Modash vs Refersion
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Editorial assessmentModash compared with Refersion
Refersion is a dedicated affiliate and partner tracking platform for ecommerce: links, commissions, payouts, and attribution done thoroughly, with no creator discovery layer at all. Modash includes affiliate links and codes as one feature among several, gated to its Performance annual plan. A brand whose program is fundamentally affiliate-driven, with a large partner roster and complex commission rules, is better served by Refersion; a brand that needs to find the creators first and only then pay them on performance gets more from Modash, and some brands run both.
Choose Modash if
Ecommerce and consumer brands, and the agencies that serve them, running ongoing creator programs on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube where finding the right creator by audience composition is the hard part and Shopify is the store platform.
Choose Refersion if
Ecommerce brands on Shopify or WooCommerce that need affiliates as much as they need affiliate software, particularly early-stage stores whose affiliate revenue is still small enough that a 3% fee costs less than a higher flat subscription would.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Modash | Refersion |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Influencer | Referrals |
| Starting price | $199 per month billed annually ($2,388 per year); $299 per month on month-to-month billing (14 days trial) | Free (Marketplace Listing), then $39/mo plus 3% of affiliate sales (Launch) (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Annual or monthly subscription with three published tiers plus a quoted Enterprise level. Every tier includes Discover, Manage, Track, Inbox, and Shopify gifting; what changes between tiers is metered capacity (opened profiles, email unlocks, tracked creators, influential fans, seats) and access to payments and affiliate management. The developer APIs are priced entirely separately on annual credit contracts. | Monthly subscription plus a percentage of affiliate-driven sales. The subscription tier is effectively a lever for buying the percentage down, from 3% on Launch to 2% on Growth. |
| Free plan | No | Marketplace Listing is free and includes a public listing in the Refersion Marketplace with percent-of-sale offers and inbound affiliate applications, but not the tracking and payout platform. |
| Free trial | 14 days, no credit card, capped at 20 profile views, 6 email unlocks, and 10 tracked creators | Not published as a fixed-length trial; the free Marketplace Listing serves as the entry point |
| Best for | Ecommerce and consumer brands, and the agencies that serve them, running ongoing creator programs on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube where finding the right creator by audience composition is the hard part and Shopify is the store platform. | Ecommerce brands on Shopify or WooCommerce that need affiliates as much as they need affiliate software, particularly early-stage stores whose affiliate revenue is still small enough that a 3% fee costs less than a higher flat subscription would. |
| Setup time | Search is usable within minutes of signing up. A full deployment takes longer: connecting Gmail or Outlook, authorizing Shopify, defining campaign tracking criteria such as hashtags and mention rules, and importing an existing creator list typically fills a first week rather than a first afternoon. | Under an hour on Shopify: install the app, set a commission rate, publish the signup page, and list in the marketplace. Custom platforms take longer and generally need the Growth tier for API access. |
| Learning curve | Low for search, moderate for the parts that require judgment. The filters themselves are straightforward; knowing which audience thresholds actually predict performance, and how to spend a limited profile-open budget without exhausting it in the first week, is the skill that takes a month or two to develop. | Low. The model is deliberately simple, and because it is order-based rather than subscription-based there are fewer edge cases to reason about than in a SaaS-focused tool. |
| Platforms | Web application, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube data coverage, Shopify app, Gmail and Outlook mailbox sync | Web app, Shopify app, Hosted affiliate portal, First-party tracking script, REST API on Growth |
| Compliance | GDPR, EU-based data processing | GDPR considerations documented for first-party referral tracking |
| Founded | 2018 | 2014 |
| Headquarters | Tallinn, Estonia | New York, New York, United States |
| Ownership | Independent, venture-backed | Acquired by Assembly in July 2020 and subsequently held within the commerce software group Pantastic |
Strengths and limitations
Modash
Strengths
- Audience-side filtering is genuinely differentiating; searching by who follows a creator rather than by the creator's own profile is what produces relevant shortlists.
- The 1,000 follower index floor means nano and micro creators are actually present, which matters because that is where most ecommerce programs now operate.
- Automatic content tracking, including Instagram stories captured before expiry, removes the most tedious recurring task in influencer reporting.
- Outreach sends from your own connected Gmail or Outlook mailbox, so replies land normally and no separate sending domain or deliverability setup is involved.
Limitations
- Credits are the real constraint: opened profiles and email unlocks reset monthly, do not roll over, and there is no overage option, so heavy vetting months force a tier upgrade rather than a small extra charge.
- Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube only; Pinterest, X, Twitch, Snapchat, and LinkedIn creators are simply not in the index.
- Audience data is noticeably thinner and less reliable on very small creators, which is awkward given that nano creators are one of the main reasons to use the index at all.
- Contracting is not handled in-platform; reviewers report drafting agreements externally and attaching them, which leaves a gap in the middle of the workflow.
Refersion
Strengths
- The Refersion Marketplace is a real recruitment channel, not a token feature, and the free listing tier lets you use it before paying anything.
- First-party tracking is the correct architecture as browsers continue restricting third-party cookies, and it is standard on every tier rather than an upsell.
- Unlimited affiliates, clicks, and conversions on every published plan, so neither a big partner list nor a viral post creates a surprise bill.
- Deep, mature ecommerce integration, particularly on Shopify, with product-level commission rules that let affiliate economics track actual margin.
Limitations
- The percentage fee is the defining problem: 2% to 3% of affiliate-driven sales on top of the commission you already pay makes Refersion by far the most expensive option here at scale.
- Payouts are PayPal-centric, which is a genuine constraint for international programs where partners cannot or will not use PayPal.
- It is order-shaped, so subscription businesses get much less from it than they would from a Stripe-native tool.
- Commission modelling is shallow next to Post Affiliate Pro or LeadDyno's upper tiers; there is no multi-tier structure or split-commission capability to speak of.
Pricing compared
Modash
Annual or monthly subscription with three published tiers plus a quoted Enterprise level. Every tier includes Discover, Manage, Track, Inbox, and Shopify gifting; what changes between tiers is metered capacity (opened profiles, email unlocks, tracked creators, influential fans, seats) and access to payments and affiliate management. The developer APIs are priced entirely separately on annual credit contracts.
- Essentials$199
- Performance$499
- EnterpriseFrom about $14,700
- Discovery and Raw APIsFrom about $10,000
Modash prices like a research subscription, and that is the right way to evaluate it. If your program depends on finding creators whose audience matches your buyer, the audience-side filters and credibility scoring are worth more than the workflow features, and $199 a month is cheap against one badly chosen partnership. If you already know your creators and mostly need tracking, payment, and reporting, you are paying a database price for a CRM job and cheaper tools exist. The credit model is the honest catch: 300 profile opens sounds generous until a vetting session burns forty of them in an afternoon, and because there is no overage the answer to running out is a tier upgrade rather than a small extra charge. Model your monthly vetting volume first, then pick the tier, and treat the tracked-creator ceiling as the real cap on program size.
Refersion
Monthly subscription plus a percentage of affiliate-driven sales. The subscription tier is effectively a lever for buying the percentage down, from 3% on Launch to 2% on Growth.
- Marketplace Listing$0
- Launch$39
- Growth$199
- ScaleCustom
Model the percentage, not the subscription. At $10,000 of monthly affiliate-driven revenue, Launch costs $39 plus $300, so $339 a month, and Growth costs $199 plus $200, so $399. Launch is the right tier there. At $100,000 of monthly affiliate revenue, Launch costs $39 plus $3,000, so $3,039, while Growth costs $199 plus $2,000, so $2,199. The crossover between the two tiers sits at about $16,000 of monthly affiliate revenue. Now compare that $2,199 against Tapfiliate at $179 flat, Post Affiliate Pro at $139 flat, or UpPromote Professional at $1,589.99 for the same $100,000. Refersion is competitively priced for a small store and among the most expensive options in this category once a program succeeds. What you are buying with the difference is the marketplace, and whether that is worth $2,000 a month depends entirely on whether recruitment is still your bottleneck.
Editorial verdict on each
Modash
Modash is the strongest self-serve answer in influencer marketing to the question most brands actually struggle with: which creators have an audience that looks like my customer. The audience-side filters, the 1,000 follower index floor, and the credibility scoring make shortlists that hold up, and the workflow attached to them (mailbox-synced outreach, Shopify gifting, automatic post and story tracking, affiliate links, payouts) is enough to run a program end to end without a second platform for most ecommerce teams. It is a real mid-market purchase, not a starter tool: $199 per month billed annually with no free plan, a deliberately tight trial, and a credit model with no overage valve, so the tier you pick is a research budget you cannot exceed without upgrading. The gaps are specific and worth naming: contracting happens outside the product, Inbox is a synced mailbox rather than an outreach engine, commerce attribution is Shopify-first, audience data thins out on the smallest creators, and three platforms means three platforms. Buy it if sourcing is your bottleneck and Shopify is your store; look elsewhere if your program is fundamentally affiliate operations, if you already know every creator you work with, or if your creators live anywhere but Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Read the full Modash profileRefersion
Refersion is worth its premium for exactly one reason, and it is a good one: the marketplace means the software arrives with a way to find affiliates, which is the problem most small programs actually have. First-party tracking, unlimited affiliates, and product-level commissions make it a solid Shopify-native platform on top of that. But the percentage fee is unforgiving. At $100,000 of monthly affiliate revenue you are paying $2,199 for a job Post Affiliate Pro does for $139 and Tapfiliate does for $179, and that gap grows every month the program improves. Start here if you are a Shopify brand with no affiliate relationships and a real need for discovery, take advantage of the free listing tier while you build the list, and be honest with yourself about migrating once recruitment stops being the bottleneck.
Read the full Refersion profileModash profile last reviewed 2026-08-23; Refersion last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.