Comparison
Both run affiliate programs on Stripe. The difference is who pays your affiliates. On Rewardful, automating payouts means Managed Payouts, which their help centre documents at a 3% processing fee; the 0% on their pricing page refers to the plan. On AffiliateRail payouts run from your own PayPal or Wise account and we take 0%, from $29 a month founding against their $49 Starter. Rewardful has the longer track record and the better documentation, and this page says where that decides it.
No card. Your published affiliate links keep working.
The difference
Rewardful has run Stripe affiliate programs for years. It shows in the documentation and the integration list. AffiliateRail differs on one decision: it never holds your money. Rewardful's pricing page says 0% transaction fee, and that is true of the plan itself. Automating payouts is a separate service, Managed Payouts. Their help centre documents a 3% processing fee on each payout. You fund Rewardful, and Rewardful pays your affiliates.
| Where they differ | Rewardful | AffiliateRail |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $49 a month on their published Starter plan, to $7,500 of affiliate revenue | $29 a month founding, to $10,000 of affiliate revenue |
| Payout fee | 0% transaction fee on the plan, per their pricing page. Automating payouts uses Managed Payouts, documented at a 3% processing fee per payout | 0%. AffiliateRail never takes a cut of a payout, and there is no separate payouts product |
| Who holds the money | On Managed Payouts, you fund Rewardful and Rewardful pays your affiliates | Non-custodial. Your own PayPal or Wise account pays the affiliate |
| Affiliate portal languages | English | Thirteen languages, on your own domain from the $29 plan |
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.
| Plan | Ceiling | Price | Automated payouts |
|---|---|---|---|
| AffiliateRail Launch | to $10,000 a month | $29 founding, $59 after | No |
| AffiliateRail Grow | to $20,000 a month | $59 founding, $89 after | Yes |
| AffiliateRail Scale | to $50,000 a month | $99 founding, $179 after | Yes |
| Rewardful Starter | to $7,500 a month | $49 a month | Yes |
| Rewardful Growth | to $15,000 a month | $99 a month | Yes |
| Rewardful Enterprise | no published ceiling | from $149 a month | Not published |
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.
14 days free, no card. 0% of every payout.
01 Custody
This is the part their pricing page does not answer. It says 0% transaction fee, and that is true of the plan. Automating payouts is a separate service, Managed Payouts. Their own help centre describes it. You fund Rewardful. Rewardful pays your affiliates. A 3% processing fee comes off each payout.
Neither arrangement is wrong. The trade is convenience against control.
02 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.
03 The product
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.
Credit where due
No product wins on every axis. A comparison page that pretends otherwise is not worth reading. Rewardful is the most mature product on this list, and there are real reasons founders pick it.
The most complete documentation in the category. That matters when you are wiring something into your billing and want the edge cases written down.
Years of live SaaS programs behind it, so the failure modes have been found by someone other than you.
A longer list of third-party integrations, which counts if your stack already depends on one of them.
Automated payouts on their entry plan. AffiliateRail's begin on the $59 plan.
Switching
The importer reads your Rewardful account through their API. It brings affiliates, their links and their commission history across. Rewardful links carry the via parameter, and our tracking script reads it. So links published years ago keep converting while you run both side by side. The switch guide covers what carries, what does not, and the order to do it in.
Questions
On published plan prices, $29 against $49 at entry. At the top of their published range, $99 against $149. The payout question is separate from the plan. Rewardful's pricing page states 0% transaction fee. Their Managed Payouts service, which is how payouts get automated, is documented at 3% per payout. AffiliateRail takes 0% and has no separate payouts product, because you pay from your own account. On $8,000 of monthly payouts, a 3% fee is $240 a month. The true-cost calculator runs it on your own numbers.
Documentation and track record. Rewardful has run Stripe affiliate programs for years. Its documentation is the most complete in the category, and its integration list is longer. If maturity weighs more with you than payout economics, that is a fair way to weigh it.
Both read Stripe. AffiliateRail rides the billing provider's own reference field rather than a cookie, so an ad blocker cannot lose a conversion. Subscriptions, upgrades, cancellations and refunds flow back and correct the commission on their own. Paddle is supported as well as Stripe.
Yes. The importer reads affiliates, their links and their commission history straight from Rewardful's API, or from CSV. The tracking script reads Rewardful's via parameter, so the links your affiliates already published keep working through the change. The Rewardful switch guide covers the order and what does not carry.
Sources
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.
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