The modern PromoteKit alternative
for subscription businesses.
PromoteKit is the leanest of the new Stripe-native affiliate tools: a one-person operation by all public accounts, laser-focused on Stripe, with a genuinely free starter plan, slick auto-generated Stripe promo codes, and a $29/mo Pro tier. Rekomi plays the same modern game with a bigger surface: payout rails with tax handling on every plan, real-time fraud scoring, per-click and per-lead campaigns, a curated network, and native coverage beyond Stripe. If you are choosing between the two, the honest question is lean-and-cheap versus full-stack, and this page walks it feature by feature.
When to pick which.
You want payout day to be a non-event: automatic schedules over Stripe Express and PayPal, W-9 collection and year-end 1099-NEC prep handled, instead of downloading a CSV and running PayPal Mass Payments yourself. You want fraud defense beyond self-referral detection, per-click and per-lead campaigns, per-affiliate rate overrides, a curated affiliate network, an AI co-pilot, and tracking that also covers Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Braintree, Chargebee, Polar, or Shopify if your billing ever moves.
You are Stripe-only, price-sensitive, and happy to execute payouts yourself. PromoteKit's free plan genuinely costs nothing until your affiliates have generated three referrals, Pro is $29/mo with white-label and a custom portal domain included, the promo-code automation inside Stripe is excellent, and there is no platform fee on anything. For a lean solo-founder program, that is a real and fair pitch.
The full comparison.
How we keep this honest
Every row reflects real product behavior on the date above. We update this page when either product ships material changes. Nothing here is invented to make Rekomi look better.
Which one fits your situation.
Affiliate platforms are not one-size-fits-all. Here is a straight read on which tool wins for each profile we see.
Solo founder, Stripe-only, first affiliate experiment on a budget
PromoteKit's free plan costs nothing until affiliates generate three referrals, and $29 Pro is the cheapest tier in the category that includes white-label. If you are happy running PayPal or Wise batches yourself and your program is a flat percentage, start there; the switch to Rekomi later is one API pull away.
SaaS where payout day and tax paperwork must be somebody else's job
PromoteKit's payout flow is download-CSV, upload to PayPal Mass Payments or Wise, send, mark paid, with no W-9 or 1099 handling documented. Rekomi runs payouts automatically over Stripe Express and PayPal on every plan and preps US 1099-NECs at year end (W-9s collected in onboarding, candidates worksheet for your accountant).
Brand on Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, or Shopify, or expecting your checkout to move one day
PromoteKit tracks Stripe only, by its own FAQ. Rekomi covers Stripe, Paddle, Braintree, Lemon Squeezy, Chargebee, Polar, Shopify, and an HMAC-signed S2S API for anything else, so the program survives billing changes.
Program that pays for clicks or leads, or has been burned by fraud
PromoteKit has no CPC or CPL campaigns and its documented fraud tooling is self-referral detection. Rekomi scores every click and lead against live IP reputation, quarantines high-risk traffic before payout, and can auto-suspend repeat offenders.
Where the modern build pays off.
The pillars below summarise the side-by-side above. We keep the read honest by including the cases where PromoteKit still wins today.
Our case.
Everything that turns a tracker into a platform. Managed payouts on every plan (Stripe Express + PayPal, automatic schedules, W-9 collection and year-end 1099-NEC prep) instead of CSV batches. Fraud defense that scores every click and lead in real time instead of only catching self-referrals. Campaign types PromoteKit does not document having: per-click, per-lead, delays, caps, stickiness, per-affiliate overrides. A curated affiliate network and AI co-pilot for growing the roster. And insurance PromoteKit structurally cannot offer: native coverage of Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Braintree, Chargebee, Polar, and Shopify when your billing stack changes.
What both ship.
Stripe-native tracking, refund-aware attribution, signed S2S hooks, and standard commission models. Both tools clear the bar on the table-stakes. The differences live in everything built on top of that foundation.
No spin.
Price and polish for the lean case. The free plan is genuinely free with no clock, Pro at $29/mo includes white-label and a custom portal domain that cost more on Rekomi, there is no platform fee anywhere, the Stripe promo-code automation is best-in-class convenient, historical commissions import straight from Stripe, the affiliate portal ships light and dark mode, and it ships as a Stripe App like Rekomi does. A Stripe-only program with a handful of affiliates and a founder who does not mind payout day gets real value here.
Our straight answer.
These are the two ends of the modern Stripe-native spectrum. If your program is small, Stripe-only, flat-rate, and you would rather spend $0-29 than $19-39 while running payouts yourself, PromoteKit is a fair pick and this page will still be here when payout day stops being fun. Choose Rekomi when the program is a channel you are scaling: managed payouts and tax on every plan, fraud scoring before money moves, campaign types beyond RevShare, and a platform that is not welded to a single billing provider. Migration is one API pull through Rekomi's dedicated PromoteKit importer, with ?via= referral codes preserved so existing links keep working.
Common questions.
How does PromoteKit's pricing compare to Rekomi's?
PromoteKit: free until your affiliates generate three referrals, then Pro at $29/mo covering up to $10,000/mo in affiliate-generated revenue, then a contact-sales Enterprise tier above that. (As of our fact-check its pricing page says $29/mo, while its own comparison pages still cite $39/mo.) There are no platform transaction fees, but payouts and tax are yours to run. Rekomi is $19, $39, or $99 per month flat plus a 3% payout fee, with the payout rail, tax paperwork, fraud scoring, and network included on every plan.
Who actually pays my affiliates on each platform?
On PromoteKit, you do: the Generate Payouts tab produces a CSV formatted for PayPal Mass Payments (up to 5,000 payments per batch) or Wise Batch Payments (up to 1,000), you upload it to your own PayPal or Wise Business account, send, and then mark commissions paid in PromoteKit. An automated payout integration via Tremendous is documented as coming soon but is not live as of our fact-check. On Rekomi, the platform pays affiliates for you via Stripe Express and PayPal on automatic or on-demand schedules, on every plan.
What about tax forms?
PromoteKit's documentation covers no W-9 collection, no W-8s, and no 1099 filing; whatever your payout method, the paperwork is yours. Rekomi is payer of record via Stripe Express: W-9s are collected during Stripe Express onboarding and Rekomi builds the year-end 1099-NEC candidates worksheet; you file as payer of record.
Is PromoteKit really Stripe-only?
Yes, by its own FAQ: it integrates with Stripe for affiliate tracking, and with PayPal and Wise for payouts. Its Webflow, Memberstack, Outseta, and MemberSpace integrations are website layers that still assume Stripe billing underneath. If you use Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Braintree, Chargebee, Polar, or Shopify, or think you might, that is the structural difference to weigh.
How does migration from PromoteKit to Rekomi work?
Through Rekomi's dedicated PromoteKit importer: paste your PromoteKit API key (available on their Pro plan or higher) and one pull imports your roster with each affiliate's ?via= referral code preserved as their Rekomi slug, plus payout emails, lifetime click counts, signed-up leads (with Stripe customer ids), and commission history as settled records. via is a default Rekomi attribution param, so existing links keep attributing once you swap the snippet. On PromoteKit's Free plan, which has no API key, use a support-provided file through the importer's CSV fallback. See /docs/brands/migrations/promotekit.
What does PromoteKit do better than Rekomi?
Honest list: a genuinely free starter plan with no time limit, white-label and a custom portal domain at $29/mo (Rekomi gates white-label to its $99 Pro tier), zero platform fees, one-click promo-code generation inside Stripe, and historical commission import straight from Stripe. If those decide it for you, PromoteKit is the right lean choice today.
How do the fraud protections compare?
PromoteKit's documented protection is self-referral fraud detection, available on Pro. Rekomi's fraud layer runs on every plan: every click and lead is scored in real time against live IP reputation (proxy, VPN, Tor, datacenter, bot), high-risk events are quarantined before payout, repeat offenders can be auto-suspended, and refunds claw back automatically.
Both are Stripe Apps. What does that mean in practice?
Both PromoteKit and Rekomi are listed on the Stripe App Marketplace, so either can be discovered and connected from inside the Stripe Dashboard. The difference is what happens after install: PromoteKit stays a Stripe-side tracker with DIY payouts, while Rekomi runs the full program: payouts, tax, fraud, network, and AI, and keeps working if you ever add a non-Stripe checkout.
When commissions come due, on each.
Both products agree commissions come due (PromoteKit defaults to NET-15 terms). What happens next is the single biggest difference between them, so here it is as the actual task list.
- Open the Generate Payouts tab and click Download Payouts.
- Get a CSV formatted for PayPal Mass Payments (5,000 max per batch) or Wise Batch Payments (1,000 max).
- Upload it to your own PayPal or Wise Business account.
- Send the batch and pay the processor's fees.
- Return to PromoteKit and click Mark all as Paid.
- Tax forms: not part of the flow; W-9s and 1099s are on you.
- Nothing, if automatic payouts are on: the run executes on your schedule over Stripe Express and PayPal.
- Or review the batch and click once for an on-demand run.
- W-9s were collected at Stripe Express onboarding; the year-end 1099-NEC candidates worksheet is ready for your accountant.
- Full audit trail per payout, with fraud-quarantined commissions already held out.
PromoteKit documents an automated-payout integration via Tremendous as coming soon; until it ships, the CSV flow on the left is the product.
Stripe-only vs Stripe-plus.
Neither of us hides it: PromoteKit is proudly built only for Stripe. That is a real focus advantage until the day your billing stack is not only Stripe.
Switching from PromoteKit, one API pull.
Rekomi ships a dedicated PromoteKit importer: paste your PromoteKit API key (their Pro plan or higher) and one pull brings the whole program across.
- The pull imports your roster with each affiliate's ?via= referral code preserved as their Rekomi slug, plus payout emails and lifetime click counts. via is a default Rekomi attribution param, so existing links keep attributing the moment you swap the snippet.
- Signed-up referrals import as leads (with their Stripe customer ids for recurring attribution), and commission history imports as settled records, with PromoteKit's paid rows carrying a paid date. Nothing becomes payable without your explicit authorization.
- On PromoteKit's Free plan (no API key): ask their support for an export and use the CSV fallback, or upgrade for one month to run the pull.
- Coupon affiliates: mint fresh per-affiliate codes from each affiliate's detail page after import, and coupon attribution resumes once the new codes are live.
Looking at someone else?
Side by side, always
Every comparison page on Rekomi is fact-checked the same way. Pick the affiliate platform you are auditing and read the honest read.
Switch from PromoteKit this week.
Self-serve importers ship for 13 platforms: Rewardful, Tapfiliate, FirstPromoter, PartnerStack, Dub Partners, Tolt, Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad, impact.com, PromoteKit, LeadDyno, Trackdesk, and Partnero; most of the API pulls also bring leads, lifetime click counts, and commission history. White-glove sales and payout backfill included for early adopters. You stay in control.
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