PartnerStack → Rewardful
What it saves, what actually moves, what you rebuild — and the thing that catches people.
What it costs, and what it saves
PartnerStack publishes no prices: Launch, Growth and Enterprise each say 'Book your demo', and the page states that pricing depends on programme size, feature needs and level of support (checked 2026-10-03). Rewardful, as listed on 2026-10-03: Starter $49/mo (up to $7,500/mo in affiliate-attributed revenue, 1 campaign), Growth $99/mo (up to $15,000/mo, unlimited campaigns, branded portal, custom domain), Enterprise from $149/mo (from $30,000/mo); billed annually $490, $990 and from $1,490 a year. Rewardful lists a 0% transaction fee; its optional Managed Payouts carry a 3% processing fee, and payment-provider fees apply separately. Because Rewardful's tiers are capped by monthly affiliate-attributed revenue, the price rises as the programme grows.
Moves cleanly
Partners, the customers each partner referred, and partner link handles. Rewardful's import file takes the referred customer's Stripe customer ID plus the affiliate's first name, last name and email, with optional payout email and link token, and Rewardful's support team runs the import. PartnerStack's export gives Partners, Customers, Commissions and Transactions CSVs that join on partner_id and customer_key.
You rebuild
Commission rules and partner groups (re-created as Rewardful campaigns), the tracking script on your site, Stripe attribution, partner sign-up and portal branding, and every partner's published link. Historical commissions and invoices do not import, by Rewardful's own account, and lead and deal registration, MDF management, partner training and PartnerStack Marketplace recruitment are not among Rewardful's listed features.
What PartnerStack costs you today
Quoted rather than listed. Vendors typically pay a platform fee plus a percentage of partner-driven revenue, and published third-party figures put entry plans in the high hundreds per month with mid-market agreements into four figures. Commission paid to partners is separate and on top. Because pricing is negotiated, treat any number you read online — including this one — as a starting point rather than a quote. Checked 2026-08-01.
What actually holds you in
Moderate, and the awkward part is the relationships rather than the data. Partner lists, commission structures and payout history export in the ordinary way. What does not move is the partners themselves — anyone who found you through the marketplace found you through PartnerStack, and re-establishing those relationships elsewhere means asking each one to sign up somewhere new. Tracking links are the other friction: every live link a partner has published points at PartnerStack's domain, and migrating means those links have to be replaced wherever they were placed.
What you are moving to
Rewardful does one thing precisely: affiliate and referral tracking for companies billing through Stripe or Paddle. It reads your subscription data directly, so recurring commissions, upgrades, refunds and churn are handled correctly without reconciliation work. Crucially it charges a flat monthly fee rather than a percentage of partner revenue, which inverts the economics — a successful programme costs you no more to run. There is no marketplace, so you bring your own partners. For a company that already knows who its affiliates are, that is not a limitation.
Flat monthly fee by tracked revenue volume — no percentage of partner-driven revenue. Free trial available.
Rewardful strengths
- Flat fee, not a revenue share — a growing programme does not cost more to run
- Deep Stripe and Paddle integration handles recurring, upgrades and refunds correctly
- Fast to set up: a script tag and a webhook
- No marketplace means no gatekeeper and no approval to wait on
What you give up
- No partner marketplace — recruiting affiliates is entirely your job
- Proprietary and hosted
- Stripe or Paddle only; other billing stacks are not supported
- Lighter on enterprise features than PartnerStack
The migration, step by step
- 1Export from PartnerStack: Partner Management > All partners > Export records, tick All-time records, and request Partners, Customers, Commissions and Transactions; the emailed link expires after 30 minutes, so download and store the files straight away.
- 2Build Rewardful's import file: one row per referred customer with the Stripe customer ID and the affiliate's first name, last name and email, plus payout email and link token; check that PartnerStack's customer_key really is the Stripe cus_ ID, and if it is not, join on email through Stripe or your own database.
- 3Set up Rewardful: connect Stripe, recreate each commission rule as a campaign, set the cookie window to match the terms partners joined under (Rewardful defaults to 60 days; PartnerStack links set a 90-day cookie), install rewardful.js on every landing page, and add data-rewardful-params if you want old link parameters recognised.
- 4Parallel run before go-live: keep PartnerStack as the system of record, test Rewardful end to end with a test affiliate (click, sign-up, Stripe payment, commission), and send the import CSV to Rewardful support so existing referred customers are attached before cutover.
- 5Invite and brief partners: tell them the cutover date, that their handle stays the same (yourdomain.com?via=handle), how and when they will be paid from now on, and that old PartnerStack links in their content must be replaced.
- 6Cut over on the first of a month: switch attribution to Rewardful, let PartnerStack issue its final invoice for the previous month (sent on the 1st, charged on the 7th, partner withdrawals between the 8th and 13th), settle every pending payout there, then retire the PartnerStack snippet and links.
The gotcha
Link and cookie continuity is the hard part. PartnerStack links pass through a redirect and land on your site with gspk/gsxid or ps_partner_key/ps_xid parameters, and PartnerStack's help centre says the partner key in them is base64-encoded. Rewardful can listen for extra parameters through data-rewardful-params, but only when the parameter value exactly matches the Rewardful affiliate's token, so an encoded PartnerStack key will not match a plain handle unless Rewardful lets you set each token to the encoded value; confirm that with Rewardful support. Visitors who clicked a partner link before cutover carry a PartnerStack cookie (90 days), not a Rewardful one, so their sign-ups in the following weeks will not attribute automatically; budget for manual commissions. PartnerStack's help centre does not say what its redirect links do after your programme closes, so ask PartnerStack in writing.
When to stay on PartnerStack
Stay if you recruit partners through the PartnerStack Marketplace, run reseller or referral programmes that need lead and deal registration, MDF management or partner training, bill customers outside Stripe or Paddle, or want PartnerStack to collect one monthly commission invoice and handle each partner's withdrawal by PayPal, Stripe or direct deposit.
More Layer 5 migrations
Figures verified 2026-08-01 against vendor pricing pages. Prices change and migrations differ by estate — treat the cost delta as a starting model, not a quote. Rankings and recommendations here are merit-only; affiliate income never changes a verdict. See our methodology.