Switching
Moving from Affonso to AffiliateRail
Published 1 September 2026. Every price and technical claim on this page was checked against its live source on that date.
The short version
Your affiliates come across by CSV import, links carrying the common referral parameters keep converting through the switch, and the money model changes completely: no overage on a good month, and payouts that run through your own PayPal or Wise at 0% instead of a managed-payout invoice. One thing to say up front, because it is true: below $1,000 a month of affiliate revenue, Affonso is cheaper than anything we sell. This page is for programs that have grown past that.
Where each product is genuinely cheaper
Most switch pages start with the technical steps. This one starts with money, because Affonso's pricing is the reason people choose it and the reason people leave it, and both deserve to be looked at straight.
Affonso's published rates (their pricing guide, checked 1 September 2026; their pricing page displays local currency and yearly-billing discounts) are $15 Launch up to $1,000 a month of affiliate revenue, $39 Growth up to $10,000, $99 Elite up to $30,000, and Enterprise from $149 above that. Above your plan's cap, their overage is $19 per additional $1,000 of affiliate revenue, billed at the end of the cycle, and their help centre notes that tracking and affiliate signups can pause once the cap is exceeded until you upgrade or the overage is paid (their FAQ, checked the same day).
| Monthly revenue from affiliates | Affonso, cheapest configuration | AffiliateRail founding | AffiliateRail list |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | from $15 (Launch) | $29 (Launch) | $59 |
| $10,000 | from $39 (Growth) | $29 (Launch) | $59 |
| $15,000 | from $99 (Elite), or $134 (Growth plus overage) | $59 (Grow) | $89 |
| $30,000 | from $99 (Elite) | $99 (Scale) | $179 |
Read it honestly and it says: they win small programs, the two products cross somewhere around $10,000 a month, and above that the overage becomes the real price. $19 per $1,000 is a 1.9% marginal rate on your best months. AffiliateRail has no overage at any volume: cross your band and nothing breaks, nothing pauses, nothing is charged, and you get a week to decide whether to move up a plan. Tracking never stops.
The other structural difference is payouts. Affonso's managed payouts, on Growth and Elite, work by invoice: a $25 service fee per monthly invoice (waived on Elite), $0.50 per affiliate beyond 25, and a payment surcharge of 3.25% via Stripe or 2.8% via Revolut, with your affiliates paid after your invoice clears (their help centre, checked 1 September 2026). AffiliateRail's automated payouts run through your own PayPal Business or Wise Business account, on your schedule, and we take 0% of them, structurally, because your money never passes through us. The whole argument is on the custody page, and you can run the totals at your own volume.
What your links do through the cutover
The AffiliateRail tracker reads the generic referral parameters (via, ref, aff) that many Affonso programs use in their links, so links in that form keep attributing from the day you add our script. Affonso's own parameters (affonso, atp) are being added to the tracker now. That work is in progress as this page is written, and we would rather tell you that than let you find out mid-migration: if your links rely on those two parameters, email us first and we will tell you plainly whether the capture has shipped, or handle the overlap for you as part of a white-glove migration.
What comes over, and how
Your affiliate list imports by CSV: export your partners' names, emails and link identifiers, and our importer maps the columns and creates each affiliate with the same identity. Re-running the import matches rather than duplicates. A direct importer that reads Affonso's API is being built; until it ships, commission history depends on what your account can export, and we will tell you before you start exactly what will and will not come across. This is the migration we most prefer to run white-glove: you give us a screen-share and an hour, and we do the rest. Email support@affiliaterail.com.
The switch, step by step
- Create your AffiliateRail program and connect Stripe. The connection is read-only: we read subscription events to attribute sales, and we cannot write to your Stripe account.
- Import your affiliates from CSV and check the count against your Affonso dashboard.
- Add the tracking script to your site.
- Invite your affiliates to the new portal. Their identity and links are already there when they arrive.
- Remove the Affonso script and close the account once you have watched a few referrals land. Running both trackers for a day or two costs nothing and lets you compare.
What does not carry over
- Portal passwords. Your affiliates set a new password from their invite. Identity and links carry; logins do not.
- Raw click logs. We import people, not historical click-by-click traffic records. Click counting starts fresh on our side.
- Cookies already set on visitors' devices. A visitor referred last week carries Affonso's attribution, not ours. The moment they click any affiliate link again, we attribute them. No vendor can transfer another vendor's cookies.
- Marketplace listing and discovery credits. Affonso runs an affiliate marketplace; AffiliateRail does not have one. If marketplace discovery is a live channel for you today, weigh that before switching, because we will not replace it.
All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. Comparisons are based on publicly available information as of 1 September 2026. If a linked source has changed since, tell us at support@affiliaterail.com and we will correct this page.