Cello alternatives: what Cello charges and who to pick instead
Cello meters referral ARR from 65 a month and needs a logged-in app. Compare TrackRev, GrowSurf, FirstPromoter and Rewardful on price, billing and payouts.
Muzahid Maruf, FounderUpdated
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The right Cello alternative depends on what made you look.
Cello meters its price by referral ARR, from 65 a month for 10,000 up to 750 for 100,000, expects a logged-in product and keeps its own logo on the in-app widget.
TrackRev ranks referrals against your other channels, GrowSurf prices by participants, FirstPromoter embeds an affiliate dashboard in your app and reads 5 billing systems, and Rewardful is the Stripe default for affiliates.
Cello also sells partner plans for 5 to 100 transacting partners with their own portal, so it no longer stops at customers referring friends.
Key takeaways
- Cello's user-referral plans run 65 to 750 a month and meter referral ARR: 20 referred customers paying $50 a month read $12,000 and outgrow the 10,000 Start plan.
- Cello needs a logged-in product, keeps its logo on the widget and has webhooks for 2 billing systems, Stripe and Chargebee, so Paddle shops and products without accounts start looking elsewhere.
- TrackRev starts at $29 a month with no cap on commission tracked, ranks referrals against ads, SEO and email, and pays out from a PayPal or Wise CSV batch.
- GrowSurf covers 2,500 participants from $125, FirstPromoter's $99 Business plan embeds an affiliate dashboard in your app, and Rewardful starts at $49 for Stripe affiliates.
- Cello still wins on automated PayPal and Venmo payouts, in-app notifications and 4 native mobile SDKs.
What Cello costs and how it counts
Cello's pricing page sells user referrals in 4 plans, where customers refer friends from inside your app, against a referral ARR meter.
Cello annualizes the recurring revenue of referred customers who still pay, which its ARR documentation calls Net New Annual Recurring Revenue, and drops customers who churn.
| Plan | Yearly billing, a month | Monthly billing | Referral ARR limit | Campaigns | Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 65 | 95 | 10,000 | 1 | Slack |
| Grow | 200 | 300 | 50,000 | Unlimited | Priority Slack, success manager |
| Scale | Not offered | 750 | 100,000 | Unlimited | Success manager, custom SLAs |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Unlimited | Unlimited | Custom SLAs |
Prices from Cello's pricing page, October 2026. The plan cards I loaded show dollars while the page's structured data says euros, so check the currency at checkout. User referrals carry 0% transaction costs.
Sources: cello.so/pricing · docs.cello.so/guides
A customer on $50 a month counts as $600, so 16 referred customers ($9,600) fit under Start and 20 ($12,000) need Grow.
Partners have their own plans. Cello's partner guide describes a Partner Portal with a personal link, referral status, rewards and media kits for each partner.
| Partner plan | Yearly billing, a month | Monthly billing | Campaigns | Transacting partners | Transaction cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Not offered | 0 | 1 | 5 | 5% |
| Plus | 80 | 100 | 3 | 25 | 3.5% |
| Pro | 280 | 350 | 10 | 100 | 3.5% |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Unlimited | Unlimited | 2% |
Prices from Cello's pricing page, October 2026. A transacting partner has attributed referral revenue in the billing month.
Sources: docs.cello.so/guides
Cello charges your card up to 2 times a month to fund reward payouts.
Yearly plans lock in 12 months, and the FAQ markup on the pricing page adds that a product with under 1,000 monthly unique users on a free tier or trial starts on a Startup access plan at the Grow level, committed for 12 months.
Why teams look for a Cello alternative
The pricing FAQ says Cello works with products that have a logged-in web or mobile experience, so a product without accounts cannot use the Cello Web SDK or the Cello Mobile SDK, and outside referrers enter through the Partner Portal.
Cello's support FAQ says the branding on the Referral Component cannot be removed, because payouts arrive as a payment from Cello and referrers should recognize it.
Cello reads a Stripe Webhook or a Chargebee Webhook, and a Paddle or Recurly shop posts events to the Cello API from its own code. A wrong event source breaks attribution without an error, per the FAQ.
Rewards go out by PayPal and Venmo, and the homepage lists gift cards, donations and product rewards as coming soon.
In the campaign guide's example, a referrer earns 50% of each payment up to a $100 cap plus a $5 signup bonus, the new user gets 50% off for 6 months, and your own code must apply that discount at checkout.
Sources: docs.cello.so/guides · docs.cello.so/guides
Cello alternatives compared on price, meter and billing
| Tool | Entry price a month | What the price meters | Billing systems | Payouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TrackRev | $29 | Nothing: no cap on commission tracked | Stripe, Paddle Billing, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Creem, Dodo Payments | PayPal or Wise CSV, then mark paid |
| Cello | 65 yearly, 95 monthly | Referral ARR up to 10,000 | Stripe and Chargebee webhooks, others by API | Automated PayPal and Venmo |
| GrowSurf | $125 yearly, $179 monthly | Participants up to 2,500 | Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly | Gift cards, credits and cash; PayPal, Wise, Tango Card and Tremendous integrations |
| FirstPromoter | $49 monthly, $490 yearly | Affiliate revenue up to $5,000 | Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee, Recurly, Braintree | Mass payouts via PayPal, Wise, Stripe, crypto, bank |
| Rewardful | $49 monthly, $490 yearly | Affiliate revenue up to $7,500 | Stripe first, 20+ integrations | PayPal and Wise mass payouts, managed at 3% |
Prices from each vendor's pricing page, October 2026. GrowSurf bills its yearly price as one payment, $1,503.60 for Startup.
The same program on each meter
Entry prices mislead because the meters count different things. Take referred customers who each pay $50 a month, with a 25% commission where a tool meters commission.
Twenty customers read as $12,000 of referral ARR on Cello, $1,000 of monthly revenue on the affiliate tools and $250 of commission on TrackRev, where no plan caps tracked commission.
At 200 customers the readings are $120,000, $10,000 and $2,500, which pushes Cello to Enterprise pricing and FirstPromoter and Rewardful to their $99 tiers, while GrowSurf and TrackRev stay put.
| Tool | 20 referred customers | A year, monthly billing | A year, annual billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| TrackRev | Indie, $29 | $348 | Growth, $299 |
| Cello | Grow, 300 | 3,600 | 2,400 |
| GrowSurf | Startup, $179 | $2,148 | $1,503.60 |
| FirstPromoter | Starter, $49 | $588 | $490 |
| Rewardful | Starter, $49 | $588 | $490 |
Cheapest plan whose published limit covers the load, from each vendor's pricing page, October 2026. TrackRev sells Indie monthly and Growth yearly, so its annual cell is Growth, which also covers up to 10 workspaces. GrowSurf counts referrers and referred friends as participants, which I assumed stays under 2,500. Cello's price also covers the in-app panel, notifications and automated payouts.
TrackRev, for referrals ranked against every other channel
TrackRev is SaaS affiliate software for indie hackers and small SaaS teams. It starts at $29 a month, and every paid plan includes referral campaigns, the affiliate program, link tracking and revenue attribution.
Indie is $29 a month for 1 workspace and 1 tracked domain, and Growth is $299 a year for up to 10 workspaces, up to 10 domains and unlimited team members. No plan caps affiliate revenue or commission tracked.
The free plan stops at link tracking, with 50 links and 1,000 tracked events a month.
The in-app piece is 1 script tag with a publishable key.
Given a signed-in user's id, email and plan tier, it draws a Refer & Earn dashboard in an iframe with the referral link, share buttons, clicks, signups, purchases and earnings over a 7 to 90 day window (30 by default), in light or dark mode, with a small Powered by TrackRev link.
Rewards can be cash commission or account credit, and friends can get a discount, free months or a free trial.
Your backend reports each signup with the referral ID, and cash rewards pick up purchases from Stripe, Paddle Billing, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Creem or Dodo Payments.
One report ranks referrals, affiliates, newsletter, YouTube and paid ads by the MRR each pays, under last-touch, first-touch or linear credit, because a referral link shares its data model with every other tracked link.
Commissions can be held 0 to 180 days per program (default 0) and reverse on refunds. The revenue attribution page shows the report.
GrowSurf, for customer referrals priced by participants
GrowSurf counts participants, meaning people who refer or are referred.
Startup is $125 a month billed yearly ($179 monthly) for up to 2,500 participants, 2 referral programs and 2 team members, and Business is $314 yearly ($449 monthly) for 5 programs and up to 150,000 participants.
Referral plans start with a 14-day trial and have no free tier, and yearly billing takes 30% off.
The pricing page lists iOS, Android and JavaScript SDKs, embeddable widgets and rewards in gift cards, credits or cash, with 1099 filing charged separately.
Pick it over Cello when rewards should be gift cards or participants will number in the thousands at modest revenue each.
Sources: growsurf.com/pricing
FirstPromoter, for an in-app dashboard and more billing systems
FirstPromoter sells Starter at $49 a month for up to $5,000 of affiliate revenue, 1,000 affiliates and 3 campaigns, Business at $99 for $15,000 with unlimited affiliates and campaigns, and Enterprise at $149 beyond that.
Business adds the in-app affiliate dashboard with automatic login, a custom domain and removal of the powered-by link.
All plans read Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee, Recurly and Braintree, and include double-sided rewards, multi-tier commissions across 3 levels and cookie life up to 9999 days. Managed Auto Payouts need Enterprise plus approval.
It beats Cello when you bill through Recurly or Braintree or want no vendor logo on the dashboard.
Sources: firstpromoter.com/pricing
Rewardful, for the established Stripe affiliate tool
Rewardful starts at $49 for up to $7,500 of monthly affiliate-attributed revenue with 1 campaign and 2 team members. Growth is $99 for $15,000 with unlimited campaigns, and Enterprise starts at $149 with $30,000 on its entry tier.
Annual billing gives 12 months for the price of 10. Every plan has a 0% transaction fee and a 14-day trial, while the branded portal and custom domain begin at Growth.
Its integrations page lists 20+ integrations around Stripe, and I found no in-app panel on its pricing page. Rewardful makes more sense than Cello when your referrers are outside affiliates and you bill on Stripe. Rewardful vs TrackRev goes deeper.
Sources: rewardful.com/pricing · rewardful.com/integrations
Where Cello is still the better pick
Pick Cello when customers refer customers inside a logged-in product, rewards are cash and you want the loop run for you.
Its contextual sharing guide says contextual sharing prompts can lift sharing rates 3.4x, and TrackRev's embed has no prompt system.
| Capability | Cello | TrackRev |
|---|---|---|
| Payouts | Automated PayPal and Venmo, with credit notes | CSV batch for PayPal or Wise |
| Mobile apps | SDKs for iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native | Web iframe only |
| Notifications | In-app and email | None in the embed |
| Billing providers | 2 webhooks: Stripe, Chargebee; Paddle and Recurly by API | 6: Stripe, Paddle Billing, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Creem, Dodo Payments |
| Referral analytics | Referral ARR by new, expansion, contraction, churn | Referrals ranked against all channels |
| Entry price a month | 65 yearly, 95 monthly | $29 |
Cello details from its pricing page and docs, October 2026; TrackRev details from its pricing page and product pages.
Sources: docs.cello.so/guides
Before you cancel Cello
Test Safari first. Cello's Attribution JS is a JavaScript library, and its FAQ says it stores the referral code in first-party cookies named cello-referral and cello-productId for 3 months.
WebKit's tracking prevention page says Intelligent Tracking Prevention deletes cookies created in JavaScript after 7 days without user interaction.
Cello offers an Auto Attribution fallback that it switches on per account, so click a test link in Safari on day 1, sign up on day 9 and see whether the referral survives, in Cello and in the replacement.
The Safari ITP post covers the effect on SaaS conversions.
Run a refund next. Cello cancels pending rewards when it receives a charge.refunded event but does not claw back rewards already paid.
Its fraud guide describes a 30-day initial review period, and the FAQ says longer payout delays, such as 14 days, are set up on request. Buy through your real checkout, refund it and confirm the replacement reverses the commission.
The refunds and upgrades post lists the cases.
Then ask Cello what happens to pending rewards at cancellation. Its FAQ says recurring percentage rewards typically stop when the subscription stops and that annual rewards are spread over the payment period.
Keep both tools live through the 3-month cookie window and pay each commission from one system only.
The referral and affiliate program starts on Indie at $29 a month, with Growth at $299 a year, and neither plan limits the revenue you track. Pricing lists the plans, and the affiliate program guide covers the setup.
Sources: docs.cello.so/guides
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Frequently asked questions
- For affiliates, yes. GrowSurf's affiliate plan costs $0 with a 3% success fee on affiliate revenue, against a 5% transaction cost on Cello's free partner plan. Rewardful and FirstPromoter sell 14-day trials, and TrackRev's free plan stops at link tracking.
- Cello sends Paddle and similar providers through its events API, which a developer calls with signup and purchase data. Its webhook guides cover 2 providers, Stripe and Chargebee, and I found no Polar or Lemon Squeezy guide. TrackRev reads Paddle Billing, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Creem and Dodo Payments as well as Stripe.
- Yes, with a gap: visitors who click a Cello referral link never pass through a TrackRev link, so TrackRev's channel report cannot show Cello-referred revenue.
- A customer paying $600 a year stays at $600, a $150 quarterly plan counts as $600, and Cello rolls annual payments forward so a January invoice counts all year. An invoice up to 7 days late is attributed to the month it was expected, and a missing renewal drops the revenue off the chart.
- Yes. A program can pay credit instead of cash, and TrackRev delivers it by writing to your database or calling your webhook, so your backend has to apply it, and a credit-earning user can be offered a switch to cash. There is no manual fulfilment queue.
- If Cello received events through Stripe, its docs have you write cello_ucc and new_user_id into each Stripe customer's metadata, so an export of Stripe customers shows who carries a referral code.
Written by
Founder, TrackRev.io & Contant.io
Muzahid Maruf founded TrackRev.io, SaaS affiliate software with no limit on tracked revenue, and Contant.io. He writes about affiliate programs.
Writes about Marketing attribution · Link tracking · Revenue analytics · SaaS growth
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