ReferralCandy vs UpPromote

UpPromote Alternative: Why Brands Choose ReferralCandy

Looking for an UpPromote alternative? ReferralCandy brings affiliates and customer referrals together in one place, with unlimited referrals, post-purchase referral pop-ups and brand-lift insights built in.

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Feature comparison at a glance

Let’s compare ReferralCandy and UpPromote side by side. Explore key features, pricing, customer support, and more to find the best fit for your needs.

ReferralCandy compared with UpPromote across pricing, ratings and features
Feature	ReferralCandy	UpPromote
Pricing	From $9/month	Free plan; from $29.99/month + 2% of successful referral sales (1.5% on Professional, 1% on Enterprise)
Shopify rating	4.9★ (1,481 reviews)	4.9★ (3,845 reviews)
All features on every plan	Yes	Features vary by plan
Customer referral program	Every plan	Growth plan and up ($29.99/month)
Store credit rewards	Every plan (Shopify only)	Growth plan and up ($29.99/month)
Custom sender email	Every plan	Paid plans only
Automatic PayPal payouts	Every plan	Professional plan and up ($89.99/month)
Tiered commissions	Every plan (FlexiTiers)	Professional plan and up ($89.99/month)
Klaviyo & Mailchimp integration	Every plan	Professional plan and up ($89.99/month)
Subscription app integrations	Every plan	Professional plan and up ($89.99/month)
API access	Every plan	Professional plan and up ($89.99/month)
Fraud detection	Yes	Yes
Chat support	Yes	Yes
Built for Shopify	Yes	Yes

Pricing and ratings verified 2026-10-02.

Why brands choose ReferralCandy over UpPromote

Run referrals and affiliates in one place, with built-in fraud protection.

Built-in A/B testing

Test rewards and friend offers inside ReferralCandy, then choose the winner when you end the test. AI welcome email tests pick their own winner.

Brand-lift and partner impact

See more than clicks. Measure creator reach, store visits, and revenue influenced so you can invest in the partners that move the needle.

Built-in fraud protection

Flag more than 3 purchases from one IP address, hide the friend popup when a visitor’s IP matches the advocate’s, and ban office IPs on request. Review flags in Fraud Center before payout.

Subscription-ready tracking

Works cleanly with Recharge, Skio, Appstle, Awtomic, Loop and more, so recurring orders are tracked and rewarded without extra scripts or spreadsheets.

What merchants told us about UpPromote

Two recurring issues were not being able to bring affiliates and customer referrals together, and reducing the manual work of running them.

“…we have to keep watching it, you know? Cancelling commissions.”

A merchant describing their UpPromote referral setup. Anonymized and translated from Spanish in Raúl’s article.

For this merchant, adding customer referrals meant checking and cancelling commissions by hand. Another put their goal simply: “Looking to consolidate.” Raúl’s article draws on 22 merchant conversations about running these programs and what prompted them to consider a change.

2025 benchmarks

Unify referrals and affiliates into a single revenue engine

Powerful, self-serve referral and affiliate software that helps you acquire more customers and grow revenue without increasing ad spend.

In referral & affiliate sales: $558M
Average ROI: 1220%

Success stories

Generated more than $1.5M from their referral program

We’re super excited about working with ReferralCandy. It’s worked really well in the background, and we’re proud of achieving a 10% referral rate.

Tim MurphyCEO, Branch Basics

Affiliate sales of more than $500,000 with an ROI of 41%

ReferralCandy has allowed us to activate our amazing community of moms who love Toki to become ambassadors for the brand.

DevanFractional CMO, Toki

24% referral rate — 7x higher than the industry average

If we could get our customers to introduce the product they like, it would be a really good way to spread our product to the world. Getting timely support from Shopify apps is really rare, so we’re so grateful to ReferralCandy.

Tokinari ShioyaSales Lead, Atmoph

Lifetime referral sales of $600,000 with a 22.25% referral rate

To be honest, we were completely new to the ecommerce space and ReferralCandy had a very easy-to-add, straightforward approach. Getting customers to be the driving voice for how other customers find us has been huge for all metrics.

Stephen CalsbeekCo-Owner, Farm Hounds

Generated more than $700,000 in referral sales

ReferralCandy’s platform has significantly impacted how we monitor and engage customer loyalty. It doesn’t matter how great your product or marketing is — if your customers aren’t talking about it, there’s nothing stronger than someone loving your product and telling their friends about it.

Phil LaBontyCEO, CycleBoard

ReferralCandy vs UpPromote: FAQs

Does ReferralCandy cap how many referrals I get?

No. Every ReferralCandy plan includes unlimited referrals. UpPromote’s Free plan caps reviewed referral sales at $3,000 a month.

Does ReferralCandy do referrals and affiliates together?

Yes. ReferralCandy consolidates affiliates and customer referrals, so you manage links, codes, commissions and rewards in one place. Learn about our referral marketing and affiliate marketing software.

Does ReferralCandy work outside Shopify?

Yes. ReferralCandy supports Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento and custom API integrations.

Does ReferralCandy work with subscription apps?

Yes. ReferralCandy works with Recharge, Skio, Appstle, Awtomic, Loop and more, so recurring orders are tracked and rewarded without extra scripts or spreadsheets.

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