AffRef

Hey everyone!

Started running affiliate programs in 2012 as a publisher on JVZoo, then flipped to the merchant side a few years later when I launched Pawsome Couture (ecom). At one point I was running three affiliate programs across three tools: a Shopify app for Pawsome, a Stripe-based tool for a SaaS side project, and a separate one for my mobile app (the hardest one haha). Three subscriptions, three dashboards, three more things to manage.

The percentage-fee thing was what finally pushed me. Most established affiliate tools take 2-5% on every commission paid out. Get to a $50k/mo attributed-revenue program and you're paying the tool $1-2k/mo on top of the affiliate commissions themselves. Punishment for succeeding.

After putting up with it for years and watching Refersion / Tapfiliate / Impact all keep the same model, I built what I wished existed:

• Flat $49/mo Starter, $99 Pro, $249 Scale. No transaction fees, ever.

• One platform across Shopify + Stripe + Lemon Squeezy + iOS / Android subscription apps via RevenueCat. Same affiliate roster works on every brand.

• Stripe Connect auto-payouts. Affiliates get paid directly from your Stripe balance. I never hold customer funds. No money-services-business compliance, no float, no custody.

• No marketplace. Your affiliate list stays yours. Competitor offers don't show up to the people you recruit. Giving your affiliate leads to Refersion really baffles me.

• Self-serve. Sign up with a card, 7-day trial, no sales call ever. Founder (me) reads every chat message in the widget.

Called AffRef. Live for about a year, ran Pawsome's program on it for the last 6 months before opening it up to other merchants.

Not posting a launch in the traditional sense (the product's already shipped), more sharing the operator angle in case anyone else here has been on the same treadmill. Curious which part resonates most: was it the percentage fees, the multi-tool stack, the demo-call walls, or something else that pushed you off whatever you're using today?

Site: affref.com if you want to poke around.

Cheers!