Awin vs GrowSurf

Awin is one of the largest affiliate marketing networks in the world. It traces back to Affiliate Window, founded in the UK in 2000, which merged with Germany's zanox in 2017 to form Awin, headquartered in Berlin and part of the Axel Springer group. Awin also bought the US network ShareASale in 2017 and completed moving ShareASale advertisers onto the Awin platform in August 2025. Its core job is connecting brands with publishers, from cashback sites to creators, and tracking and paying their commissions.

Advertisers get a partner directory and marketplace, campaign and commission management, tracking, reporting and partner payments. Self-serve pricing comes in two tiers, Access for newcomers and Accelerate for growing programs, both with a monthly fee plus a percentage tracking fee on each sale, while Advanced is a custom package with managed services and full feature access. Publishers join for free.

Awin fits retailers and DTC brands that want reach: the company reports about 30,000 advertisers, a million publishers and 1,400 employees. If you want to run your own branded program with only your own partners, software such as Refersion or PartnerStack is simpler, and impact.com is the stronger choice for enterprise partnership automation beyond classic affiliates.

Before you sign, model the total cost: on a $100 sale with a 6 percent commission, the partner earns $6 and Awin takes $3.50 on Access or $2.50 on Accelerate, on top of the monthly fee. Former ShareASale accounts closed on October 6, 2025, so ShareASale-era guides are out of date.

GrowSurf is a US-based referral and affiliate marketing platform built for tech startups and SaaS products. It gives every user a referral link automatically, tracks who referred whom, and pays out rewards, so a company can launch a customer referral program with one code snippet instead of building the logic in-house.

Core features include white-labeled referral portals, configurable qualification rules (signup, first purchase or custom events), automatic rewards as gift cards, cash or account credits, manual approval, fraud protection, analytics and tax form collection with 1099 filing. It offers native integrations such as Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly, Salesforce, PayPal and Wise, plus a REST API, JavaScript library, webhooks and an MCP server for AI coding tools. Referral programs are paid with a 14-day trial; affiliate programs run on a free plan with a 3% success fee.

GrowSurf fits B2B and B2C software companies with a few thousand active customers who want referrals embedded in the product. Ecommerce stores on Shopify are better served by ReferralCandy, waitlist and viral launch campaigns by Viral Loops, and Stripe-first affiliate programs by Rewardful or FirstPromoter, which start cheaper.

Buying tip: plans are priced by participants, not by referrals. Startup costs $179 a month for up to 2,500 participants ($125 billed yearly) and Business starts at $449 for 10,000, so only enroll users who are likely to share. If you mainly want affiliates, the free plan with the 3% fee avoids a fixed subscription.