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Comparison

AffiliateRail vs Dub

Dub is the best-built tool here. It charges you twice. $90 a month, then 5% of every payout it makes. AffiliateRail is $29 and takes 0%. Why? The money never touches AffiliateRail, so there is no cut to take. Say your affiliates bring in $40,000 a month. You pay out 25%. Dub costs $590. AffiliateRail costs $99. But Dub gives you a marketplace and an in-app partner dashboard. AffiliateRail has neither. So the real question is simple. Are those worth a fee that grows every month your program works?

Written by Jimi Barkway, who built AffiliateRail. Jimi has run affiliate programs from both sides of the link. Corrections go to support@affiliaterail.com. Published 5 September 2026. Updated 6 September 2026.

Run AffiliateRail beside Dub for 14 days and compare the bills

No card. Your published affiliate links keep working.

The difference

What is the difference between AffiliateRail and Dub?

Both track sales. Both pay partners worldwide. Both handle tax forms. One thing differs: who moves the money. Dub pays your partners for you, through Stripe, and takes 5% for doing it. AffiliateRail logs into your own PayPal or Wise and pays from there. Nothing passes through AffiliateRail. So there is no cut to take. Dub is the richer product. AffiliateRail is the smaller bill, and the gap grows as you grow.

Where they differDubAffiliateRail
Entry price$90 a month. Advanced is $300. Both get a 14-day trial$29 a month founding, kept for as long as you stay. 14 days free, no card
Fee on payouts5% on Business and Advanced. 3% on Enterprise. Printed in their own table0%. The money never reaches AffiliateRail, so there is nothing to take a cut of
Payout allowance$2.5K of payouts a month on Business. $15K on Advanced. Unlimited on EnterpriseNo allowance. Payouts are not ours to count. Plans band on what affiliates earn you
Who holds the moneyDub pays your partner through Stripe once you have paid Dub in fullYour own PayPal or Wise pays your partner. AffiliateRail never holds it
The bill at $40,000 a month$590. That is $90, plus 5% of the $10,000 you paid out$99, however much you pay out
Finding partnersA marketplace where partners can find you. Plus an AI page builderNo marketplace. You bring your partners. The manual shows you where to look
What partners seeA white-label dashboard inside your app, on Advanced. Email campaigns. A message centreA branded portal on your own domain, from the $29 plan
Tax formsTax compliance on all three plansW-9 and W-8BEN collected in the portal. Payouts wait until the form is in

Cost

What does each one cost?

Published plan prices on both sides. They come from the same verified figures that drive the calculator. Our founding price is held for the life of the subscription. The list price is what a plan costs once the founding places are gone.

PlanCeilingPriceAutomated payouts
AffiliateRail Launchto $10,000 a month$29 founding, $59 afterNo
AffiliateRail Growto $20,000 a month$59 founding, $89 afterYes
AffiliateRail Scaleto $50,000 a month$99 founding, $179 afterYes
Dub Businessto $2,500 a month of partner payouts$90 a month, $81 a month billed yearly (yearly billing is a 10% discount on their page)Yes
Dub Advancedto $15,000 a month of partner payouts$300 a month, $270 a month billed yearly (yearly billing is a 10% discount on their page)Yes

Plan price is not the whole bill. A payout fee is a slice the platform takes out of the money you send your partners. It is charged on top of your plan, and a good month changes it. The true-cost calculator does the arithmetic on your own numbers.

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01 Custody

Who holds the money when affiliates get paid?

Here is the difference everything else comes from.

Dub's partner terms say Dub "has no obligation to pay any Commission" until the client has paid in full. Then it deposits the money "via Stripe". So the cash goes from you, through Dub, to your partner. Moving other people's money is a real job with real legal weight. The 5% is what pays for it.

AffiliateRail works out who is owed what. Then it logs into your own PayPal or Wise and pays them. The money leaves your account and lands in theirs. It never comes near AffiliateRail. That is why 0% is a fact about the plumbing, not an offer.

Who holds the money in betweenMoney leaves your account and arrives with your affiliate. Between the two there is a gap with a question mark: who is holding it, and for how long.Your PayPal or WiseYour account, your credentialsYour affiliateReceives what you send?Who is holding it in between, and for how long?Almost no vendor says, anywhere on their site.

02 On AffiliateRail

Where does the money go on AffiliateRail?

AffiliateRail never holds it. You connect your own PayPal or Wise account. We work out who is owed what and tell your account to pay. The money goes from you to your affiliate and never passes through us.

So we take 0% of every payout, on every plan. There is no cut to take when the money never arrives. The custody page has every platform's own position, with sources.

How a payout moves on AffiliateRailMoney goes from your PayPal or Wise account straight to your affiliate. AffiliateRail works out the amounts and tells your account to pay; it never receives the money.Your PayPal or WiseYour account, your credentialsYour affiliateReceives what you sendAffiliateRailworks out who is owed whatthe money, all of ittells your account to payAMoney never enters AffiliateRail

03 The product

What does the product look like?

One dashboard for the program: affiliates, referrals, commissions and payouts. Your affiliates get a portal on your own domain, from the $29 plan. It comes in thirteen languages.

Tracking rides the Stripe or Paddle reference field. Not a cookie an ad blocker can drop. Payouts run from your own PayPal or Wise account on a schedule. The founder answers support.

Every screen, from its own menu. Recorded on a demo program.

In their words

What Dub's own terms say

Dub has no obligation to pay any Commission, and is not responsible for any Commission amounts until payment has been received in full from the responsible Client; Commission payments will be deposited into your account via Stripe (or via PayPal only if Stripe is unavailable in your country);

Dub Partner Terms, checked 5 September 2026

Credit where due

Where Dub is the better choice

No product wins on every axis. A comparison page that pretends otherwise is not worth reading. Dub is the best-built tool in this category. There are good reasons to pick it over us.

  • The marketplace. Partners who are already looking can find you. No software replaces that, and AffiliateRail has nothing like it.

  • The in-app partner dashboard on Advanced. Your customers see what they have earned without leaving your product.

  • Bounties, dual-sided rewards and group rules. Ways to pay partners that go well past a flat percentage.

  • Risk monitoring, email campaigns and messaging in one place. You recruit and police partners where the data already is.

  • One-click moves from five platforms, live analytics, a REST API, an MCP server and an AI page builder. It is a serious product.

Switching

How do you move a program from Dub?

There is no Dub importer yet. So the move runs on CSV. Export your partners, customers and commissions. The importer does a practice run first. Published links keep working, because our script reads the via tag Dub uses. The big change is the money. You pay from your own PayPal or Wise, and partners enter their details again.

Read the Dub switch guide

Questions

Common questions

Is AffiliateRail cheaper than Dub?

Yes. $29 founding against $90. The gap then grows, because Dub takes 5% of every payout and AffiliateRail takes none. At $40,000 a month of affiliate revenue on a 25% rate, that is about $590 against $99. Run your own numbers on the calculator.

Does Dub hold my money?

Dub pays your partners through Stripe for you. Its terms say Dub is not responsible for a commission until you have paid in full. So it sits in the middle. That is what the 5% buys. AffiliateRail logs into your own account instead and never holds it.

What does Dub do that AffiliateRail does not?

A partner marketplace. An in-app white-label dashboard. Bounties, dual-sided rewards, risk monitoring, email campaigns and a message centre. If any of those decide it for you, Dub is the better buy.

Will my affiliates' links break if I move?

No. Dub links carry a via tag. Our script reads it, plus seventeen other platforms' tags. Every link your partners published keeps paying them from the day the script goes on. Nothing to re-publish.

Sources

Where these facts come from

Every claim about another product here was read off their own pages. The date shown is the day it was read. Prices change, and then this page is wrong until we fix it. Email support@affiliaterail.com and we will correct it and move the date.

Start

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