPal Business account and passes PayPal fees on

What Referral Factory users say

Paraphrased from public reviews. Follow each link to read the original.

Praise

Clean, intuitive dashboard that is easy to learn g2.com
Quick, well-guided setup; campaigns launched with little effort g2.com
Responsive, helpful support g2.com

Complaints

Limited customisation of landing pages, emails and layouts g2.com
Advanced features have a learning curve g2.com
Missing or incomplete integrations such as Shopify, PayPal and fuller webhook access g2.com

About Referral Factory

In their words:: "You have the customers. Now get them referring." (homepage H1); title: "Referral Program Software to Build, Track & Reward Referrals"
Company:: Founded 2020 · Founded by Kirsty Sharman (CEO); CTO Alik Arakelov
Team:: 'A small team'; About page lists 9 people plus an AI agent
Named customers:: Unnamed case studies only: regulated B2B fintech (8x better conversion than paid ads), vocational school (6,600+ referrals, 56% conversion), solar company ($8m in referrals), healthcare SMB (47% conversion)
Website:: referral-factory.com

Try ViralPayouts on test money

Set your commission and recruiter override, see what each sale costs you, and run it on the test network before a real partner joins. No monthly fee.

Start a program See pricing

More comparisons

All comparisons

Sources for Referral Factory (13), checked 12 October 2026

Referral Factory is a trademark of its owner. ViralPayouts is not affiliated with Referral Factory. Prices and features change: check referral-factory.com before you decide. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we will fix it.