Show HN: Reflio – Open-source affiliate program creator for SaaS • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by mcilroy » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

singpolyma3 wrote: post #39

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

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 :)

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

#42

Post by exolymph » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 11:44 PM UTC

combyn8tor wrote: post #37

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

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.)

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

#43

Post by danskeren » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 12:20 AM UTC

kundi wrote: post #22

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.

Which existing solution offers a free-tier with x% fee on successful referrals?

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

#44

Post by saradhi » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 2:29 AM UTC

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.

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

#45

Post by combyn8tor » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:33 AM UTC

mcilroy wrote: post #40

combyn8tor wrote: post #37

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

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?

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.

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

#46

Post by combyn8tor » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:38 AM UTC

exolymph wrote: post #42

combyn8tor wrote: post #37

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

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.)

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.

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

#47

Post by thayne » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 8:35 AM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #38

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 w…

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.

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

#48

Post by isaac-sway » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:17 AM UTC

combyn8tor wrote: post #45

mcilroy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 th…

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.

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

#49

Post by XCSme » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #38

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 w…

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).

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

#50

Post by throwaway2016a » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

thayne wrote: post #47

throwaway2016a wrote: post #38

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 w…

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.

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.