App comparison

Simple Affiliate vs ReferralCandy

Every ReferralCandy plan adds a success fee on sales to net-new referred customers. Simple Affiliate charges a flat monthly price, with no success fee. Start free, or get Pro for $39 a month. Every plan, Starter included, connects to Claude or ChatGPT.

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Built for Shopify · Rated 4.9/5 on the Shopify App Store · Autopay on every plan, with 1099s when IRS thresholds apply · Switching? Import eligible affiliates by CSV, or rebuild the program in the app

At $10,000 a month in sales to net-new referred customers: Simple Affiliate Pro costs $78 and ReferralCandy costs $399 on Scale at published list prices. Our $78 is the $39 plan plus a $39 Autopay fee (3.9% of a $1,000 commission at a 10% rate).

Prices checked October 24, 2026 from the sources at the end of this page. Prices change, so check them before you buy.

Where Simple Affiliate wins

Affiliates sign in with your store’s Shopify customer accounts, and the dashboard lives on your domain or a theme page.
No success fee. At $10,000 a month in sales to net-new referred customers, Scale is ReferralCandy’s lowest total at $399. Pro costs $78 with Autopay on a 10% commission.
Autopay is on every plan, Starter included. It pays affiliates through Stripe and includes 1099-K and 1099-NEC forms for eligible U.S. affiliates when IRS thresholds apply.

Where ReferralCandy wins

Refer-a-friend and affiliate programs run from one app, so customers and influencers can share links and codes in the same place.
Success-fee tiers are published and fall as you grow: 10.5% Basic, 3.5% Grow, 1.5% Scale, 0.25% Enterprise, on the first three orders of net-new customers only.
Every plan includes every feature, among them custom coupon codes, cash and store-credit payouts, full API access, and integrations such as Klaviyo.
Each additional store costs $20/month at the main store’s success-fee rate, for multi-region or multi-brand setups.

Use Claude or ChatGPT with Simple Affiliate

Connect Claude or ChatGPT and ask it to review results, explain missing referral credit, or set up groups, commissions, automation, and settings. Your plan’s features still apply. You approve every change, and your AI can’t send payouts. You send payouts from the Simple Affiliate admin.

Other apps advertise AI too. Before you choose, compare what each AI can do, which plan includes it, and who approves its changes.

See the AI affiliate assistant features or connect Claude or ChatGPT.

Who each one is for

ReferralCandy runs referral and affiliate programs from one app: its listing names programs for customers, influencers, and content creators, and it rewards existing customers for bringing in new ones. Every plan includes every feature and pairs a subscription with a success fee, a percentage of what net-new referred customers spend on their first three orders.

Both apps run affiliate programs, and the difference is mostly the bill. ReferralCandy fits a store that wants refer-a-friend and affiliate programs in one app with every feature on every plan, and accepts a success fee on net-new customers. Simple Affiliate fits a store that wants a flat monthly price with no success fee, and Autopay with 1099-K and 1099-NEC forms for eligible U.S. affiliates when IRS thresholds apply.

Pricing

Every ReferralCandy tier pairs a subscription with a success fee: Basic $39 plus 10.5%, Grow $79 plus 3.5%, Scale $249 plus 1.5%, Enterprise $799 plus 0.25% (referralcandy.com/pricing, checked October 24, 2026). The fee applies to the first three orders of net-new referred customers only, not to every affiliate-attributed order; that distinction matters when you model it. We charge no success fee on sales at all.

Line item	ReferralCandy	Simple Affiliate
Published starting price	Basic $39/mo + 10.5% success fee on net-new customers	Starter $0; Pro $39/mo
Scale plan	$249/mo + 1.5% on net-new customers (first 3 orders)	No success fee
Revenue share	Success fee on net-new customers only	None
Payout processing	No ReferralCandy fee; PayPal, Venmo, and bank pass on provider fees; store credit free	No fee for PayPal, store credit, or Premium manual payouts; Autopay on Pro 3.9% bank / 8.9% card
Modeled at $10,000 net-new GMV	$399 on Scale ($249 + 1.5% of $10,000)	$78 on Pro with Autopay bank

One assumption does the heavy lifting: all $10,000 counts as net-new referred customers inside ReferralCandy’s first-three-orders window. If much of your affiliate GMV comes from repeat buyers, or from customers after their third order, the success fee applies to less of it and the $399 falls; referralcandy.com/pricing has the definitions. Scale is the lowest published total at this volume: Grow comes to $429 ($79 plus 3.5%) and Basic to $1,089 ($39 plus 10.5%). Our Autopay fee applies to commission payouts (10% of GMV assumed), never to GMV itself.

Features

The table shows features for a typical Shopify store. Plan and add-on limits apply. The ReferralCandy column comes from its App Store listing and public pages, not from a paid trial of each plan.

Yes: included in a typical setup Partial: limited, on some plans only, or partly manual Add-on: costs extra —: not offered

Feature	Simple Affiliate	ReferralCandy
Platform
Shopify Admin embedded app	YesShopify Admin app home	Yes
Shopify App Store listing	Yes	Yes
In-house program on the merchant store	YesProgram stays on the merchant store	Partial
Affiliates use Shopify customer accounts	YesAffiliates use Shopify customer accounts	PartialListing names customer accounts and a branded portal
No revenue share	YesFlat monthly Shopify subscription	—Success fee on net-new customers
Automated refer-a-friend loop	PartialIn-house referral program	Yes
Program tools
Affiliate roster and groups	PartialUnlimited on Basic+	PartialAffiliate programs; groups not listed
Unique discount codes	PartialPro+	YesCustom coupon codes
Per-product commissions	PartialPro+	YesListing names product commission
Klaviyo integration	PartialBasic+	YesEvery plan
Payouts and tax
Automatic commission payouts	YesStripe; merchant pays the fee	YesAutomated rewards and payouts
PayPal, store credit, and manual with no processing fee	YesPayPal and store credit every plan; manual on Premium	PartialStore credit free; PayPal, Venmo, and bank pass on provider fees

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about Simple Affiliate vs ReferralCandy. Updated October 24, 2026.

What would the same store pay Simple Affiliate?

A flat subscription: Starter $0, then Basic $19, Pro $39, or Premium $59 per month, with a 14-day trial on Basic and Pro and a 7-day trial on Premium. No success fee, no percentage of referred sales. The Autopay processing fee is 3.9% (bank) or 8.9% (card) on Pro, charged to the merchant on commission payouts; the affiliate’s commission arrives whole. ReferralCandy’s subscription-plus-success-fee numbers come from its published pricing page; recheck them before you sign.

Can customers join the affiliate side without creating a new account?

Yes: that is the point of building on Shopify customer accounts. Someone who has bought from you already has the login they need. The dashboard lives on your domain (new customer accounts) or on a branded theme page such as /pages/affiliate (classic). ReferralCandy’s listing names a branded portal and works with customer accounts. See /pages/sc-faq/why-use-simple-affiliate-instead-of-a-network.

What about Shopify Collabs?

Collabs comes with Shopify: an included creator marketplace, mentioned here in prose and linked at apps.shopify.com/collabs and shopify.com/collabs, with no dedicated vs URL.

Does ReferralCandy run affiliate programs?

Yes. referralcandy.com/pricing says every plan runs referral and affiliate programs from one app, billed as a subscription plus a success fee on the first three orders of net-new customers. Simple Affiliate runs an affiliate and referral program on a flat subscription with no success fee.

Does the modeled $399 assume every sale is net-new?

Yes, deliberately. $249 plus 1.5% of $10,000 equals $399 only when every dollar is net-new referred customers inside the first-three-orders window; orders from repeat customers after that window carry no success fee. We would rather state the assumption than invent a blended rate.

Sources and other comparisons

ReferralCandy is a trademark of its owner. Simple Affiliate is not affiliated with ReferralCandy. Shopify is a trademark of Shopify Inc. Simple Affiliate is a third-party Shopify App Store app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Shopify. These pages compare independent App Store products and do not recommend uninstalling Shopify products such as Shopify Collabs. See shopify.com. List prices verified October 24, 2026.

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