The modern UpPromote alternative
for growing Shopify stores.
UpPromote is the most-reviewed affiliate app on the Shopify App Store: 4.9 stars across 3,633 reviews, a Built for Shopify badge, and self-reported 250,000+ customers since launching in 2019. That track record is real, and so is the fee model underneath it: every paid tier adds a performance fee of 2%, 1.5%, or 1% of your affiliate-generated sales, with no cap disclosed, on top of the subscription. Rekomi charges 3% of the commissions you actually pay out, a far smaller base, and runs the payouts and preps the tax paperwork UpPromote leaves to you. If you are pricing UpPromote alternatives, start with the fee math below.
When to pick which.
You want your platform fee charged on the commissions you pay affiliates, not on every dollar of referral revenue: at a 15% commission rate, that is a base roughly seven times smaller. You want payouts that run themselves over Stripe Express, bank deposits, and PayPal in 150+ countries, with W-9s collected in onboarding, W-8s on the PayPal rail, and a year-end 1099-NEC candidates worksheet, instead of wiring up your own PayPal Business app and marking bank transfers paid by hand. You want real-time fraud scoring on every click, and a program that could one day outgrow Shopify without changing vendors.
You are already running UpPromote and it is working: the app has seven years of Shopify-native polish, a Built for Shopify badge, and 3,633 reviews averaging 4.9 stars. Its Free tier is genuinely free with a 0% performance fee, which Rekomi cannot beat for a small program. And it offers features Rekomi deliberately will not build, most notably multi-level marketing up to 20 commission levels. A program that already works has real value, and switching always has a cost.
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.
Small Shopify store with a handful of affiliates and modest referral volume
UpPromote Free is $0 with a 0% performance fee, unlimited affiliates, and one program. Rekomi's floor is $29/mo. Until your program outgrows Free's limits (one coupon per affiliate, one program, the monthly referral cap), free is the rational choice, and we would rather tell you that than have you find out later. When the program grows, the fee math below is where the comparison flips.
Growing store whose affiliate revenue is scaling past a few thousand dollars a month
This is exactly where UpPromote's fee model bites: 2% of referral sales on Growth has no disclosed cap, so a store doing $50,000/mo in affiliate sales pays about $1,000/mo in performance fees before the subscription. Rekomi's 3% applies only to the commissions you pay out, roughly $225 on the same volume at a 15% rate. The bigger your program gets, the wider that gap grows.
Brand with international affiliates, or anyone tired of running payout day by hand
On UpPromote, automatic payout means connecting your own PayPal Business developer app on the $89.99 Professional plan, and everything outside PayPal and store credit is pay-elsewhere-and-mark-paid. Tax forms are US-only and require a USD store currency. Rekomi pays automatically over Stripe Express, bank deposits, and PayPal in 150+ countries, collects W-9s and W-8s, and hands you a 1099-NEC worksheet at year end.
Program built on a multi-level downline
UpPromote supports up to 20 commission levels with per-level rates and a network tree, and actively maintains the feature. Rekomi stops at one recruiting level (2-tier) on purpose and will not go deeper. If multi-level is a hard requirement, UpPromote is the honest recommendation.
Shopify brand that also sells SaaS through Stripe, or plans to leave Shopify-only behind
UpPromote has no product outside Shopify. Rekomi runs natively on 12 platforms plus a signed server-to-server API, so a second product line means a second Rekomi workspace, not a second vendor. Each workspace keeps one conversion source of truth, which keeps attribution clean rather than pretending one program can merge two checkout stacks.
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 UpPromote still wins today.
Our case.
Economics and operations. The percentage fee applies to payouts, not sales: 3% of commissions paid versus 2%, 1.5%, or 1% of every referral dollar, uncapped, which at typical commission rates makes Rekomi's fee base roughly seven times smaller. Payouts run themselves over Stripe Express, bank deposits, and PayPal in 150+ countries, versus wiring up your own PayPal developer app and marking bank transfers paid. Tax handling covers W-9s and W-8s with a year-end 1099-NEC worksheet, versus US-only forms gated to USD store currency. Fraud scoring with device fingerprinting and IP reputation runs on every plan. And Rekomi is not welded to one platform: 12 native integrations plus an API mean your affiliate program can outlive your current stack.
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.
Seven years of Shopify-native focus shows. The 4.9-star average across 3,633 reviews with a Built for Shopify badge is the strongest social proof in the category, and the self-reported numbers (250,000+ customers, $2.05B+ partner GMV tracked) point the same direction. The Free tier is genuinely free with a 0% performance fee. Multi-level marketing runs up to 20 levels. Double-sided customer referrals ship from Growth, store-credit payouts are a clever Shopify-native rail, the UpPromote Marketplace lists your program to its affiliate base, and for USD-currency US programs it auto-generates 1099-NECs. A small or US-only program that fits this shape is well served today.
Our straight answer.
UpPromote earned its rating: it is the most-reviewed affiliate app on Shopify for a reason, its Free tier is honestly free, and for a small US-centric store it is a fine tool. But two structural choices define what you will pay and what you will do every month: the performance fee is charged on referral sales with no disclosed cap, and payouts plus non-US tax paperwork are largely yours to run. Rekomi flips both: 3% on payouts only, and a managed rail that pays 150+ countries with the tax forms collected. If your program is small, start on UpPromote Free with our blessing. If it is growing, run the fee math on this page with your own numbers; for most stores past a few thousand dollars a month in affiliate sales, the switch pays for itself, and Rekomi's dedicated UpPromote importer brings your roster, referral history, and live tracking links across in one API pull.
Common questions.
How does UpPromote's pricing compare to Rekomi's?
UpPromote: Free $0, Growth $29.99/mo, Professional $89.99/mo, Enterprise $199.99/mo (less if billed yearly), and every paid tier adds a performance fee of 2%, 1.5%, or 1% of successful referral sales, uncapped, billed monthly on top. Rekomi: $29 Starter, $49 Growth, $99 Pro, flat, with unlimited affiliates on every plan, a 14-day free trial, and 3% of affiliate payouts actually paid (2.5% on Enterprise). Both have a percentage fee; the difference is the base it is charged on, sales for UpPromote, payouts for Rekomi.
What does the percentage-of-sales fee actually cost?
Take a store doing $50,000/mo in affiliate-driven sales with a 15% commission rate, so $7,500/mo paid to affiliates. On UpPromote Growth the performance fee is 2% of the $50,000 in referral sales, about $1,000/mo, plus the $29.99 subscription. On Rekomi the fee is 3% of the $7,500 actually paid out, $225, plus a $49 subscription. Even on UpPromote Professional (1.5%, $89.99/mo) the same store pays about $840/mo versus roughly $274 on Rekomi. The percentages look similar; the bases are not.
Who actually sends the money on each platform?
On UpPromote, the brand executes every payout: PayPal auto-pay requires connecting your own PayPal Business developer app (Client ID, Secret, and PayPal's Payouts API approval) and is available on Professional and up; Shopify store credit is schedulable from Growth; for Wise, the affiliate enters bank details and you initiate the transfer, which the app records; Venmo, Cash App, bank transfer, and check are recorded-only, meaning you pay outside the app and mark it paid. Tax forms are US-only, W-9 plus auto-generated 1099-NEC, and only for USD-currency stores. On Rekomi, payouts run automatically over Stripe Express, bank deposits, and PayPal in 150+ countries; W-9s are collected during Stripe Express onboarding, W-8s on the PayPal rail, and you get a year-end 1099-NEC candidates worksheet. In both cases your brand is payer of record and handles any filing.
How does migration from UpPromote to Rekomi work?
Through Rekomi's dedicated UpPromote importer. Copy your API key from Settings, Integration, API Key in UpPromote (the API requires UpPromote's Professional plan or higher), paste it at /dashboard/settings/migrate, and one pull imports your roster, each affiliate's ?sca_ref= tracking token preserved as their Rekomi slug, PayPal emails, and referral history (paid referrals as settled records, pending and approved as unpaid history). sca_ref is a built-in Rekomi attribution param, so existing UpPromote links keep attributing the moment you swap the tracking snippet. On Free or Growth, where UpPromote exposes no API key, the documented Affiliates CSV export works as the fallback. See /docs/brands/migrations/uppromote.
We use UpPromote's multi-level marketing. Can Rekomi replicate it?
No. Rekomi drew that line on purpose. Sub-affiliate recruiting ships on every Rekomi plan, but it is a single recruiting level: an affiliate recruits, earns an override on those recruits' commissions, and the chain ends there. UpPromote's 20-level MLM, with per-level rates and a network tree, serves a different kind of program, and Rekomi has no plans to follow it. So sort by requirement: a program built around a deep downline belongs on UpPromote, while a program that only needs affiliates bringing in other affiliates gets that on any Rekomi plan, and the rest of this comparison is where to look next.
Isn't Rekomi's Shopify app brand new? UpPromote has 3,633 reviews.
Yes. UpPromote has been on the App Store since May 2019 and holds a 4.9-star average across 3,633 reviews with a Built for Shopify badge; Rekomi's Shopify listing published in August 2026. We will not spin that: on review volume, UpPromote wins outright. What Rekomi asks you to evaluate instead is the mechanics, a fee charged on payouts rather than sales, an automatic payout rail covering 150+ countries with tax forms collected, and real-time fraud scoring, all testable inside a 14-day trial billed through Shopify with nothing to rip out if you pass.
Does UpPromote work outside Shopify?
No. UpPromote is Shopify-exclusive; its homepage and App Store listing offer no WooCommerce, Stripe, or BigCommerce product. Rekomi runs natively on Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe, Paddle, Braintree, Wix, Lemon Squeezy, Chargebee, Polar, Recurly, Gumroad, Creem, and Dodo, plus any gateway through a signed server-to-server API. One honest caveat: each Rekomi workspace tracks a single conversion source of truth, so a Shopify store and a Stripe-billed SaaS run as two workspaces, not one merged program.
A percentage of sales is not a percentage of payouts.
Both products charge a percentage fee, so the sticker prices tell you almost nothing. UpPromote's fee applies to your affiliate-generated sales (2% Growth, 1.5% Professional, 1% Enterprise, no cap disclosed). Rekomi's 3% applies to the commissions you actually pay affiliates. At a 15% commission rate, one base is about seven times the other. Three volumes, a plausible published tier at each, subscription included.
| Affiliate sales / mo | Commissions paid (15%) | UpPromote total / mo | Rekomi total / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $1,500 | $229.99 (Growth: $29.99 + 2% of sales = $200) | $74 (Starter: $29 + 3% of payouts = $45) |
| $50,000 | $7,500 | $839.99 (Professional: $89.99 + 1.5% of sales = $750) | $274 (Growth: $49 + 3% of payouts = $225) |
| $200,000 | $30,000 | $2,199.99 (Enterprise: $199.99 + 1% of sales = $2,000) | $999 (Pro: $99 + 3% of payouts = $900) |
UpPromote rows use a plausible tier at each volume; on Growth the $50,000 row would be $1,029.99, and even buying Enterprise at $50,000 purely for its lower fee rate still totals $699.99. Rekomi plan choice is feature-based, never volume-based, so any row works on any plan; the fee stays 3% of payouts. Fairness note: UpPromote's Free tier charges no performance fee at all, and at low volumes with few affiliates it is the cheapest option on this page. On Rekomi's side, the 3% applies to payouts actually paid, and refunds shrink commissions before payout ever runs. All UpPromote figures are from uppromote.com/pricing as of the fact-check date above.
They have the reviews. We have the math.
A comparison page that hides the other side's strongest card is not worth your time, so here is UpPromote's, face up, next to what the small print says and where Rekomi actually stands.
- 4.9 stars across 3,633 Shopify App Store reviews, 96% of them 5-star
- Built for Shopify badge, on the App Store since May 2019
- Self-reported: 250,000+ customers, $2.05B+ partner GMV tracked, 3,500+ Shopify Plus stores
- The small print, from its own 37 one-star reviews: charges continuing after uninstall or trial, a report of the Instagram in-app browser stripping tracking links, difficulty blocking self-referrals, and support that does not escalate
- A brand-new Shopify listing (August 2026); we will not pretend to a review count we do not have
- What we ask you to judge instead: 3% of payouts versus an uncapped percentage of sales
- An automatic payout rail in 150+ countries with W-9s, W-8s, and a year-end 1099-NEC worksheet
- Real-time fraud scoring on every plan, and full data export plus API on every plan, so trying us is reversible
Our position, plainly: if you choose on review volume today, choose UpPromote. We think programs are chosen for a decade, not a quarter, and over a decade the fee base and the hours you spend on payout day matter more than the star count either of us shows this month.
Switching from UpPromote, one API pull.
Rekomi ships a dedicated UpPromote importer: copy your API key from Settings, Integration, API Key, paste it once, and one pull brings the roster, referral history, and live tracking links across. Most teams complete the cutover in an afternoon.
- The pull imports your roster (email, name, and status: active becomes Approved, pending stays Pending, inactive becomes Paused) with each affiliate's ?sca_ref= tracking token preserved as their Rekomi slug, plus PayPal emails from their payout info. sca_ref is a built-in Rekomi attribution param, so existing UpPromote links keep attributing the moment you swap the tracking snippet.
- Referral history comes too: paid referrals import as settled records, pending and approved as unpaid history, and denied or refunded referrals are dropped. Commission adjustments from partial refunds are netted in. Nothing becomes payable without your explicit authorization, and re-running the pull is safe (affiliates dedupe by email, history rows dedupe automatically).
- One plan gate: UpPromote's API requires its Professional plan or higher. On Free or Growth, use the documented Affiliates CSV export instead; the importer matches its columns tolerantly since UpPromote does not publish exact headers.
- Two caveats worth knowing before you start: UpPromote's API reports no per-conversion currency, so imported amounts assume your store's currency; and custom clean links (the /alex style redirects on Professional) die with the app, so re-point or retire them at cutover. The slugged ?sca_ref= links carry over fine.
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.
Weighing UpPromote against GoAffPro or Refersion? Read those head-to-heads too; most teams comparing them shortlist Rekomi as the third option.
Switch from UpPromote this week.
Self-serve importers ship for 21 platforms: Rewardful, Tapfiliate, FirstPromoter, PartnerStack, Dub Partners, Tolt, Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad, impact.com, PromoteKit, LeadDyno, Trackdesk, Partnero, UpPromote, GoAffPro, ReferralCandy, Refersion, BixGrow, Shopify Collabs, Everflow, and Post Affiliate Pro; 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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