Awin vs Viral Loops

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 Former ShareASale accounts closed on October 6, 2025, so ShareASale-era guides are out of date.

Viral Loops is a referral marketing platform that provides ready-made templates for viral campaigns. Rather than building referral mechanics from scratch, marketers pick a campaign type, customize its widgets and emails, and embed it on a website or connect it to their store or email tool.

Templates cover prelaunch waitlists where people move up the queue by inviting friends, milestone referral programs that unlock rewards at set numbers of referrals, giveaways and sweepstakes with extra entries for sharing, newsletter referral programs, ambassador programs and refer-a-friend campaigns for e-commerce. Each campaign includes a leaderboard or referral dashboard, unique referral links, reward management, fraud checks and integrations with tools such as Shopify, Stripe, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Klaviyo and Zapier. Plans are monthly subscriptions tiered by participants and number of campaigns, starting with a Start-up plan for 1,000 participants; there is a 14-day trial rather than a free plan.

Viral Loops suits startups preparing a launch, newsletters and e-commerce brands that want to test referral growth quickly. Templates are less customizable than a fully custom program, analytics are basic, and participant limits push you into higher tiers. For ongoing affiliate programs Rewardful or FirstPromoter are better, ReferralCandy and Friendbuy focus on e-commerce refer-a-friend, KickoffLabs is a close waitlist competitor, and SparkLoop specializes in newsletter referrals.