What is referral marketing?

Referral marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies: using your current customers to spread the word about your brand to new customers.

To turn your loyal customers into your biggest brand advocates, you have to make the referral process as easy as possible for them, and you have to stay top-of-mind with killer referral incentives, like free products and major discounts.

We compiled a truly epic list of the best referral program ideas currently on the market, along with recommendations on what kinds of referral program software to use, incentives to offer, and current customers to target for your very own referral program.

By the end of our list, you will have enough referral program ideas to launch your very own program and open the floodgates of another customer acquisition channel for your business.

Before we begin, let's break down some basic referral marketing definitions so that we know that we're all on the same page.

What is a referral program?

A referral program or a “refer-a-friend” program is a marketing strategy used by many top ecommerce brands to incentivize existing customers to recommend the brand and its products to their family and friends.

A referral program is a deliberate, systematic way of getting people to make referrals to your business. Referral programs are often called word-of-mouth marketing, because they reward existing customers for sharing and incentivize new customers to try out your brand.

Customers are rewarded with referral incentives, such as free cash, major discounts, or a free month of subscription. While there is an upfront cost to the business, referral programs significantly increase long-term revenue by making loyal customers out of your existing customer base.

If you are wondering why you should have a referral program and how to run one, let’s take a look at how the top ecommerce brands are running their referral programs and the results they have achieved.

Before we begin, let's quickly go through the basics of referral programs.

Why do I need a referral program?

One of the biggest stresses of any business is finding a solid customer acquisition channel, or basically, bringing in new customers. When you have a solid referral marketing program, however, you let your existing customers bring new buyers to your brand. 

This not only significantly reduces spending on bringing new customers to your shop, but also increases customer retention, which is a very good thing.

Why?

Because loyal customers have a higher conversion rate than new customers and spend more per transaction, making customer referral programs the most cost-effective and lucrative marketing strategy that your business can possibly employ.

How does a referral program work?

People don't make as many referrals as they intend to for a variety of reasons. A referral program helps make their mind up with a tangible reward for referrals.

Modern referral programs, or refer-a-friend programs, use software to track referrals made by happy customers through either a referral code, a rewards card, or a referral link.

Depending on the referral campaign, customers will usually receive some kind of referral bonus or benefit when they refer a friend. Referral marketing software automates the payout of these referral rewards.

This referral process creates a natural word-of-mouth marketing experience for your brand, which ultimately increases both your customer retention rate and your revenue.

To find out more, check out how ReferralCandy works.

How do I create a referral program?

The best way to bring in potential customers is to first focus on your existing satisfied customers. Rather than just offering cash rewards or free gifts in hopes that your customers will refer a friend to your shop, it takes a little bit of planning to set up a referral program that works.

1. Get clear about your goals

Before creating a complex ambassador program or launching tons of marketing campaigns (of any kind), it's important to be clear about what your goals are for the program. 

This will help guide you as you brainstorm referral marketing ideas. Some questions to consider are:

• What are you hoping to get out of your rewards program?
• Do you want more customers? Or just bigger purchases by your existing customers?
• Are you trying to get a higher conversion rate and increase sales?

You can certainly achieve each of these goals, but it might require a different referral campaign for each goal. So it's important to be clear about your goals before beginning.

Canopy makes the world's cleanest and easiest humidifier for optimal skin health and wellness.

It’s not unusual for brands to choose product incentives rather than cash or credit incentives, but they definitely belong to the minority. Canopy does a great job in closing the loop for existing customers and keeping them loyal. If I’m an advocate, it makes absolute sense for me to be incentivized by free filters since I already own the device. 

They’ve also made it enticing to click on the “Free Filter” button rather than to put “Refer-a-Friend Program” on their homepage. 

2. Make a list of your existing customer referral sources

Your referral sources are your happy customers, friends, and family. They are your biggest advocates and will be the lifeblood of your referral marketing program. Make a list of all of these groups and how you can easily contact them.

3. Make an outreach plan

Now that you have a list of referral sources, carefully make an outreach plan. It's not quite as simple as sending a blast email with a generic referral incentive.

The types of referral programs that you use will largely depend on your list, so plan accordingly.

For example, close friends and family will trust recommendations when they're coming from someone in their inner circle, so adding an offer to the referral program will increase conversion rates!

4. Determine the referral incentives you'll offer

While cash incentives likely seem like they’ll get the biggest draw out of your existing customer base, that’s not necessarily the case. One study found that non-cash incentives were 24% more effective with referral marketing than cash incentives. It’s best to offer something of tremendous value to your customers that will keep them coming back to your shop in the future.

Braxley Bands’ referral program reward structure:

• Advocate reward: 20% off and a chance for a $100 gift card
• Friend offer: 20% off

Beyond the conventional 20% for you, and 20% for me, Braxley Bands also introduced an additional perk of standing a chance to win a $100 gift card (that’s essentially 3 more bands for the advocate). 

That alone is an extra incentive at zero cost to the advocate, all he or she needs to do is to share via word of mouth. 

5. Tell your customers about it

Once you’ve settled on your referral lists and your incentives, it’s time to get people to spread the word both about your brand and your rewards! There are many different ways to do this, each of which brings in a different segment of potential customers.

Some of the most effective strategies are:

• Adding details about your referral program to your newsletter
• Having opt-ins on your website
• Capturing customer emails through  a pop-up widget on your home page
• Sending out specific referral emails to your most loyal audience
• Adding referral program reminders to your social media company profile
• Including physical cards in order packages that mention your referral program

Or a combination of all of these. Multiple channels tend to work better rather than only focusing on one, so you should take advantage of more than one.

Do a little research about the most effective way to grow your lists, and then test it out for yourself.

6. Track the referrals and rewards

In order to run a successful rewards program, you need to keep track of all of the referrals being made. You need to be able to keep track of who referred whom, the date they were referred, whether or not a conversion was made, and the best way to follow up with both the referrer and the referee.

One of the easiest ways to do this is with referral program software, like ReferralCandy.

A system that not only facilitates the reward within your shop but also provides accurate data on the referrals is going to help you know exactly how successful (or unsuccessful) your program is. 

Some referral systems go one step further in making sure that your referrals are legit and not fraudulent.

How top brands are running their referral programs

1. Casper

Casper is a direct-to-consumer mattress company that was founded by five guys in 2014 with the goal of revolutionizing the mattress industry. Since then, Casper has grown into a global giant with over one million customers and a value of 750 million dollars.

A major contributor to their growth has been their referral program. The way it works is simple. When a new customer buys from Casper, they get a confirmation email. 

At the footer of the email, there is a referral link to refer friends.

Source

When a customer clicks on the ‘Refer & earn up to $75’ link, Casper explains to them how they’re able to earn an Amazon gift card in exchange for new referrals they make.

Plus, they make sharing the referral link extremely easy, which makes the program even more effective.

Casper’s referral program is something anyone can implement in any ecommerce niche. You don’t have to make the amount of money, as high as Casper has (earn up to $75), but you can use the same referral program style! 

Based on your own preferences, referral program software like ReferralCandy enables you to create your own rules for your referral program.

2. Harry’s

Harry's is an ecommerce store selling men's personal care products at a lower price point than many competitors, making it an attractive option for many.

Their Harry's Shave Club pre-launch program gained massive popularity and is still one of the most talked about referral programs in the industry.

Their idea was simple. Harry’s wanted to build a credible referral program that focused on helping people spread the word to their friends, instead of not just spending money on paid ads.

That’s what they did, and they did it quite successfully. With this simple, yet effective home page design, they were able to collect 100,000 email addresses for the campaign in just one week.

Source

To get people to this home page, Harry's used a "Milestone Referral Program," which involved instant prizes for people who reached a certain number of referrals. For example, if you refer 5 friends, you get a free shave cream.

Initially, this campaign helped Harry's get over 100 million dollars in funding, and they even bought their own razor blade factory to compete with the industry giants.

Also, they now have over 500 employees and are one of the fastest-growing companies in the industry.

3. Dia & Co

Dia & Co is a plus-size fashion brand that encourages women of all sizes to feel comfortable in their own skin. During their first referral program, they offered their customers a subscription box of five stylist-selected items for $20 a month. If an existing customer refers a friend, they receive a $20 credit. Customers who were referred received free personal styling or a free box.

Dia & Co relied on email marketing to encourage existing customers to join their referral program. In response, over 40,000 customers shared the referral links, and in the first month of the program, the company saw an average of 22 conversions per day from the referral program.

This is what their CEO mentioned about the referral program:

• “Creating a space where plus-size women can share their style and create friendships has been the most rewarding aspect of the business, so instating a referral program was a seamless fit. We’ve found that community begets community, and when customers feel welcomed, the experience is so much more special.”

This sums up why their referral program was such a success. A big part of their brand mission is to make all women feel comfortable in their own skin, so by combining this mission with a good referral program, they saw great results.

Since their first referral program, Dia & Co has updated its referral program with a new simple 'Give $25, Get $25' program that gets a $25 off coupon for your friend and for you once they order.

This new referral program is even more simple, so we’re sure it’s bringing them even greater results. It’s something anyone can implement with referral program tools, such as ReferralCandy.

4. Airbnb

When talking about the best referral programs, you can’t ignore Airbnb. While Airbnb’s referral program is not open for new referrals as of now, there is a lot to learn from what they did.

Their idea was simple. Airbnb’s referral program encouraged its users to invite friends onto the platform, which rewarded both the sender and recipient with $25 travel credits.

Source

Jason Bosinoff, Airbnb's director of engineering, wrote on Medium.com that their success metrics were:

• Monthly Active Users sending Invites
• Invitees per Inviter
• Conversion Rate to New User
• Conversion Rate to New Guest
• Conversion Rate to New Host

Since the launch of the program, the referrals increased bookings by up to 25% in some markets. After the first launch, the 2.0 version was launched, and the results were even more impressive. The 2.0 referral program produced 300% more signups and bookings than the previous version.

Their idea was simple, which is one of the main reasons it worked so well. With the help of referral marketing software, like ReferralCandy, anyone can implement a similar strategy.

5. Google Workspace

Google is one of the most familiar and used tech companies in the world, from its search engine to its suite of apps and video streaming services. They don’t need much of an introduction, but what most people may not be familiar with is their referral program.

Google's B2B referral program offers referrals a chance to earn $8 to $23 for every new business account signup. Their referral program idea is simple, which is one of the factors it is so successful.

In October 2020, Google shared that Workspace now has 2.6 billion monthly active users, up from 2 billion monthly active users in March. For a company as big as Google, this is a huge increase, and one of the main reasons for this growth was their referral program.

One big takeaway you can take from Google’s referral program is its structure. For example, a user may net a $23 reward from one referral. However, due to the way the referral program is structured, users can refer a whole domain (such as a business with 8 employees) and then the $23 will multiply by 8 and the referral will receive $184 in rewards.

If you’re building your own referral program, you might want to use a similar structure to encourage your users to refer more to a company or larger group as a whole.

6. Revolut

Revolut, founded in 2015, was one of the first "challenger banks" to use technology to disrupt the financial industry, so they had to stand out in terms of marketing and product. 

From the beginning, Revolut's goal was to build something so good that customers would do the marketing for them.

After just two years in the business, Revolut reached one million customers for their product. When asked about how they did this so fast in an interview, this is what their CEO Nikolai mentioned:

• On top of nice interface, we give great value to customers. No one in the world can offer the same bank rates than we do, so that's why people talk about us to their friends and families. We grow organically without any paid marketing

The key for them was to make it as easy as possible for someone to recommend Revolut to their friends and families. To do this, they launched a referral program, where if you invited your friend, you earned 60 euros.

While there were different steps involved to earn the 60 euros, they were all made very clear, which made the referral program more clear. Referrals also saw the potential earnings from the same page.

While the entire growth of Revolut cannot be attributed to the referral program, it has been a huge contributor. 

7. Canopy

Canopy is a cloud-based practice management suite for accounting firms. We wanted to include them in this article due to their unique referral program. As a part of their referral program, every friend you refer who completes Canopy's demo call receives a $50 gift card to Amazon. If they sign up for Canopy's software, the referral gets 10% commission on their subscription fee.

This is the landing page you can send for the people you want to refer to.

Quite unique, right? Even though Canopy hasn't publicly mentioned the results they have gotten from the referral program, we’re sure it has been successful for them.

The referral program has been running for years, and if there weren't any return on investment, Canopy wouldn't still give out $50 Amazon cards.

While Canopy is a SaaS company, even ecommerce brands can take inspiration from them. By combining a popular element (Amazon) with a valuable product (Canopy), they have been able to create a referral program that works incredibly well for them.

8. Dropbox

Dropbox's referral program is probably one of the most well-known examples of referral marketing. Dropbox grew by 3900% with this very famous referral program. 

Even today, almost ten years later, it is often used in case studies to demonstrate how referral programs may either assist or even act as the growth engine of a business.

Dropbox's referral program guiding principles are quite clear. Since the product provides cloud storage, it decided to give users more free space in addition to referral bonuses for both accepting invitations and referring friends. Dropbox users can get up to 16 GB for their referrals. So you basically get 500 MB for every friend who installs the Dropbox desktop app and the friend gets 500 MB too. They can sign up for any plan and you get your bonus storage the minute they download the app.

How Referrals Built The $10 Billion Dropbox Empire.

9. Dukaan

Dukaan is an ecommerce software that lets anyone create their first online store. Just recently, they launched their referral program, and in a Medium.com post, one of their product designers analyzed the process of building it and the results.

Their goal was to promote the referral program to their existing sellers and showcase it on their sellers' admin home page. The seller can copy a referral link to share with their friends, and if their friend signs up through the link, both get a reduced monthly rate.

As part of building the referral program, Dukaan tested three different design versions until they landed on the final version.

Source

After launching, Dukaan saw the following results:

• 10% more Dukaan sellers bought subscription plans
• 20% increase in new Dukaan sellers from the sellers who referred to the platform¨

For already established platforms like Dukaan, these results are incredible.

The learning here is that no matter your niche, don’t forget the importance of A/B testing in your referral programs. Dukaan tested multiple versions before landing on the final version, and for you as well, it can make or break your success.

A/B testing may be hard to do manually, but most top referral program software includes it as part of the software.

10. PayPal

When discussing referral-based viral growth, almost every blog post mentions PayPal’s referral program. PayPal was one of the first companies to use a referral campaign to achieve viral growth at such a massive scale, from “a 10% daily growth rate” to “A $1.5 billion buyout”.

All users need to do is send an invitation to a friend who doesn’t have PayPal and have them sign up and link their bank account or card. When they spend or send at least $5, PayPal sends both the advocate and the referred, $10. Users can invite up to ten friends and earn up to $100, and just need to make sure they spend/send at least $5.

11. Uber

Uber's referral program was the basis of its success. It was offered ever since the business began, and its quick expansion was largely due to it. The program has changed, but it still offers rewards to its users. 

To earn referral rewards, users have to follow their conditions. The program is eligible only for a customer who received a program email. Users need to share a referral code in your email with their friend. To earn referral rewards, a referee must complete the first trip with the referral code.

We've written more about Uber's many referral programs here:

How Uber Covered More Than 50 Countries In 3 Years

12. Airtable

Airtable is an online tool that combines elements from databases and spreadsheets. It's very adaptable and has a wonderful user interface. For each person users refer to Airtable, they'll receive $10 in credit. 

Only when the person invited registers and confirms their email will the users be given credit. Users can invite people to use Airtable, and access an Airtable-referral link, from the Referrals and credits section of the Account page.

13. DocSend

/

DocSend is a wonderful solution for safely sending important files while getting immediate feedback on how your recipients are interacting with your content. Their referral program is a way to show their customers’ appreciation for the tool to others while getting a $15 credit for each new user they invite.

14. Fiverr

A famous global internet marketplace for independent contractors, Fiverr also offers a referral program to its customers. The Fiverr platform links freelancers with individuals or companies looking to hire. 

They allow their users to earn up to $100 for every friend who signs up and makes their first order. You can share it by email or with a link via social sharing. When your friends sign up to Fiverr, they get 10% off their first purchase, and you get 10% off their first order amount, up to $100.

15. Duolingo

Every marketer’s favorite social media example Duolingo offers its referral program too. With their program, for every person you refer who signs up for a Duolingo account, you receive a free week of Super Duolingo! This is a simple and easy way to attract your friends to learn a new language and get rewarded.

How do different industries make use of referral programs

Ecommerce Referral Program examples

Fashion & Apparel Referral Program examples

1. The Clymb

The Clymb is an adventure gear brand that has many customers from around the world. 

They offer a referral reward structure to their loyal customers where you invite a friend to join The Clymb and you each get $10 in Clymb credit when they make their first order of $50 or more. They send your credit to your account when the first order ships.

They now even allow you to mass invite your friends and send them personalized messages.

2. Erin Condren's

Erin Condren is known for creating fun organization essentials for your home, office, and everything in between. They have an awesome referral program, where you can earn EC credits to spend in their online store. 

All you need to do is to send your friends a referral link. After your friend sign's up they get a 10$ coupon, and after their first purchase, you will get rewarded with 1000 EC points (a $10 equivalent). You can stack up these points and shop later.

Fashion Referral Programs – Erin Condren

3. Greats

GREATS is the first sneaker company to be founded in Brooklyn. They claim to produce high-quality, long-lasting sneakers with an excellent fit and feel using quality material. Their referral program GIVE $30, GET $30 is a win-win for existing and new customers, offering a great discount and rewards.

Footwear Referral Program Examples – GREATS

4. Rothy's

Rothy’s creates essentials from classic shoes to carry-everywhere bags. They get their inspiration from the strides that the community is making. Their Refer-a-Friend promises to give $20, get a $20 reward, as your friends get their first order.

5. Girlfriend Collective

Here’s a great example from the ethical brand Girlfriend Collective. They believe in sustainable manufacturing and recycled materials. They use old water bottles and fishing nets to produce their clothing, so they won’t be clogging landfills and polluting oceans. With their referral program, you can earn free leggings. Give your friends 30% off their first purchase of $150 or more and earn a Free Pair of Compressive Leggings when they buy. 

6. J. Crew Factory

/

J.Crew believes that shopping should be fun and provides high-quality clothing that helps you look and feel your best, whether you enjoy specific details, unique fabrics, or traditional colors. 

They offer their customers a classic GIVE $20, GET $20 referral program. Refer a friend and they’ll get $20 off their order, plus you’ll get $20 when they sign up for J.Crew Passport. What we like about their referral program is that it provides all of the information that potential advocates want to know, including the terms and conditions. Better to be safe than sorry! 

7. Outdoor Voices

Outdoor Voices brand designs its products through the lens of longevity and circularity to reduce our environmental impact. If you refer a friend to join the brand’s community, you’ll both get $20 off your next purchase of $100 or more.

It's also interesting how they've tied in a campaign specific hashtag #DoingThings with their referral program to maintain the consistency of their branding across the board.

8. Hanna Anderson

Hanna Andersson was established by a Swedish woman living in America. By embracing essentially Scandinavian ideas, such as iconic design that successfully combines form and function, a sincere commitment to sustainability, and a way of life that promotes contented happy lives, she aimed to furnish childhood adventures. 

If you refer a friend, then you'll both get a 20% off reward with Hanna’s generous referral program. See how the brand has also provided a cute hero image on the side to tap on the "share with friends" concept. And also added a bunch of links just in case potential advocates need them.

9. Boden

Boden is all about sustainability. Also, they offer a great referral program to their customers. All they need to do is to fill in the details on their form, next their friend receives 20% off their first purchase, and after they've ordered, customers get a $15 voucher.

10. Fabletics

Fabletics is a popular activewear, fitness, and workout clothing brand. Their goal is to design the finest stylish, high-performing, active-lifestyle goods in the world for every person and everybody at an affordable price. 

With their referral program, you can get $40 in store credit if you refer a friend and they sign up and become VIPs. What's great about their referral landing page is that they've provided a way for advocates to customize the content of their invite emails, which could be a great point for personalization!

11. Thinx

Thinx is a unique women's underwear brand. They make comfortable, absorbent products, and women around the world love their brand. Thinx offers a give $10, get $10 referral program. When you refer a friend and they make a purchase, you get $10 and they get $10 off their first order of Thinx.

12. Birdies

Birdies brand was created by a woman who believes there should be a comfortable pair of shoes in all of your life’s journey. Designed to take you everywhere, Birdies shoes combine elevated style, ultimate comfort, and everyday versatility. 

Their Give $30, Get $30 referral program pays to refer friends and family and enjoy shopping even more. Your friends will get $30 off their first order, and you’ll get $30 off your next order when they make a purchase. Again, Birdies strategically placed an image showing friends wearing Birdies shoes and it does help to paint the picture of referring the product to friends!

13. Hunter

Hunter is a forward-thinking British heritage company established in 1856 and known for its famous Original boot. The company has a long history of invention and continues to create products that are weatherproof and functional in a variety of environments. 

With Hunter’s referral program you can give your friends 20% off, and if they go on to purchase, they will also send you a 20% discount.

14. American Giant

American Giant was born when the founders were dissatisfied with the way clothes were created. So new technologies emerged that allowed for reduced supply chains and direct online sales to customers like you. 

The brand already has a lot of loyal customers and can use their Give $25, Get $25 refer a friend program to get rewarded.

Beauty & Grooming Referral Program examples

15. DMD Skin Sciences

DMD Skin Sciences is a skincare brand with a mission to solve patients’ skincare complaints in the comfort of their own homes. What began as a skincare clinic that was shut down during the Covid pandemic in 2020, has since evolved into a larger ecommerce brand.

Early on, the founder Ena Quitan noticed that new customers would contact her brand to arrange a skincare consultation because a friend referred them. This became one of the main customer acquisition channels for DMD Skin Sciences, so they decided to fully capitalize on it with a referral program.

They set up a simple referral program, where customers could give 10% off their first purchase to their friends, and receive a 10% off coupon code in return. They used ReferralCandy to send automated post-purchase emails to remind customers about their referral program.

After 6 months, DMD Skin Sciences saw the following results:

• $18,000 added in referral program sales in just 6 months
• Out of the all sales, 3% we’re referral sales
• 3,600+ social media posts shared about the referral program

The company's founder Ena explained that referrals are the only source of new customers they have at the moment, and it's working incredibly well for them.

16. Dermstore

Dermstore is an online skincare and beauty shop in the United States. Their customers get rewarded $15 for each friend they refer, also providing friends and family with discounts on their first order. 

Rather than allowing anyone to join their referral program, they've made it exclusive for people who have an existing account with them (pretty smart since now they have the data to reach out to them), but it could also deter non-customers from signing up as well.

17. Adore Beauty

Adore Beauty is the top pure-play online beauty retailer in Australia and an authorized supplier of more than 260 top-tier beauty brands. They have created a referral program, where you give $20, and receive $20 when your friend joins.

18. Thrive Causemetics

Karissa Bodnar founded Thrive Causemetics, a beauty company, and philosophy that goes beyond skin deep by uplifting various communities. 

Their beautiful online store offers a Give $10, Get $10 referral program, where you can give your friend $10 off their first purchase of $50 and more, plus free shipping, and get $10 in points for each successful referral.

19. Quip

Quip is an oral hygiene subscription-based service that provides customers with toothbrushes and other dental essentials. They have a $5 for you, $5 for a friend referral program for their users, and also offer free brush heads, floss, & paste in addition to that.

20. Madison Reed

Haircare brand Madison Reed allows their customers to earn up to $45 from their referral program. It’s a give $15 get $15 deal, and you get beautiful hair as a bonus. The referral program page has a simple form, advocates can easily sign up just by entering their email.

21. Boxycharm

BoxyCharm is a monthly subscription beauty box that comes with 5 full-sized skincare and cosmetics items. Existing customers can use the company's referral program to send a special link to friends. 

You will receive 500 charms (also known as points) for each new member who signs up. You can exchange the charms for cosmetics. It's also nice that they've explained the whole referral process from start to end so that advocates have a better idea of what's going to happen once they sign up.

22. Kari Gran

Kari Gran Skincare has been successful in the clean skincare market for ten years. The business is founded on a small number of essential, oil-based products. The referral program on their website allows you to give your friends $10 off. When your friends buy from your invite link, you get $10 off!

23. Murad Skincare

Murad is the first brand of clinical skincare products, setting a new standard for high-performance skincare. Give a friend $10 off their first $50 purchase to get $10 off when they redeem. What's great about their referral program is that it's extremely easy to sign up, all they need to do is just fill in a very simple form.

24. Ohana Skincare & Beauty

Ohana provides beauty and skincare products and on their website they allow all of their clients to use the referral program. For every completed purchase you will receive 20% off.

Electronic & Gadget Referral Program examples

25. Pavlok

Pavlok sells a waking-up device that helps its customers become more productive, relaxed, and mindful. They have a referral program that allows you to earn $20 from each friend. 

26. MSI

MSI is a computer hardware manufacturer. If you refer a friend, you can get 300 points and a chance to win a big prize. This is slightly different from a default referral program because they've provided the added benefit of winning a prize on top of the purchase bonus.

27. Bose

Bose is an American manufacturer that specializes in selling audio equipment. They have a classic give $50, get $50 referral program on their website that inspires you to become everyone’s best friend. Bose made it clear and easy to understand the entire referral process by breaking it down into bullet points on their referral landing page.

28. Lulu & Georgia

Lightning and home decor brand Lulu & Georgia gives you and your friend 25$ for each successful referral. Again it's easy to sign up for it since it's a simple form which greatly reduces the friction for potential advocates!

F&B and Supplements Referral Program examples

29. Craft Coffee

Craft Coffee is a coffee subscription box that makes it easy to find good coffee at fair prices. With their referral program, your friends get 15% off, and you get a free bag of coffee. 

With a punchy headline using power words, Craft Coffee is able to capture the attention of coffee lovers—who doesn't want free coffee?

30. Soylent

Soylent is a meal-replacement product that has a combination of vitamins, minerals, and other necessary components. You can receive 25,000 points through their referral program for each referral that joins. 

31. Stop & Shop

Stop & Shop is an online food store. Customers can use email, Facebook, Twitter, Messenger, Pinterest, and Pinterest Messenger to share referral links with friends. Customers who successfully refer friends will receive $10 to put towards their next purchase, while referrals who sign up receive $10.

32. Hydrant

/i

Hydrant is an online beverage store that sells refreshment drinks and its generous referral program gives you and your friends a 50% off coupon.

33. Muscle Food

Muscle food offers meal plans and prepped food with protein. They offer a referral program where your friend gets £10 off and you get £10 off.

34. Farm Fresh To You

Farm Fresh To You offers delivery service of organic fruits and veggies fresh from their farm and other local growers/artisans. You get to save $25 and your friend saves $15 with their referral program.

35. Flaviar

Flaviar gives you and your referred friend the possibility to choose an extra Tasting Box or bottle in case of a successful referral. Flaviar takes their branding so seriously, that even their referral program process is illustrated with branded images. And that works extremely well for them in helping advocates understand the referral process better.

36. Love With Food

Love with Food offers a huge variety of snacks to its customers. They have a referral program for all of their customers, where you can invite friends, and after they sign up, you get a free box of snacks and 1000 points to redeem at their store.

37. Happy Way

Happy Way is an Australian brand of organic and natural health snacks with a top-notch rewards system. Happy Way stands out in a crowded market that regularly takes itself too seriously by using vibrant color pops and upbeat visuals. With their Happy Way referral program, you and your friend get $10 if the referral was complete.

38. We Are Feel

We Are Feel offers safe and natural supplements—multivitamins, collagen, and more. Their referral program is a simple one but it taps on the altruistic mind of "keeping friends healthy" by introducing these supplements to them. It's an angle that is widely used in referral campaigns and they tend to do well too.

39. Seated

Seated is an app for restaurant and cafe reservations. The referral program on their website allows their users and referred friends to get credits that can be used toward future reservations. 

As seen above, Seated has a whole FAQ segment that fully answers all of the commonly asked questions from potential advocates.

40. fatty15

fatty15's referral program taps into the altruistic behavior of humans. Products like supplements tend to be on the personal side and recommendations from loved ones tend to do better than general advertising. 

Their referral messaging and slogan targets the main selling point which is to improve long-term health and wellness for loved ones. Their referral landing page details the process of signing up and provides clear benefits and even a referral FAQ segment to clarify doubts.

E-cigarettes and Vaporizers Referral Program examples

41. GPen

GPen's referral program gives your friends 15% off and a 20% discount to you.

42. Vampire Vape

Vampire Vape sells a variety of e-liquids, disposables, vapes, and pods. You can use their refer a friend feature so that you and your friend will get £5 off your next order.

43. Vape Loft

Vape Loft gives you and your friends a $10 coupon for each successful referral.

44. Vape Merchant

Vape Merchant offers a classic give $15, get $15 referral program to their existing customers and new friends.

45. Ripple+

Ripple+ has a well-designed referral sign-up page for their referral program. They offer a basic give 20% + get $10 off referral program. It's simple and straight to the point. It's also interesting how they've decided to provide different referral incentives for their advocates compared to their "friends". There's also a simple illustration of how the referral program works.

Pets Referral Program examples

46. PetFlow

PetFlow offers a classic give $10 get, $10 referral program to their customers and their furry friends.

47. Animal Friends

An animal pet insurance brand Animal Friends gives you and your referred friend a £25 voucher to boost their sales and attract more customers.

48. PetDirect

A pet food online store PetDirect gives you $10 and your friends $10 when you tell them about the store with your personalized referral link. Their referral landing page has a cute approach by using a pet pun to get the attention of people on the page—plus it does wonders for their branding!

49. Budget Pet Supplies

At Budget Pet Supplies, you and your friends get the chance to collect rewards together. All you have to do to earn thousands of reward points is recommend a friend or family member to Budget Pet Supplies. You will receive 500 reward points for one referral link, and your friend will receive 200 reward points in addition to a 15% sign-up and purchase discount.

50. Pet Releaf

Pet Releaf sells plant-based products for pet health. In their referral program, they give you and your friends $20 to shop on their website.

51. PetKind

Superfoods for pets brand PetKind gives your friends $10 off their first order and you get $20 (in points) for each successful referral.

Home and Care Goods Referral Program examples

52. A Box of Stories

A Box of Stories is a subscription box service in the United Kingdom that delivers four hand-picked novels for the price of a paperback (about £15).

As a relatively new brand (founded in 2018), A Box of Stories relied on Facebook advertising to acquire new customers. The cost of acquiring new customers was high, so they started looking for alternative ways to get their product out to new potential customers.

They got a recommendation that ReferralCandy could help them reach new audiences and decided to give it a chance in 2020.

A Box of Stories used ReferralCandy's coupon code feature to offer discounts on their products. Customers could offer their friends a £4 discount (about 25%) and receive an additional £4 discount once they make their next purchase.

Customers received this incredibly well. This is what Aasha, the founder of A Box of Stories mentioned on the results:

• "ReferralCandy did incredibly well on launch - in the first month, we had a referral rate of 7-8%."

In just a little over four months, close to 5,000 customers joined the referral program and the company saw a 3000% return on investment with ReferralCandy.

This is an ideal scenario when the right messaging and the right referral program tool are combined.

53. Five Good Friends

With the Five Good Friends program, you can refer a friend, and you and your friend will receive a $50 gift card when they join Five Good Friends and complete their first service visit. Sometimes, referral incentives don't just have to be strictly cash or products, they could come in the form of gift vouchers and gift cards!

54. QE Home

QE Home sells luxury bedding like duvet covers, kids' bedding, down duvets, quilt sets, weighted blankets, and more. You need to share $10 off that your friends can use towards their first order and get $10 off for each successful referral.

55. The Conran Shop

The Conran Shop is a home accessories and textile eCommerce store. They offer their users “give 15%, get 15% off” for referring a friend.

56. Baloo

Baloo makes weighted blankets and their referral program is easily accessible in the footer of their ecommerce site. It brings users to a referral sign-up page where there's a simple form for them to sign up for the referral program easily.

Since Baloo uses ReferralCandy for its referral program, it’s a great example of what you can do with our software.

Games, Software and Digital Goods Referral Program examples

57. World of Warcraft

In the WoW referral program, the player and their friends receive not only free game time but also exclusive in-game items. The conditions are also provided for new users who have not played World of Warcraft for a long time (more than 2 years). This increases the number of active players who show loyalty to earlier users.

58. Binance

Share your referral link with your friends to earn rewards. When an invited friend registers for a Binance account and makes his first deposit worth more than $50, you’ll both receive 100 USDT ($100) in trading platforms fee credit. 

59. Lunatic Capital

Lunatic Capital offers their members get discount for a monthly subscription by inviting 2 friends. For example, John invited 2 of his friends. And in case of a successful referral, John will get a $160 discount for the monthly subscription.

60. Cash App

Cash app lets customers and their friends get bonuses following these simple steps. They just have to download the application, enter their referral code in the profile, link a debit card, and spend within the given time frame to receive the referral bonus.

61. TransferGo

TransferGo is an app that can help you easily send money to over 160 countries. You can earn 22€ on your bank account every time your referral friends make their first transfer. 

62. Western Union

Instead of the usual cash or discount rewards, Western Union’s referral program introduced another incentive where customers and their referred friends can earn a $20 Amazon.com e-gift code. 

Travel Referral Program examples

63. Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles referral program

Turkish Airlines gives you 500 Miles for every invited friend. You can refer up to 5 friends and earn 2500 Miles.

64. Friendly Planet

Friendly Planet offers travel services. They offer their customers a generous referral program, where you and your friends can earn $100 each.

65. Travelink

Travelink gives you a $25 Gift Card for a first-time booking or when you refer friends and family.

66. Rooh Travel

All travel enthusiasts can refer a friend and they’ll both save £100 on your next trip with Rooh Travel.​

67. Holiday Vacations

With the Holiday Vacations referral program you can earn $200 in Refer a Friend credit for each new friend you refer.

68. Kensington Tours

Kensington Tours offers you and your referred friends or family members $250 each to spend on your next trip. Their referral landing page provides just the right amount of information for any customer-turned-advocate to understand what your referral program process is like and how they'll benefit from joining it.

Finance Referral Program examples

69. CapitalOne

CapitalOne also has a great referral program for its users. You need to sign in to your account to get your personal referral link, then share that link with family members or friends. If they’re a new Capital One cardholder and get approved using your link, you’ll earn a bonus for each friend approved.

70. American Express

American Express rewards their loyal customers if they refer a friend and get approved for the card.

71. Payoneer

With Payoneer’s referral program you can get a $25 reward when referring a friend or family member.

72. Chase Bank

Chase Bank offers up to 75,000 bonus points or up to $500 cashback per year in their referral program for each friend that gets referred.

73. Discover

Refer-a-Friend eligible users get Discover’s credit referral reward of $50 to $100 if their friend applies for the specific offer sent via the link provided. 

Phone Service Referral Program Examples

74. T-Mobile

By introducing friends and family to T-Mobile to open new postpaid accounts, current customers are eligible to win a $50 Virtual Express Prepaid MasterCard card.

75. Mint Mobile

Mint Mobile offers you 3 months of free usage for referring a friend. You can also earn up to $90 for each referral. The amount of credit you get will depend on which plan your friend picks.

76. Metro

If you refer your friends to Metro, you can earn up to $125 a year. For every friend who joins any Metro plan, you’ll receive a $25 virtual prepaid Mastercard.

77. FoneHouse

Earn £25 with the FoneHouse referral program. There are some steps you need to follow in order to refer friends and earn rewards.

Over to you

Building a referral program from scratch can be daunting at the start.

What referral incentives should I offer? How often should I promote my referral program? What if people are taking advantage of our referral campaigns? 

These are all legitimate questions that any business would have. What matters most is to really understand who your customers are, and what makes them happy? Not to forget make sure that your product itself is of good quality and easily referable.

What are your favorite ecommerce referral programs? If this list is missing your favorites, let us know!

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this article and want to grow your ecommerce store, subscribe to our newsletter to get our latest articles and roundups.

Further reading

• Why Referral Marketing Is Awesome
• How to Set Up a Referral Program for Your Ecommerce Store
• How to Design Your Referral Emails
• How to Get More Ecommerce Referrals
• How to Promote Your Referral Program
• How to Measure the ROI of Your Referral Program

The previous versions of this article were written by Visakan Veerasamy, Si Quan Ong, Darren Foong, and Marquis Matson, Alfred Lua, marketers at ReferralCandy. We update this article regularly to keep it relevant and useful to ecommerce merchants.

Frequently Asked Questions

WooCommerce might be the most well-known WordPress ecommerce plugin, but it isn't the only plugin out there. In fact, WordPress provides dozens of plugins to help you set up and build up a successful online store.

Some of these plugins are paid, some are free, and some are better suited to certain online stores than others.

To help you, we have reviewed all the top WordPress ecommerce plugins and narrowed down the list to 11 of the best. Whether you want to find alternatives to WooCommerce, find the best marketing tools, or speed up your website, these plugins have you covered.

Before looking at the best WordPress ecommerce plugins, let's discuss what essential features a plugin should have.

What features to look for in your WordPress ecommerce plugin?

The top WordPress ecommerce plugins all share common features, which you should also take note of. Let's discuss some of these features.

1. Good core capabilities

Depending on the WordPress ecommerce plugin and what it is made for, the core capabilities vary. However, you should take note of the following:

• Ease of use: The plugin should be user-friendly and have an intuitive interface. It should offer easy installation, setup, and customization options.
• Compatibility with all devices: If your WordPress plugin relates to the front end, like a shopping cart, it should look good across all devices, including mobile.
• Analytics and reporting: WordPress plugins that increase your store's revenue and overall performance should offer analytics and reporting functionality.
• Secure payment processing: If you're looking for a shopping cart solution, secure payment processing is essential to protect customer data.
• Advanced settings. For example, if you're looking for a marketing automation tool, the software should be capable of creating advanced email and SMS sequences.

2. Easy integration options

All of the plugins we'll discuss in this article are available in the WordPress Plugin store. On top of this, it is highly beneficial if the plugin integrates with other third-party tools that extend its functionality.

To give you an example of this, let's look into our own tool, ReferralCandy. ReferralCandy is available in the WordPress plugin store, but it also integrates with third-party email marketing tools like Klaviyo, so merchants can better retarget old and new customers.

3. Highly scalable

Your WordPress ecommerce plugin should be scalable, which will help once your store grows. A scalable plugin ensures that your online store can handle more traffic, products, and features without compromising performance.

The 11 best WordPress ecommerce plugins for building your online store

1. ReferralCandy

Pricing: Paid plans start from $59/month, and a 14-day free trial is available.

Who is it for: Ecommerce store owners looking to start and run a successful referral program.

ReferralCandy helps over 3,000 brands run their referral programs and integrates seamlessly with WordPress stores through WooCommerce. With it, you can quickly set up your referral program using one of the ready-to-use templates, which can be customized to meet your specific needs.

You can automatically send referral invitations for new customers to join the program and track the performance through analytics and customer insights. If you want to retarget customers, ReferralCandy can be integrated with marketing tools, such as Klaviyo.

Frutamare is one of the stores using ReferralCandy for referral programs. Within the first six months of launching the referral program, their referral revenue jumped to 700% and they only needed to spend about one hour a week on it.

Pros and cons

• Quick integration with WooCommerce and other ecommerce solutions, like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and more
• Automation tools for detecting fraud referrals, sending referral emails, and inviting new customers to join the program
• Customer insights and referral industry benchmark for tracking the results
• Ready-to-use templates for referral landing pages and referral emails

2. WooCommerce

Pricing: WooCommerce is free to use, but you may need to install plugins to it which will increase the cost.

Who is it for: WordPress users who want to create their ecommerce store

WooCommerce allows WordPress users to sell products and services directly from their websites. It is the most popular WordPress ecommerce plugin and powers even more ecommerce stores than the leading competitors, such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Shift4shop, and more.

When you start out with WooCommerce, you get access to hundreds of free themes that you can use to design your store. WordPress Extensions Store offers thousands of tools to extend your store's functionality. Some of the apps are free, while others are paid.

One of the reasons merchants may choose WooCommerce over other solutions is its high customizability. You can customize your ecommerce store to meet your specific needs. However, this may also require technical expertise.

Pros

• Free to use with all the premium features
• Endless customization possibilities, especially for those with technical knowledge
• Highly scalable open-source solution suitable for both small and large businesses
• WooCommerce provides extensive self-help documentation to get your store up and running

Cons

• Not as beginner-friendly as a few other ecommerce platform solutions, such as Shopify
• You need to invest in a hosting solution, unlike with competitors, such as Shopify
• To use WooCommerce effectively, you need to invest in various plugins

3. WP Rocket

Pricing: Paid plans start from $59/year for one website, and no free trials are available.

Who is it for: WordPress users who want to speed up their online stores for better customer experience

WP Rocket helps ecommerce store owners speed up their websites by compressing files, enabling caching, and lazy loading. WP Rocket supports WooCommerce and other ecommerce stores within WordPress, such as Shopify.

We recommend WP Rocket, especially for merchants who use SEO as part of their strategy, since Google has officially confirmed that page speed is a ranking factor. Even if you don't use SEO as part of your marketing strategy, fast page load speed improves customer experience, which may lead to increased sales.

WP Rocket is easy to get started with, and once you've done so, you'll have access to a dashboard where you can set up the plugin with a few clicks. WP Rocket is highly rated on Trustpilot, and many of the reviews indicate that the customer support is excellent.

Pros

• Quick and easy to deploy to a website
• Helps with SEO and overall customer experience by fastening site load speed
• WP Rocket doesn't only cache files; it also minimizes file sizes and optimizes images
• Known for having excellent customer support in case problems arise

Cons

• Only yearly plans are available, making it less ideal for merchants just starting out or testing different options
• No free version is available

4. Rank Math

Pricing: Paid plans start at $6.99/month, paid annually, and free plans are available

Who is it for: Merchants looking to improve their online store's SEO performance

Rank Math is a WordPress SEO plugin that is designed to help website owners optimize their content for higher rankings. Ecommerce store owners can use it to optimize their product, blog, and home pages to rank higher on search engines.

Rank Math provides you with analytics, such as your best-performing keywords, so you can better optimize your content strategy. It also analyzes your website's SEO score and provides actionable recommendations for improving it.

As for integrations, Rank Math only integrates with WooCommerce stores. If you use another ecommerce solution within WordPress, such as Shopify or BigCommerce, you may want to consider Rank Math alternatives, such as Yoast SEO.

Pros

• A strong free plan available that gives access to basic SEO tools
• Analytics that give you insights into your best-performing keywords
• Helps to fix WordPress site issues
• Integrates with WooCommerce stores as well as with Google Analytics for more SEO insights

Cons

• Many of the more advanced features are only available in the paid plans
• Doesn't offer integrations with Shopify stores

5. Shopify Buy Button

Pricing: Paid plans starting from $5/month and 3-day free trial available

Who is it for: WordPress users who want to use Shopify as their shopping cart

What many merchants don't know is that Shopify makes it possible to integrate their shopping cart with WordPress. Known as the Shopify Buy Button, it allows you to sell your products directly from your WordPress blog or website. Shopify's plugin creates a mini storefront for you that can be used to sell your products.

This plugin is especially beneficial if you already have traction on your WordPress site. Shopify Buy Button supports over 100+ payment gateways, provides basic sales analytics, allows unlimited orders, and can be customized with your brand colors.

Shopify's regular pricing plans start at $39/month, but their shopping cart solution for WordPress costs only $5/month, which makes it very affordable. Obviously, you don't get access to Shopify's regular features, such as the App Store and Shopify themes, but if you only need the shopping cart, the price is excellent.

Pros

• Can be added directly within WordPress blog or website to take advantage of any existing website traffic
• Affordable shopping cart solution for WordPress site owners
• Supports 100+ payment gateways
• Allows basic checkout customization
• Comes with basic sales analytics
• Global tax and currency support

Cons

• You don't get access to most of Shopify's basic functionalities (only the shopping cart part)
• Shopify Buy Button uses Javascript and must be embedded on your website, which can slow it down

6. BigCommerce for WordPress

Pricing: Custom quotation in place. To get the pricing, visit BigCommerce's website and contact their sales team.

Who is it for: WordPress store owners who need a scalable ecommerce platform solution

BigCommerce has its own BigCommerce for WordPress plugin, which allows you to build your front-end design with WordPress and lets BigCommerce handle catalog management, fulfillment logistics, payment processing, and more. Basically, WordPress handles the front end, and BigCommerce handles the back end.

BigCommerce is known for its powerful catalog and product management capabilities and industry-leading uptime and speed capabilities. These make it especially suitable for enterprises that value these. BigCommerce also makes it possible to manage multiple sites from one single control panel, which is another feature enterprises benefit from.

While BigCommerce for WordPress is used by many merchants, it has also received some backlash related to poor customer support and lacking user-friendliness. The plugin may be capable of a lot, but beginner WordPress users should be especially cautious as it may not be the most intuitive to use.

Pros

• Highly scalable solution
• Suitable WooCommerce alternative, especially for larger brands
• Powerful catalog management capabilities
• Fast speed and uptime
• As opposed to Shopify's Buy Button, BigCommerce doesn't require the use of Javascript

Cons

• BigCommerce for WordPress users mentions that the available customer support is lacking
• Pricing is more on the steep side when compared to WooCommerce and Shopify Buy Button

7. WP EasyCart

Pricing: Paid plans start from $69/year, and a free plan is available

Who is it for: WordPress users who want a free shopping cart alternative to WooCommerce

WP EasyCart is an all-in-one shopping cart ecommerce plugin for WordPress stores that can be used on both new and existing websites. While it lacks the same amount of payment gateway integrations as some alternatives, it does integrate with the most popular ones, including Stripe, PayPal, Square, and more.

Similarly to alternatives like Shopify and WooCommerce, WP EasyCart allows you to process unlimited orders and add unlimited products.

Reviews of WP Easy Cart indicate that the platform is easy to use, affordable, and has a good customer support. The only downside of the customer support is that it's not available for the free plan. Customers also mention that the plugin has built-in sales tracking, which is a money-saving feature.

Pros

• Free shopping cart alternative to WooCommerce
• Comes with an intuitive dashboard for setting up the shopping cart
• The premium version makes it possible to sell your products on social media platforms
• Advanced settings for adding and editing products

Cons

• Supports 30+ payment gateways, whereas shopping cart alternatives Shopify and BigCommerce support much more
• No customer support is available on the free plan other than the community forum

8. TranslatePress

Pricing: Paid plans starting from €99/month. A free plan is available and there is a demo page that lets you test out the platform.

Who is it for: WordPress sites who want to translate their site into multiple languages

TranslatePress makes it easy for WordPress ecommerce sites to become multilingual. It uses the top machine translation services, such as Google Translate and DeepL, to translate your website into 200+ languages automatically.

If your ecommerce store has a blog and you want to take advantage of local search, TranslatePress can be a great option since its functionalities support this. You should keep in mind, though, that SEO support is not available on the free plan.

TranslatePress works with any WordPress theme or plugin, ensuring seamless integration. A cool feature of TranslatePress is the Google Translate integration, which allows you to set up automatic translation with your own Google API key.

Pros

• Helps to translate your website into 200+ languages
• Allows you to translate WooCommerce product pages, page builder content, and blog posts directly from the frontend
• The free TranslatePress version does not include SEO features
• Native integration with Google Translate

Cons

• The free plan of TranslatePress is fairly limited
• If you're just starting out, the paid versions may seem quite pricey since you have to sign up for a yearly plan

9. Tidio

Pricing: Paid plans start from $29/month, and a free plan is available. 7-day free trial for the paid plans

Who is it for: Store owners looking to add live chat, chatbot, and multichannel communication to their store

If you want an all-in-one solution for managing customer service, Tidio might be the right solution. Tidio makes it possible to create a chatbot for your ecommerce store. With it, you can answer the most common questions customers ask. The chatbot automatically gathers email addresses that you can later use to send marketing emails to customers.

You can also add live chat to the chatbot. If the chatbot doesn't know the answer to a customer question, it can automatically be directed to a customer service representative.

Tidio leverages AI to make the chatbot more effective. It enables you to create pop-ups based on the customer's actions during the chatting process, such as specified product recommendations. Tidio also provides a drag-and-drop visual editor to design the chatbot to match your brand's needs.

Pros

• The AI-powered chatbot helps to answer up to 70% of customer questions
• Built-in live chat, chatbot, and AI features
• Free plan available
• Supports multi-language chats
• Integrates with third-party tools like Klaviyo, Omnisend, ActiveCampaign, and more

Cons

• The free plan comes with relatively limited features

10. TrustPulse

Pricing: Paid plans start from $9/month, billed annually. No free plan is available.

Who is it for: WordPress website owners who want to increase sales through social proof

TrustPulse helps merchants increase sales and customer trust by incorporating FOMO and social proof into their WordPress sites. The plugin includes a social proof notification builder that lets you tailor popups to your liking.

You can choose between two different FOMO campaigns: on-fire and recent activity. "On-fire" displays a popup of how many people have taken action on your website in a certain period. "Recent activity" shows a live stream of website activity like membership site registrations, WooCommerce purchases, and email signups.

TrustPulse has advanced targeting rules and timing controls to show the popups to the right people at the right time. You also get access to FOMO analytics that help measure the performance of your popups.

Pros

• Customizable social proof popups
• Works on all WordPress websites as well as with other ecommerce platforms, like Shopify and BigCommerce
• Basic analytics for tracking performance
• Advanced timing controls and targeting rules

Cons

• TrustPulse's free version is limited to 500 sessions per month

11. Klaviyo

Pricing: Paid plans start from $45/month, and a free plan is available.

Who is it for: WooCommerce store owners looking to create marketing automation campaigns

Klaviyo is the right WordPress ecommerce plugin for setting up advanced email and SMS automation. It comes with an email campaign builder that lets you create email and SMS sequences, A/B test different variations and use 110+ pre-designed templates.

It also has segmentation tools that help you segment customers based on their previous actions. For example, you can create targeted marketing campaigns based on customers' purchase history, discount code usage, or contact data. Klaviyo also provides the tools for creating popups that help collect customer email addresses with small incentives.

As for WordPress, Klaviyo only integrates with WooCommerce stores. You can also integrate it with various other third-party marketing tools, such as ReferralCandy, to set up your referral program.

Pros

• Advanced email and SMS automations
• Multiple ready-to-use templates for marketing automation campaigns
• Strong reporting and analytics to see campaign performance
• Free plan available for low-volume marketing campaigns

Cons

• Only integrates with WooCommerce for WordPress
• The price increases rapidly as you send more emails and SMS messages

Conclusion

The best WordPress ecommerce plugins for your online store depend on your personal needs. WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce plugin for setting up an online store, but there are alternatives for that too, including Shopify and BigCommerce, which both provide shopping cart solutions.

For merchants who use SEO as their strategy, Rank Math can help them analyze their SEO performance, and WP Rocket can speed up their site, improving the search engine rankings.

If you want to set up and run a referral program for your WordPress site, I’d suggest trying ReferralCandy. ReferralCandy has a 14-day free trial, which lets you get started easily and risk-free. You can install ReferralCandy directly from the WordPress plugins page.

If you think our list is missing some essential WordPress ecommerce plugins, let us know!

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this article and want to grow your ecommerce store, subscribe to our newsletter to get our latest articles and roundups.

Referral marketing remains one of the most powerful forms of marketing since 82% of Gen Zers trust their friends and family for product advice, and 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know.

To tap into the power of referrals, merchants are looking to start their own referral program. A referral program helps to tap into the power of word of mouth marketing, where existing customers share your brand and products with friends and family.

This leads us to today's article, as the only real way to start a referral program is with referral marketing software.

The challenge with selecting a referral marketing software lies in the sheer amount of options available. Plus, some solutions are more suitable for certain types of businesses. To guide you, we have listed the 10 best referral marketing software solutions.

What is a referral marketing software?

Referral marketing software helps businesses leverage word-of-mouth by encouraging existing customers to share personalized referral links with friends and family. Referral marketing software solutions, like ReferralCandy, provide the complete feature set required to setting up a referral software.

What features to look for in referral marketing software

Without the right features, setting up a successful referral program is challenging.

Let's look into the features you should look for.

1. Ready-to-use templates

The best referral program solutions provide templates for referral emails and referral landing pages. These ready-to-use templates will give you a headstart in starting your own referral program.

For example, ReferralCandy provides ready-to-use templates that are created based on best practices for generating the most referrals.

Additionally, all the referral program templates should be optimized to work beautifully across all devices. If you want to make more advanced changes to the referral template, the software should support HTML and CSS editing.

2. Data-driven analytics

To better understand the performance of your referral program, the referral software should include data-driven analytics.

Metrics, including referral sales, referral revenue, referred traffic sources, and different customer insights, like the total number of shares, are all important.

The top referral tracking software solutions include industry benchmarks to see how you compare against industry standards.

3. Extensive integration options

Before you choose referral software, make sure it integrates with the ecommerce platform you're using.

Or, if you use a third-party email marketing tool like Klaviyo or Mailchimp, you want to ensure it integrates seamlessly with your referral software. If you want to later retarget customers' friends who didn't purchase, the email integrations allow you to do so.

Extensive integrations help to streamline the process of setting up and running your customer referral programs.

4. Automation settings

In the best-case scenario, your referral program should mostly run in the background, requiring as little effort from you as possible.

Sure, you should always spend time improving your referral program, but strong automation settings help automate mundane tasks, such as sending referral invitations and rewarding advocates.

The best referral tools include automation settings that make this possible. For example, with ReferralCandy, you can automatically send referral emails, automatically reward customers, and identify correct and suspicious referrals.

Why should you invest in a referral marketing software?

Investing in referral marketing software comes with many benefits. Let's discuss some of those next.

1. High return on investment (ROI)

Referral marketing software is used to launch a referral program, which is proven to bring high ROI.

The global average referral rate is 2.35%, which means that most merchants see a positive return on investment from their referral programs.

If you compare this to other marketing methods, referral programs are able to bring one of the highest ROIs. ReferralCandy customers, like FarmHounds, have achieved a 35.30 return on investment (ROI) on their referral program and have generated over $600k in referral sales.

2. Scalable strategy

Referral marketing software automates referral tracking and management, allowing you to scale it as your business grows. This includes tracking the progress of each referral and managing rewards distribution.

The referral emails and thank you messages can also be sent automatically. And, when your customer base grows, the referral emails will be sent to more people, which in turn, will lead to more customers becoming referral advocates.

3. It doesn't take money from your existing customers

The main difference between referral marketing and other forms of marketing, such as email and social media marketing, is that referral marketing doesn't take money from existing customers.

If you use referral marketing software to run your referral program, all referral revenue comes from customers' friends and family who weren't part of your customer base before.

4. Access to an untapped audience

Even if you use different retargeting methods on social media or email marketing, it might be impossible to target your ads at your customers' friends. With referral marketing software, you can target your existing customers' friends and family through your referral campaigns.

Plus, recommendations from friends and family are highly trusted, leading to a higher likelihood of conversion.

5. Increases customer loyalty

Referral marketing software increases brand loyalty by encouraging existing customers to recommend your products and services, and in return, getting referral rewards. Referral programs are typically two-sided, so both the advocate and the friend get rewarded.

Loyal customers also convert better than new customers and spend more per transaction, making customer referral programs a cost-effective and lucrative customer acquisition channel.

Top 10 Referral Marketing Software for Ecommerce Stores in 2025

For each referral program software, we will highlight:

• Available pricing plans
• Available integrations
• Features of the software
• Who the software is best for
• Pros and cons of the software
• Customer reviews of the software

With these details, choosing the right referral marketing platform will be easier.

1. ReferralCandy

Who is it for: Ecommerce brands looking to increase their sales through a referral program

Pricing: Paid plans start at $59/month. 14-day free trial available.

ReferralCandy powers referral programs for over 3,000 brands and is one of the best Shopify apps for running a referral program. You also get the opportunity to run affiliate programs that pay out cash for successful sales.

There are different templates for referral landing pages and emails, and merchants can customize them to fit their needs. If you have web development experience, you can use the developer mode to customize the pages further.

Automation is crucial for referral programs, and ReferralCandy has different automation settings, such as automated referral invitation and thank you emails, flagging fraudulent referrals, and sending free gifts to super advocates.

ReferralCandy also provides you with analytics, including referral sales, referral revenue, number of referrals, total number of shares, number of referral emails sent and their performance, the amount of referred traffic to your store, and more.

Pros and cons:

• Includes all the tools needed to set up a referral program
• Automation settings to save time from mundane tasks
• Easy to set up
• Highly customizable
• Available 14-day free trial
• Extensive analytics to track the referral program performance
• It has a total of 4.9 out of 5.0 stars at over 2,000 unique reviews in the ShopifyApp Store, making it one of the best referral program software for Shopify stores

Available integrations:

ReferralCandy integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and 3dcart stores. It also integrates with other third-party payment and marketing tools, like ReCharge, Klaviyo, and Mailchimp. ReferralCandy is available on the Shopify App Store.

2. SC Conjured Referrals

Who is it for: Ecommerce store owners

Pricing: Paid plans start from $19/month, plus $10 USD for every 25 referred orders. Free plan available

SC Conjured Referrals is a referral program software for Shopify store owners who seek to turn their loyal customers into brand ambassadors. The software includes the entire toolkit for running a referral program, including the ability to create referral links and coupons, referral emails, customizable referral pages, and a fraud detection system.

Customers of SC Conjured Referrals on Shopify especially appreciate how user-friendly the software is and the customization capabilities are simple yet effective.

One downside of SC Conjured Referrals is that the available referral templates aren't as extensive as those of competitors like ReferralCandy.

Pros and cons:

(+) Extensive post-purchase popups
(+) Strong referral fraud detection system
(+) Free plan available for running a small-scale referral program
(-)  Only a 5-day free trial available for the paid plans
(-) Lacks ecommerce platform integrations since it integrates with Shopify stores only

Available integrations:

SC Conjured Referrals is only available on the Shopify App Store and integrates with Shopify stores. It also integrates with marketing apps, including Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Active Campaign, Omnisend, and Recharge.

3. GrowSurf

Who is it for: Marketing, product, and engineering teams looking to launch a referral program

Pricing: Paid plans start from $450/month. Free trial available.

GrowSurf is a referral software solution that allows you to create a referral program with all the standard referral incentives, including cash, coupons, and custom rewards. It includes all the basic referral analytics, including the amount of referrals, total revenue, best sharing channels, and top participants.

GrowSurf is not just for ecommerce brands; it's also suitable for the SaaS, FinTech, Education, and InsurTech industries. This is reflected in its pricing plans, which can be steep for smaller ecommerce brands just starting out.

It has gained a 4.7 out of 5.0 stars rating with 20+ unique reviews on Capterra. Customers mostly appreciate the ease of setting up a referral program with GrowSurf and the available customer service, which is mentioned to be good.

Pros and cons:

(+) Suitable for many industries
(+) Extensive customization options are available
(+) Known for having a great customer service
(-) One of the most expensive referral software solutions
(-) Lacking ecommerce platform integrations
(-) You need to use GrowSurf in conjunction with an email marketing or CRM platform since it does not integrate with ecommerce platforms, which means an increased cost

Available integrations:

GrowSurf integrates with email marketing and CRM tools, like ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, Brevo, and Mailchimp, and you can import your email lists from those tools into GrowSurf to run your referral program.

4. Rivo Loyalty & Referrals

Who is it for: Shopify store owners looking to start a referral program

Pricing: Paid plans start from $49/month. 7-day free trial available.

Rivo is a loyalty program software for Shopify Store owners and it includes essential features, including automated referral emails, referral form designer, ability to add different referral incentives, and built-in fraud protection.

Rivo has 4.9 out of 5.0 stars on the Shopify App Store with over 2,000 reviews. Customers mostly like the ability to add pop-ups to invite people to join the referral program, the good customer support, and the advanced customization capabilities.

Pros and cons:

(+) Developer toolkit for more advanced customization
(+) Social media integrations for customers to share the referral program
(-) Offers ecommerce platform integrations only with Shopify. API integration is available, but it is less effective.

Available integrations:

Rivo is available in the Shopify App Store and integrates with Shopify stores. As for marketing apps, it integrates with Klaviyo, Gorgias, Postscript, Mailchimp, and more. It also has an API integration available.

5. Referral Rock

Who is it for: E-commerce and B2B businesses who want to run a referral program

Pricing: Ecommerce pricing plans starting at $200/month. Free trial available.

ReferralRock helps you to design, launch, and automate your referral program. You can use the available referral form builder to design your referral landing pages, invitation emails, and referral forms. After this, you can create a referral link to share through emails, checkout flows, and landing pages.

To automate your referral program, ReferralRock includes referral tracking software functionalities, including automated referral fulfillment, referral emails, promotion, and data syncing with third-party platforms.

ReferralRock has a total of 95 reviews with a 4.6 out of 5.0 star rating on Capterra. Its customers mention that ReferralRock helps simplify the management of a referral program and that the available integrations are useful.

Pros and cons:

(+) Includes analytics to track the performance
(+) Extensive integration options with 50+ apps
(+) Ability to select a done-for-you onboarding for a $400 one-time fee
(-) It is one of the more expensive solutions, especially for smaller businesses just getting started
(-) The standard plans only include 500 referrals per month. Each additional referral costs $2.50 extra, which can quickly add up

Available integrations:

ReferralRock integrates with Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, Shift4shop, and WooCommerce stores. Additionally, they offer integrations with email marketing and CRM apps, including Salesforce, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and more.

6. Genius Referrals

Who is it for: Ecommerce stores wanting to start a referral program.

Pricing: $89/month, including 500 referrals, and $0.20 for every extra referral. 30-day free trial available.

Genius Referrals helps turn your customers into brand advocates by providing all the required features to launch your first referral program. You can promote the referral program through referral emails or share it on your social media pages directly from the software.

You can reward your advocates with cash, credits, vouchers, and physical products within the Genius Referrals app.

Genius Referrals customers on Capterra mention the available templates are easy to use, and the first campaign can be launched within minutes. It is important to mention that Genius Referrals has also received complaints related to its customer service. One user mentioned that he waited three days with no response from their team.

Pros and cons:

(+) Available referral templates
(+) Analytics for tracking the referral performance
(+) Multiple different payout options for advocates
(-) Customers have reported lacking customer service
(-) On the standard plan, there is an extra cost for each referral after 500 referrals.

Available integrations:

Genius Referrals integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce Squarespace, and 3DCart stores. It also has different CMS, email marketing, as well as billing and payment integrations.

7. Referral Factory

Who is it for: Ecommerce, B2B, and SaaS businesses looking to launch a referral program

Pricing: Paid plans start from $95/month with a 500 referral limit. 14-day free trial available.

Referral Factory helps you launch your first referral campaign with a drag-and-drop designer, ready-to-use templates, promotional tools, referral tracking, and third-party integrations. The software has different automation features, including automated data syncing, referral emails, and fraud protection.

You can create a referral tracking page for advocates to track their referral progress. Referral Factory is one of the referral marketing solutions that is suitable for many industries, including ecommerce, SaaS, B2B, agencies, FinTech, and more.

Referral Factory has a rating of 4.8 out of 5.0 stars on G2, and customers mention that the software is user-friendly and the analytics make it easy to track referrals closely.

Pros and cons:

(+) Suitable for many industries
(+) Over 100 referral templates for different types of referral campaigns
(-) The pricing increases quickly if you bypass the referral limit that is set on every plan
(-) It only offers native integration for Shopify stores. If you want to use Referral Factory with another ecommerce platform, you need to use Zapier to connect it.

Available integrations:

To use Referral Factory, you need to connect it to your CRM or ecommerce platform through Zapier.

8. Friendbuy

Who is it for: All types of ecommerce businesses wanting to create referral marketing campaigns.

Pricing: Paid plans start from $249/month. 30-day free trial available.

Friendbuy helps ecommerce businesses launch their referral program. To get started, you can use one of the available referral email and landing page templates or design your own using the drag-and-drop builder. Customers can share the referral links via SMS, email, and social media.

Advocates can view their earnings and referral invitations on a referral dashboard, plus they can send reminder emails from there.

Friendbuy has received some complaints about their customer support on both Shopify and Capterra. One Capterra user mentions that the only way to receive assistance is through email and the response time is slow.

Pros and cons:

(+) Templates for creating referral emails and landing pages
(+) Referral dashboard for advocates to track the performance
(+) A/B testing feature to compare two different versions
(-) Lacking depth in ecommerce integrations
(-) It has a 3.4 out of 5.0 star rating on Shopify app store and has received some backlash related to customer support

Available integrations:

Friendbuy integrates with Shopify, Shopify Plus, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud stores. It also has other integrations with platforms like Klaviyo, Attentive, Braze, Recharge, Skio, and more.

9. Yotpo

Who is it for: Ecommerce store owners wanting to launch a referral or loyalty program

Pricing: Paid plans start from $199/month with a monthly limit of 500 orders. Free plan available for basic referral campaign.

Yotpo is a retention marketing platform designed for ecommerce store owners. It includes the functionality for creating a referral program, as well as collecting and displaying customer reviews, and SMS and email marketing.

The software also has segmentation tools built-in for their referral program tool. You can target customers based on data, including the point balance, number of referrals completed, last purchase date, and VIP tier. Referral campaigns can also be scheduled to be sent at a specific time.

Yotpo has a 4.7 out of 5.0 star rating on their Shopify App Store page. Customers especially appreciate the 24/7 customer support, user-friendly interface, and the extensive integrations.

Pros and cons:

(+) Free plan available for stores with less than 100 monthly orders
(+) Good integration options with different platforms
(+) The platform includes more than just referral software tools
(-) Some Shopify reviewers mention Yotpo's price increases quickly when your order volume increases

Available integrations:

Yotpo integrates with Shopify, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and Magento stores. It also has plenty of other integrations with marketing, survey, fraud prevention, data, and automation apps.

10. Viral Loops

Who is it for: Ecommerce, Fintech, newsletter creators, and startup businesses that want to launch a referral program.

Pricing: Paid plans starting from $49/month for a maximum of 1000 advocates. 14-day free trial available.

Viral Loops enables you to launch your referral program, and it includes features including real-time dashboard for referral performance, automation settings, and third party integrations.

To get started, Viral Loops has different templates you can use on your landing pages and referral emails. It also includes a drag and drop landing page builder, if you want to build your page from scratch.

Viral Loops has a 3.5 out of 5.0 star rating on the Shopify App Store, which is relatively low compared to other solutions on our list. The main reasons customers left bad reviews were lack of customer support and technical difficulties.

Pros and cons:

(+) Drag and drop landing page builder
(+) Referral dashboard for tracking campaign performance
(+) Good available integrations for expanding the capabilities
(-) Has received complaints on Shopify related to customer support and technical difficulties

Available integrations:

Viral Loops integrates with Shopify, Squarespace, Webflow, and WordPress stores. You can also find other integrations with platforms, such as Mailchimp, Slack, ActiveCampaign, and Campaign Monitor.

How do you launch your own referral marketing program?

If you want to launch your own referral program, ReferralCandy is one of those tools you can use.

ReferralCandy integrates seamlessly within most ecommerce platforms and is also available in the Shopify App store for easy integration.

And, if you need help with the actual set up process, we encourage you to read our guide on starting your referral program. It also includes 80+ examples from other successful referral programs!

Conclusion

Referral marketing programs are proven to bring high return on investment, because consumers trust recommendations from friends and family more than anything else.

This is one of the primary reasons why investing in referral program software is a wise decision since you can use it to set up your own customer referral program.

Plus, the only cost involved is the subscription cost of your referral program. Many referral software solutions, including our ReferralCandy, offer a 14-day free trial so that you can try it out with no risk.

If you're having trouble setting up your ecommerce referral program, we have created an entire guide to the setup process.