Awin vs Refersion

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 Former ShareASale accounts closed on October 6, 2025, so ShareASale-era guides are out of date.

Refersion is an affiliate marketing platform from US-based Refersion Inc. It helps direct-to-consumer brands recruit affiliates, creators and influencers, track the sales they drive, and pay them commissions. Its main selling point is first-party tracking: instead of third-party cookies and redirects, conversions are attributed through the brand's own tracking domain, which Refersion says captures 95 to 99 percent of referred sales.

Brands get branded sign-up pages, a marketplace where affiliates can discover offers, flexible commission rules (percent of sale, subscription, product-level, new versus returning customer), performance dashboards and one-click payouts, including PayPal, with tax form collection. Pricing combines a monthly fee with a percentage of affiliate-driven revenue: Launch adds 3 percent, Growth adds 2 percent and unlocks the API and 30+ marketing integrations, and Scale moves to a flat fee.

Refersion fits Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce stores that want a serious affiliate program without enterprise contracts. Impact.com is stronger for large partnership programs across many partner types, ReferralCandy is better for customer-to-customer referrals, and PartnerStack targets B2B SaaS rather than retail.

In January 2026 Refersion added a free Marketplace Listing plan, so brands can publish an offer and collect affiliate applications before paying. Approving affiliates, tracking and payouts still require Launch or above, so model the 2 to 3 percent fee against your expected affiliate revenue.