Duel vs RefRef

Duel is a brand advocacy SaaS platform for companies organizing customers, creators, employees and other advocates into programs. Its customizable portal can present challenges and rewards such as experiences, product access, affiliate payments, vouchers and co-creation opportunities. Supported advocate groups include social creators, brand ambassadors, store associates, employees and industry professionals; Duel says programs can scale from 1,000 to 100,000 advocates. Filterable, exportable dashboards provide more than 100 metrics. The platform collects user-generated content, with AI moderation and tagging plus rights management. Social posting tracking covers TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest, Facebook, Trustpilot and Bazaarvoice; TikTok Shop is marked as coming soon. CRM connections include Klaviyo, HubSpot, Dotdigital, Emarsys, Bloomreach and Braze, with an open API for other connections. A Shopify app supports order attribution and product catalogue syncing. Affiliate commissions can be sent automatically to advocates' PayPal accounts or tracked manually. Duel says it is ISO 27001 certified and GDPR compliant. Pricing is on request.

RefRef is an open-source platform for running referral programs, affiliate networks, and partner programs. It can be hosted in RefRef’s cloud or self-hosted on your infrastructure. Referral credit can use first-touch, last-touch, or multi-touch attribution, and reward rules can cover fixed amounts, percentages, cash, credits, discounts, and other types. Participants can use an embeddable widget to view referral links, share them by social media or email, and follow performance and rewards. Documented integrations include Stripe, Paddle, LemonSqueezy, Chargebee, PayPal, and Tango Card. The platform also provides a REST API, webhooks, JWT authentication, organization-scoped data isolation, and custom qualifying events and reward rules. Cloud and Open Source plans are each free and include unlimited programs and participants; Cloud includes email support, while Open Source includes community support. The project is in alpha and may have bugs or breaking changes. Self-hosting has specified infrastructure requirements, including PostgreSQL, Redis, and Node.js.