10 ms·

Show HN: Reflio – Open-source affiliate program creator for SaaS

135 points by mcilroy 4y ago

drusepth 4y ago
Looks interesting. Will there be an option to skip the digital hop across the pond and just use US infrastructure for those that don't serve the EU?
vinibrito 4y ago
Thanks, I was looking for something like this earlier this year but could not find, I will give it a go, hopefully I will finally be able to boost sales.
- mcilroy 4y ago
  Amazing! :) feel free to message on live chat or send an email whenever you like if you need help
simfree 4y ago
Any chance Reflio integrates with InvoiceNinja? Curious if SaaS could use this for managing commission payments to internal and external sales teams and agents...
staticautomatic 4y ago
Since you work in this space, would you happen to know if there’s something like this on the other side of the marketplace for the affiliate content publishers? I started building out a site but the closest thing I can find to a platform entails hacking a Wordpress e-comm CMS to manage outbound links as if they were purchasable products.
mchusma 4y ago
I like where you are going with this. Is there any way to set a different "conversion" event, instead of signup? Just move the tracking event to later in the funnel I guess? I think at a minimum, you should explain this usecase in your docs, as I expect many people don't pay for "sign ups" rather for "purchases".
- mcilroy 4y ago
  Hey thank you for your feedback! I 100% agree, the docs are my next priority after the next two features go live. You can see what’s on the roadmap here: https://reflio.canny.io https://reflio.canny.io Custom events will be possible in the upcoming analytics update :)
cateye 4y ago
Is 9% fee per successful referral not crazy expensive? Or am I missing something here?
- mcilroy 4y ago
  I don’t think so. The idea of the 9% fee is to allow you to try out the platform with no upfront commitment. You only pay per successful referral. So once you start to see referrals come through, you could then upgrade to a plan that has 0% fees. I’ll add a fee cap though of maybe ~$50 or so though to account for higher ticket conversions.
  - cateye 4y ago
    This explains a lot and a cap sounds great!
ahulak 4y ago
What exactly makes this privacy first?
- mcilroy 4y ago
  You can enable “privacy mode” in your Reflio script, where it will automatically request that users based in the EU confirm that they accept the use of cookies (it’ll show a small popup banner asking the user to confirm consent). All data is processed in the EU, and our company is registered in the UK.
s1k3s 4y ago
Your license is very sketchy considering this product is aimed at businesses. You have parts of the app licensed under a proprietary license called "ENTERPRISE" and other parts licensed under GPL. I suggest you either separate those into specific repos or stop calling it "open source".
- mcilroy 4y ago
  We’ve taken our commercial open-source licensing from other larger commercial open-source products. I think it’s fair. The licensing states that you’re allowed to use Reflio 100% for free, as long as you keep the codebase in a public repository. Otherwise, if you want to use Reflio in a closed repo, you have to obtain a commercial license.
  - s1k3s 4y ago
    > This software and associated documentation files (the "Software") may only be used in production, if you (and any entity that you represent) have agreed to, and are in compliance with, the Reflio Subscription Terms available at https://reflio.com/terms https://reflio.com/terms (the “EE Terms”) ... If I don't agree with your enterprise edition terms I have to manually remove that part of the code from my installation. Why don't you just separate them instead?
    - mcilroy 4y ago
      I’ll update the terms to be a bit clearer and not exclude any parts of the codebase. I figured since other much larger products have the same terms, then it must be a well practised license type in commercial open-source. I guess not.
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    Can you clarify, is everything in your repo (https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio) AGPL like it says in the readme, or are there parts of the repo under a different license, as this file seems to imply- https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio/blob/main/apps/reflio/LICENSE https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio/blob/main/apps/reflio/L...? I don't see any license header or anything else that would indicate that some files are under a different license? Second, what license is the Reflio referral tracking script under? It appears that this script should be integrated into the SaaS product itself? Having that script AGPL would be a poison pill that no sane non-AGPL SaaS would swallow.
matt-p 4y ago
so does this only work if i use stripe ?
- mcilroy 4y ago
  Right now, however, we’re currently in the process of adding support for Paddle :)
knubie 4y ago
I tried an affiliate service called LeadDyno recently for my SaaS. A lot of the companies I looked at all have very similar pricing (starting around ~$50/mo), but not all of them worked with Stripe promo codes, which I needed for my app. I ended up cancelling my account when I found out that affiliates were only getting attributed for the first purchase, and not subsequent charges on the subscription. Now I use a custom query on Stripe Sigma, which is actually cheaper, but probably won't scale as well. Anyway, glad to see an open source option in this space. Hopefully my anecdote will be interesting to you. Would love to see support for promo codes in the future.
- mcilroy 4y ago
  Hey thank you for your comment! Ah yeah that’s annoying about the attribution problem. With Reflio, you can define how you long you want your affiliate to keep receiving commission for on subscription payments. Default is 12 months. So for each payment taken in the subscription, your affiliate will continue to be paid out :) We do support promo codes right now but it’s manual, however, a direct sync with your available Stripe coupons in the future would be cool. I’ll get it added to the roadmap!
- mfkp 4y ago
  FYI I use leaddyno as well, and there's an option in the commission settings to pay on first purchase only, or recurring. I've got my app using the custom API, and it works just fine (although lately a lot of ad blockers have started blocking leaddyno js, but that's a whole different can of worms)
kundi 4y ago
I’m sorry guys, but you will need to work out the pricing. The existing solutions offer much better functionality and being managed-hosted for the same price.
- mcilroy 4y ago
  Hey thank you for your feedback - I agree, it’s still early days, but in terms of being the same price I don’t think that’s quite right. We’re about 30-60% cheaper than other solutions right now. Our solution is also managed, so you get your own affiliate signup page and affiliate dashboard etc. Our landing and pricing page isn’t as clear as it needs to be right now, I will be updating it soon with all of the different functionality we offer that’s also unique.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Instead of denying the truth of the feedback, you could have asked, “Thanks I’d love to know which competitors so we can understand if and how to adjust.” Then you’d learn something, or not. But by pushing back “no” you’ll definitely not.
    - mcilroy 4y ago
      I appreciate that, thank you. You’re definitely right I could have worded it better. Just from my point of view, I’ve done a lot of research in this market so I’d be very surprised to learn that there’s competitors offering affiliate marketing program creation/management for the same pricing as us or better. Our nearest competitor seems to start from $29/month, but that’s with an additional 9% fee for each referral. And they don’t allow you to upload your own logo to your campaign invite page… I do appreciate I should have worded my response better though, it’s been a long day
- danskeren 4y ago
  Which existing solution offers a free-tier with x% fee on successful referrals?
everlearner 4y ago
cercatrova 4y ago
If I self-host, who is getting the 9%? I don't think the site is clear on this, as I'm wondering what the point of self hosting is if the app somehow still transfers the fee to your company.
- mcilroy 4y ago
  If you self host then you don’t pay a 9% fee since you’re hosting your own Reflio instance. I’ll make the site more clear to reflect this :) There’s a lack of docs right now since it’s still so new, working on this as a priority.
combyn8tor 4y ago
Can I use promo codes instead of website tracking? Most of my new customers come from a Discord channel and never visit my website.
- mcilroy 4y ago
  That’s actually a good point :) how would you see this working? Your affiliate gets a unique promo code for your checkout, then if a sale is completed with that promo code, it attributes the referral to that particular affiliate?
  - combyn8tor 4y ago
    That's pretty much what I'm after. Ideally the affiliate gets real $ in return for their referral instead of just credit for my service. I run a niche gaming vpn. Last time I looked at your competitors nobody seemed to be doing it, so I implemented a halfway version myself. I currently generate a unique Stripe promo code for each new customer. If someone uses the promo code it gives them a small discount and gives the referrer credit against their account. Its not very popular as it stands.
    - isaac-sway 4y ago
      This is exactly the type of referral programme I am aiming to build via Stripe in the next couple weeks. If you have any advice, or know of any existing SaaS that can handle this, please do give a shout.
- exolymph 4y ago
  That's intriguing, what's your business and how are people finding you via Discord? (If you don't mind explaining — if you do, I get it.)
  - combyn8tor 4y ago
    No probs, I run a niche gaming vpn service supporting a handful of games for Australian and New Zealand customers. It is mostly run out of a Discord server and any support work is handled via Discord PM's. All my new customers are from word of mouth and typically just get sent an invite to my Discord channel from existing customers. The website is pretty much an afterthought and to provide a bit of credibility.
throwaway2016a 4y ago
Interesting project but I've always half-consciously avoided self-hosted affiliate programs because of one simple reason: trust. My (possibly misguided) thought is that when dealing with self-hosted referral tracking the affiliate needs to trust that their commission is being tracked properly. But when the SaaS controls the database themselves the affiliate is putting a huge amount of trust in them that tracking is working. And if it isn't working, it seems suspicious at best and fraudulent at worst. With third party tracking you have external "proof" if presented with compliance or legal needs. With that said, I see they do offer a hosted option, which is interesting too.
- thayne 4y ago
  Well a hosted service that is open source would be even better for trust right, since you can inspect the code and make sure it isn't doing anything nefarious. Of course, ideally you would want some kind of garantee they aren't making any changes to the code before deploying it, but a periodic third party audit could potentially accomplish that.
  - throwaway2016a 4y ago
    You can inspect the source code of the published version. Doesn't mean what is running on the server is identical and not modified. So I'm not sure it adds trust. Trust it is bug free maybe but not trust no one is doing something underhanded.
  - bradycassidy 4y ago
    Have you ever considered that most affiliates wouldn't have the technical chops to audit the code? Even if they did, they wouldn't waste their time.
- XCSme 4y ago
  My experience was the most 3rd party affiliate system (rewardful, CJ) actually don't properly record conversions (most likely they are blocked by ad-blockers or other technical issues that popular 3rd party services have).
singpolyma3 4y ago
What is the benefit of this over just rolling referral attribution into your billing system?
- mcilroy 4y ago
  So with Reflio you just need to connect your Stripe, add the JS tracking script to your site and then your good to go. You can manage multiple different types of affiliate campaigns from one dashboard, and manage all of your affiliates in one place. Your affiliates also get access to their own dashboard so they can monitor their own referrals and commissions. It just saves you all of the leg work in setting up these systems basically :)
saradhi 4y ago
We recently moved away from Rewardful to Tapfiliate. The only reason being - provide an option to the user to add the conversion. With only Stripe integrated for tracking it is hard to onboard businesses other than from the US.

135 points by mcilroy 4y ago

Looks interesting. Will there be an option to skip the digital hop across the pond and just use US infrastructure for those that don't serve the EU?

vinibrito 4y ago

Thanks, I was looking for something like this earlier this year but could not find, I will give it a go, hopefully I will finally be able to boost sales.

mcilroy 4y ago
Amazing! :) feel free to message on live chat or send an email whenever you like if you need help

simfree 4y ago

Any chance Reflio integrates with InvoiceNinja? Curious if SaaS could use this for managing commission payments to internal and external sales teams and agents...

staticautomatic 4y ago

Since you work in this space, would you happen to know if there’s something like this on the other side of the marketplace for the affiliate content publishers? I started building out a site but the closest thing I can find to a platform entails hacking a Wordpress e-comm CMS to manage outbound links as if they were purchasable products.

mchusma 4y ago

I like where you are going with this. Is there any way to set a different "conversion" event, instead of signup? Just move the tracking event to later in the funnel I guess? I think at a minimum, you should explain this usecase in your docs, as I expect many people don't pay for "sign ups" rather for "purchases".

mcilroy 4y ago
Hey thank you for your feedback! I 100% agree, the docs are my next priority after the next two features go live. You can see what’s on the roadmap here: https://reflio.canny.io https://reflio.canny.io Custom events will be possible in the upcoming analytics update :)

cateye 4y ago

Is 9% fee per successful referral not crazy expensive? Or am I missing something here?

mcilroy 4y ago
I don’t think so. The idea of the 9% fee is to allow you to try out the platform with no upfront commitment. You only pay per successful referral. So once you start to see referrals come through, you could then upgrade to a plan that has 0% fees. I’ll add a fee cap though of maybe ~$50 or so though to account for higher ticket conversions.
- cateye 4y ago
  This explains a lot and a cap sounds great!

ahulak 4y ago

What exactly makes this privacy first?

mcilroy 4y ago
You can enable “privacy mode” in your Reflio script, where it will automatically request that users based in the EU confirm that they accept the use of cookies (it’ll show a small popup banner asking the user to confirm consent). All data is processed in the EU, and our company is registered in the UK.

s1k3s 4y ago

Your license is very sketchy considering this product is aimed at businesses. You have parts of the app licensed under a proprietary license called "ENTERPRISE" and other parts licensed under GPL. I suggest you either separate those into specific repos or stop calling it "open source".

mcilroy 4y ago
We’ve taken our commercial open-source licensing from other larger commercial open-source products. I think it’s fair. The licensing states that you’re allowed to use Reflio 100% for free, as long as you keep the codebase in a public repository. Otherwise, if you want to use Reflio in a closed repo, you have to obtain a commercial license.
- s1k3s 4y ago
  > This software and associated documentation files (the "Software") may only be used in production, if you (and any entity that you represent) have agreed to, and are in compliance with, the Reflio Subscription Terms available at https://reflio.com/terms https://reflio.com/terms (the “EE Terms”) ... If I don't agree with your enterprise edition terms I have to manually remove that part of the code from my installation. Why don't you just separate them instead?
  - mcilroy 4y ago
    I’ll update the terms to be a bit clearer and not exclude any parts of the codebase. I figured since other much larger products have the same terms, then it must be a well practised license type in commercial open-source. I guess not.
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  Can you clarify, is everything in your repo (https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio) AGPL like it says in the readme, or are there parts of the repo under a different license, as this file seems to imply- https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio/blob/main/apps/reflio/LICENSE https://github.com/Reflio-com/reflio/blob/main/apps/reflio/L...? I don't see any license header or anything else that would indicate that some files are under a different license? Second, what license is the Reflio referral tracking script under? It appears that this script should be integrated into the SaaS product itself? Having that script AGPL would be a poison pill that no sane non-AGPL SaaS would swallow.

matt-p 4y ago

so does this only work if i use stripe ?

mcilroy 4y ago
Right now, however, we’re currently in the process of adding support for Paddle :)

knubie 4y ago

I tried an affiliate service called LeadDyno recently for my SaaS. A lot of the companies I looked at all have very similar pricing (starting around ~$50/mo), but not all of them worked with Stripe promo codes, which I needed for my app. I ended up cancelling my account when I found out that affiliates were only getting attributed for the first purchase, and not subsequent charges on the subscription. Now I use a custom query on Stripe Sigma, which is actually cheaper, but probably won't scale as well. Anyway, glad to see an open source option in this space. Hopefully my anecdote will be interesting to you. Would love to see support for promo codes in the future.

mcilroy 4y ago
Hey thank you for your comment! Ah yeah that’s annoying about the attribution problem. With Reflio, you can define how you long you want your affiliate to keep receiving commission for on subscription payments. Default is 12 months. So for each payment taken in the subscription, your affiliate will continue to be paid out :) We do support promo codes right now but it’s manual, however, a direct sync with your available Stripe coupons in the future would be cool. I’ll get it added to the roadmap!
mfkp 4y ago
FYI I use leaddyno as well, and there's an option in the commission settings to pay on first purchase only, or recurring. I've got my app using the custom API, and it works just fine (although lately a lot of ad blockers have started blocking leaddyno js, but that's a whole different can of worms)

kundi 4y ago

I’m sorry guys, but you will need to work out the pricing. The existing solutions offer much better functionality and being managed-hosted for the same price.

mcilroy 4y ago
Hey thank you for your feedback - I agree, it’s still early days, but in terms of being the same price I don’t think that’s quite right. We’re about 30-60% cheaper than other solutions right now. Our solution is also managed, so you get your own affiliate signup page and affiliate dashboard etc. Our landing and pricing page isn’t as clear as it needs to be right now, I will be updating it soon with all of the different functionality we offer that’s also unique.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Instead of denying the truth of the feedback, you could have asked, “Thanks I’d love to know which competitors so we can understand if and how to adjust.” Then you’d learn something, or not. But by pushing back “no” you’ll definitely not.
  - mcilroy 4y ago
    I appreciate that, thank you. You’re definitely right I could have worded it better. Just from my point of view, I’ve done a lot of research in this market so I’d be very surprised to learn that there’s competitors offering affiliate marketing program creation/management for the same pricing as us or better. Our nearest competitor seems to start from $29/month, but that’s with an additional 9% fee for each referral. And they don’t allow you to upload your own logo to your campaign invite page… I do appreciate I should have worded my response better though, it’s been a long day
danskeren 4y ago
Which existing solution offers a free-tier with x% fee on successful referrals?

everlearner 4y ago

cercatrova 4y ago

If I self-host, who is getting the 9%? I don't think the site is clear on this, as I'm wondering what the point of self hosting is if the app somehow still transfers the fee to your company.

mcilroy 4y ago
If you self host then you don’t pay a 9% fee since you’re hosting your own Reflio instance. I’ll make the site more clear to reflect this :) There’s a lack of docs right now since it’s still so new, working on this as a priority.

combyn8tor 4y ago

Can I use promo codes instead of website tracking? Most of my new customers come from a Discord channel and never visit my website.

mcilroy 4y ago
That’s actually a good point :) how would you see this working? Your affiliate gets a unique promo code for your checkout, then if a sale is completed with that promo code, it attributes the referral to that particular affiliate?
- combyn8tor 4y ago
  That's pretty much what I'm after. Ideally the affiliate gets real $ in return for their referral instead of just credit for my service. I run a niche gaming vpn. Last time I looked at your competitors nobody seemed to be doing it, so I implemented a halfway version myself. I currently generate a unique Stripe promo code for each new customer. If someone uses the promo code it gives them a small discount and gives the referrer credit against their account. Its not very popular as it stands.
  - isaac-sway 4y ago
    This is exactly the type of referral programme I am aiming to build via Stripe in the next couple weeks. If you have any advice, or know of any existing SaaS that can handle this, please do give a shout.
exolymph 4y ago
That's intriguing, what's your business and how are people finding you via Discord? (If you don't mind explaining — if you do, I get it.)
- combyn8tor 4y ago
  No probs, I run a niche gaming vpn service supporting a handful of games for Australian and New Zealand customers. It is mostly run out of a Discord server and any support work is handled via Discord PM's. All my new customers are from word of mouth and typically just get sent an invite to my Discord channel from existing customers. The website is pretty much an afterthought and to provide a bit of credibility.

throwaway2016a 4y ago

Interesting project but I've always half-consciously avoided self-hosted affiliate programs because of one simple reason: trust. My (possibly misguided) thought is that when dealing with self-hosted referral tracking the affiliate needs to trust that their commission is being tracked properly. But when the SaaS controls the database themselves the affiliate is putting a huge amount of trust in them that tracking is working. And if it isn't working, it seems suspicious at best and fraudulent at worst. With third party tracking you have external "proof" if presented with compliance or legal needs. With that said, I see they do offer a hosted option, which is interesting too.

thayne 4y ago
Well a hosted service that is open source would be even better for trust right, since you can inspect the code and make sure it isn't doing anything nefarious. Of course, ideally you would want some kind of garantee they aren't making any changes to the code before deploying it, but a periodic third party audit could potentially accomplish that.
- throwaway2016a 4y ago
  You can inspect the source code of the published version. Doesn't mean what is running on the server is identical and not modified. So I'm not sure it adds trust. Trust it is bug free maybe but not trust no one is doing something underhanded.
- bradycassidy 4y ago
  Have you ever considered that most affiliates wouldn't have the technical chops to audit the code? Even if they did, they wouldn't waste their time.
XCSme 4y ago
My experience was the most 3rd party affiliate system (rewardful, CJ) actually don't properly record conversions (most likely they are blocked by ad-blockers or other technical issues that popular 3rd party services have).

singpolyma3 4y ago

What is the benefit of this over just rolling referral attribution into your billing system?

mcilroy 4y ago
So with Reflio you just need to connect your Stripe, add the JS tracking script to your site and then your good to go. You can manage multiple different types of affiliate campaigns from one dashboard, and manage all of your affiliates in one place. Your affiliates also get access to their own dashboard so they can monitor their own referrals and commissions. It just saves you all of the leg work in setting up these systems basically :)

saradhi 4y ago

We recently moved away from Rewardful to Tapfiliate. The only reason being - provide an option to the user to add the conversion. With only Stripe integrated for tracking it is hard to onboard businesses other than from the US.