Refersion vs Simple Kuma

Refersion is an affiliate tracking and management platform for direct-to-consumer ecommerce brands running affiliate, influencer, or ambassador programs. It helps brands discover partners, track referrals, set commissions, and arrange payouts. Partner discovery uses product categories and a description of the brand’s ideal customer to surface potential affiliates. Refersion promotes first-party tracking without cookies or redirects. Commissions can be based on sales percentage or subscriptions; Growth includes advanced commission options. The platform describes automated affiliate payments and automatic generation of required US tax forms for eligible affiliates. A free Marketplace Listing lets affiliates view and apply to offers, but tracking, commission management, and payouts require a paid plan. Launch costs $39 a month plus 3% of affiliate-driven sales; Growth costs $199 a month plus 2%. Growth includes API access and chat support. Listed integrations include Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, Chargebee, Stripe, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and Zapier.

Simple Kuma is a self-hosted affiliate tracker for monitoring clicks, costs, and conversions on infrastructure the user controls. Campaigns can include traffic sources, offers, landing pages, and tracking links, with real-time campaign statistics. Server-side JavaScript and PHP capture provide redirectless tracking intended to preserve tracking tokens. Its mobile-friendly dashboard shows clicks, conversions, revenue, ROI, visitor logs, and campaign data. REST API v1 supports campaign, offer, and statistics management using Bearer API keys, with a documented limit of 120 requests per minute per key. The project repository describes Meta/Facebook ad cost sync, Google Ads cost sync, and Google conversion delivery. A guided installer covers requirements, database connection, and administrator setup. Hosting requires PHP 8.2 or later, MySQL 8 or later or MariaDB 10.3 or later, and Apache or Nginx. The maker says data stays on the user's server, and the code is published under AGPL-3.0. The Free forever plan costs nothing and lists unlimited campaigns, clicks, domains, offers, and traffic sources.