Looking for the best affiliate software for Polar.sh? The honest answer is a short list: exactly four tools can run a real affiliate program on Polar today. Articles like this usually open with fifteen contenders and a jump menu, but Polar is young and most affiliate platforms literally can’t see its checkout. Which is great news, because short lists make fast decisions.
Before we start: I helped create Rekomi, one of the four tools below, so I have a horse in this race – and I’ll referee it fairly anyway. Every tool gets its real strengths and its real trade-offs (including mine), and every price and claim in this article comes from each tool’s live site, checked this week. Where something is a vendor’s own claim rather than something I could verify, I say so.
If you’re still deciding whether Polar is right for you, the quick intro below covers what it is and what it costs. If you already sell on Polar and just want the best affiliate software for Polar.sh, skip ahead to the comparison table. Either way, you can realistically pick a tool today and have tracking links live this afternoon.
TL;DR:
Rekomi: the all-in-one. Native Polar connection, and the only tool here that also pays your affiliates for you (165+ countries) and handles their tax forms. From $29/mo.
Sled: the budget Polar-native pick. Free up to 10 affiliates, then $19/mo flat. You send the affiliate payments yourself.
Affonso: the one in Polar’s own docs, with tiers that step up as your affiliate revenue grows. From $15/mo on yearly billing.
What is Polar.sh, and why can’t most affiliate tools see it?
Polar.sh is an open-source merchant of record and billing platform built for developers: hosted checkout, subscriptions, usage-based billing, seats, and customer portal, all behind one API. The merchant of record part is the magic. Polar is the legal seller on every transaction, so it calculates, collects, and remits VAT and sales tax worldwide, then pays you out. You sell to Berlin and Boise with the exact same integration and zero tax paperwork.
The pricing is refreshingly public. The Starter plan is free with a 5% + 50¢ fee per transaction, and three optional paid plans (Pro at $20/mo, Growth at $100/mo, Scale at $400/mo) lower that rate to 3.8%, 3.6%, and 3.4% as you grow. Polar even publishes the breakeven math for when each plan starts saving you money, which I love – more pricing pages should show their own math.
The catch: most affiliate tools can’t help you here, because the classic SaaS affiliate platforms are built to watch your Stripe account, and on Polar there’s nothing to watch. The customer pays Polar, not you. Your Stripe account isn’t in the flow at all, so a Stripe-first tracker has no events to listen to. The only way to track affiliate sales on Polar is to speak Polar’s own language: its webhooks (like order.paid) and its checkout metadata.
Also, Polar doesn’t ship an affiliate feature of its own. Their stated approach is to integrate with great partners rather than build one in-house, which is exactly why this short list exists. If you want the full walkthrough of getting a program live, I wrote one: how to set up a Polar affiliate program.
What to look for in affiliate software for Polar.sh
Before the list, here’s the test I’d apply to any tool claiming Polar support. It’s five questions, and the last one is the one people forget:
- A real Polar integration. Webhook-based tracking of Polar’s own events, not a generic pixel that guesses. Ask specifically how renewals and refunds reach the tool.
- Recurring commissions. Most of what sells on Polar is subscription software, so a renewal in month 7 should still credit the affiliate who sent the customer in month 1. All four tools below handle this; plenty of generic link trackers don’t.
- Commissions on collected money only. Polar emits order events before payment actually succeeds. A careful integration credits commissions only when the money is truly in (and claws them back per refund), or you’ll end up paying affiliates for revenue you never received.
- A price shape that fits your size. The four tools span free, flat monthly, revenue-capped tiers, and subscription plus a take-rate. Each shape wins at a different program size, and I’ll walk the math below.
- Who actually pays your affiliates. Tracking a commission and sending the money are very different jobs. Some tools keep a ledger and leave the transfers (and the tax forms) to you; some automate the transfer; one does the whole thing including W-9s and 1099s. This single question separates the four tools more than anything else.
By the way, everything here applies whether you call it an affiliate program or a referral program: the tracking and payout mechanics are identical, and all four tools can run a Polar.sh referral program where your existing customers do the promoting.
The comparison at a glance
| Tool | Polar integration | Starting price | Free plan | Recurring commissions | Who pays your affiliates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rekomi | Native: paste one token, webhook created for you | $29/mo + 3% of affiliate payouts | 14-day trial | Yes | Rekomi does, in 165+ countries, tax forms included |
| Sled | Polar-first: webhook secret + tracking script | $19/mo flat | Yes, up to 10 affiliates | Yes | You do; Sled keeps the ledger |
| Affonso | One-click connection, documented in Polar’s docs | $19/mo billed yearly | 14-day trial | Yes | You do on Launch; managed payouts from Growth ($29/mo) |
| Refgrow | Webhook integration + embedded in-app dashboard | $29/mo flat | 14-day trial, no card | Yes | Automated via your PayPal or Wise |
The 4 best affiliate software options for Polar.sh
1. Rekomi
Rekomi is affiliate software for SaaS and digital products that treats payouts and tax as part of the job, not an exercise left to the reader. It’s the tool I helped create, so read this entry knowing that, and read the Keep in mind below to see me argue against myself a little.
The Polar connection is native, and setup is genuinely the shortest of the four. Here’s how it works: you paste one Polar Organization Access Token, Rekomi validates it, resolves your organization, and creates the webhook endpoint on Polar itself, so there’s nothing to configure on Polar’s side. From then on, orders and subscription renewals credit the right affiliate automatically, and refunds claw commissions back per refund. Commissions are only ever created on Polar’s paid-order event, so an affiliate never gets credited for a renewal invoice that failed to charge.
The payout side is the real differentiator: at the end of the month you don’t export a CSV and open PayPal. Rekomi is the payer of record – it sends the money to your affiliates in 165+ countries (Stripe Express direct deposits in 42 countries, bank deposits in 60 more, PayPal in 66 more), collects W-9s and W-8s, and files 1099-NECs for US affiliates at year end. For a solo founder, that’s the difference between an affiliate program being a growth channel and being a second accounting job.
Best for: Polar sellers who want the whole pipeline (tracking, affiliate portal, payouts, tax forms) in one tool and would rather never think about a W-8 again.
Pricing: $29/mo Starter (up to $2,500/mo in affiliate payouts), $49/mo Growth, $99/mo Pro, each with a 14-day free trial, plus a flat 3% of what you pay affiliates. Run the math on a real program: if affiliates drive $3,000/mo in sales and you pay 25% commission, that’s $750 in payouts and the 3% costs you $22.50 – and it scales to zero in a slow month, because no payouts means no take.
- One-token native Polar connection, webhook created automatically
- Recurring commissions on renewals, per-refund clawback
- Done-for-you payouts in 165+ countries with tax forms handled
- Branded affiliate portal, tracking links on your own domain, fraud screening
Keep in mind: there’s no free plan (trial only), and the 3% take on payouts is a cost the flat-price tools below don’t charge. Also, coupon-code attribution (crediting an affiliate when a customer uses their discount code with no link click) runs on Rekomi’s Stripe-family integrations today, not on Polar. On Polar, attribution rides tracking links and checkout metadata.
Bottom line: the most complete option on the list, priced so it costs the most when your affiliates earn the most. The Polar integration page has the full technical detail.
2. Sled
Sled is the newest and smallest tool here, and it’s built Polar-first: their homepage literally calls itself the affiliate program Polar.sh doesn’t have yet. I have a soft spot for how focused it is: one script, one webhook secret, a default 30% commission, and you’re tracking.
The engineering details are the right ones. Renewals inherit the original referral automatically so commissions recur, refunds claw back automatically (even when the refund webhook arrives before the sale, which is a real Polar quirk), events are idempotent so retries never double-count, and self-referral and disposable-email blocking are on by default. They also run their own subscriptions through their own pipeline and bill through Polar itself, which is a nice bit of dogfooding.
Best for: indie hackers at the start of the curve who want affiliate tracking for a Polar store at the lowest possible cost, and don’t mind sending payments themselves.
Pricing: free with the full feature set up to 10 affiliates, then $19/mo flat (or $99/yr) for unlimited affiliates. No commission cut, no per-affiliate pricing.
Keep in mind: Sled tracks who’s owed what, but by design it doesn’t move money. Their own docs are upfront about it: you send each payment manually from your PayPal, Wise, bank, or wallet, click Mark paid, and handle any tax paperwork yourself. That’s fine at 5 affiliates and a real chore at 50. It’s also a very young product, so expect the roadmap to still be filling in.
Bottom line: the cheapest credible way to get a Polar affiliate program live, as long as you’re happy being your own payout department.
3. Affonso
Affonso is a SaaS affiliate platform out of Europe that supports Polar alongside Stripe, Paddle, and Creem, and it has one distinction none of the rest of us can claim: it’s currently the only affiliate tool with an official integration guide inside Polar’s own documentation. Credit where due: that’s a real trust signal, and their one-click connection reflects it.
Feature-wise it’s a proper full suite: flexible commission rules, affiliate groups, coupon and link tracking, fraud detection, a customizable partner portal, and an affiliate discovery tool for finding new partners. They say 500+ brands run on it. From Growth tier up you also get managed payouts, meaning Affonso handles paying your affiliates rather than leaving it to you.
Best for: SaaS founders who want a polished mid-range suite and like that Polar itself documents the integration.
Pricing: tiers are capped by monthly affiliate-driven revenue: Launch at $15/mo (billed yearly; $19 if you pay monthly) covers up to $1,000/mo of affiliate revenue, Growth at $29/mo covers up to $10,000/mo and adds managed payouts, Elite at $79/mo covers up to $30,000/mo, and Enterprise starts at $149/mo beyond that. 14-day free trial.
Keep in mind: the revenue caps mean your price steps up as your program succeeds, so model the tier you’ll be on in a year, not the one you start on. The headline prices are for yearly billing (monthly billing runs higher), and managed payouts don’t exist on the entry tier.
Bottom line: the safe mid-range pick with Polar’s own blessing, best priced when your affiliate revenue sits comfortably inside a tier.
4. Refgrow
Refgrow‘s pitch is different from everyone else’s: instead of sending your affiliates to a separate portal, you drop one script tag into your product and the entire affiliate dashboard lives inside your own app. For a developer-audience product (which is most of what sells on Polar), that embedded experience is a genuinely clever fit: your users become affiliates without ever leaving your UI.
The Polar integration is webhook-based with recurring commission tracking, commission structures go down to per-product overrides, and payouts are automated through your connected PayPal or Wise account when thresholds are met. It also supports Stripe, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, and Dodo Payments alongside Polar, and there’s a cross-promotion network (they call it Referral Exchange) for finding affiliates.
Best for: founders who want the affiliate program to feel like a feature of their own product, not a third-party site.
Pricing: $29/mo Starter with unlimited affiliates and unlimited affiliate revenue (1 program), then $49/mo for 3 programs and up from there. No transaction fees, and the 14-day trial doesn’t ask for a card.
Keep in mind: the embedded model assumes you have an app to embed into and a bit of frontend comfort; payouts are automated but still run through your own PayPal or Wise balance, and tax forms stay your job. Starter’s single program is fine until you run separate offers.
Bottom line: the most product-integrated option, with flat pricing that stays flat no matter how big the program gets.
The popular tools that don’t support Polar.sh (yet)
This section exists because it’s the search most Polar sellers actually start with. Rewardful, Tolt, PromoteKit, and FirstPromoter are excellent tools on the platforms they serve, but as of this writing, none of them lists Polar among its supported billing platforms. Their homepages advertise Stripe (and variously Paddle, Chargebee, and Braintree), and the reason is structural, not laziness: they’re built to observe your payment account, and on Polar the payment happens on Polar’s side entirely.
So if you’re moving your billing to Polar and you currently run affiliates on one of those, plan the affiliate migration alongside the billing migration. Your program will need one of the four tools above on the other side. (And if you’re comparing the incumbents for a Stripe product, I keep an honest roundup of Rewardful alternatives too.)
How to choose, by scenario
My honest read, having stared at all four pricing pages until my coffee went cold:
- You want the whole thing handled, payouts and tax included: Rekomi. It’s the only one where paying your affiliates isn’t your job.
- You’re pre-revenue or tiny and cost matters most: Sled. Free to 10 affiliates is unbeatable, and $19/mo flat stays cheap forever.
- You want the officially documented route: Affonso, straight from Polar’s docs, with managed payouts once you’re on Growth.
- You want the program living inside your own app: Refgrow’s embedded dashboard is the only one that does this.
One thing I’d flag across the board: whichever tool you pick, test a renewal and a refund in sandbox before you invite a single affiliate. Those two events are where Polar integrations differ most, and five minutes of testing now beats a commission dispute later.
Best affiliate software for Polar.sh: FAQ
Does Polar.sh have built-in affiliate tracking?
No. Polar has said it prefers integrating with specialized partners over building affiliate features in-house, and its docs currently document Affonso as an integration. Any of the four tools in this article adds a full affiliate program on top of Polar.
How does affiliate tracking work on Polar.sh?
Through Polar’s webhooks and checkout metadata. The affiliate shares a tracking link, the visitor’s referral is stamped into the Polar checkout, and when Polar fires its paid-order event, the affiliate tool matches the metadata and records the commission. Renewals inherit the subscription’s metadata, which is how recurring commissions keep crediting the original affiliate.
Can I run a referral program for existing customers with these tools?
Yes. A customer referral program uses the same mechanics as an affiliate program (tracking links, commissions, payouts), just with your customers as the promoters. All four tools support it; Refgrow’s embedded dashboard is particularly natural for it since customers are already inside your app.
How much does affiliate software for Polar.sh cost?
From $0 to about $29/mo to start. Sled is free up to 10 affiliates and $19/mo after; Affonso starts at $15/mo on yearly billing with revenue-capped tiers; Rekomi and Refgrow start at $29/mo, with Rekomi adding 3% of affiliate payouts in exchange for handling the payouts and tax forms themselves.
Can I use Rewardful or FirstPromoter with Polar.sh?
No, not today. Neither lists Polar among its supported billing platforms; they’re built around Stripe-style payment accounts, and Polar’s merchant of record checkout doesn’t touch your Stripe account. On Polar you’ll need one of the tools above.
Do commissions include the VAT that Polar collects?
They shouldn’t, and this is worth checking in whatever tool you pick. Polar collects tax inside the charge as merchant of record, and commissions calculated on the tax-inclusive amount overpay your affiliates. Make sure commissions are based on the product amount, not the gross charge.
Your next 15 minutes
Pick your row from the table, start the trial, and connect your Polar organization: every tool here can be tracking by tonight! If Rekomi’s shape fits (and I’m biased, so check my math against the table!), the Polar setup guide takes about ten minutes token-to-tracking, and pricing is public. And if you go with Sled, Affonso, or Refgrow instead, genuinely: good choice, tell them Polar sellers are worth building for. The more of us in this niche, the faster it matures.
