Dub.co vs TrackRev: what each one tracks, costs and lets you self-host

Dub.co vs TrackRev is a closer call than it used to be.

Dub has grown from a link shortener into a platform that tracks Stripe and Shopify sales and runs partner programs, but both start on Dub Business at $90 a month, and the code you can self-host for free leaves them out.

TrackRev is SaaS affiliate software for indie hackers and small teams with link tracking built in.

Indie ties Stripe, Paddle Billing, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Creem and Dodo Payments revenue to the channel that earned it and runs affiliate programs for $29 a month, but TrackRev is closed source and has no self-hosted version.

We built TrackRev for exactly this: affiliate software for indie hackers and small SaaS teams, with link tracking and revenue attribution built in on every paid plan. Dub's figures come from its pricing page as of October 2026.

Sources: dub.co/pricing

What is Dub.co, and how does it compare with TrackRev?

Dub.co is a link attribution platform, as Dub describes itself.

Dub Links makes short links on custom domains, Dub Analytics counts clicks and, from the Business plan, follows them to signups and sales, and Dub Partners runs affiliate and referral programs.

The code has been public on GitHub since 2022 and has about 24,900 stars and 3,300 forks. The table sets the two products side by side.

The widest gap is the entry price for revenue tracking, $90 a month for Dub Business against $29 a month for TrackRev Indie. Dub is open core under AGPLv3.

Both products record clicks server-side and read paid charges, but Dub does it through an app and SDK calls while TrackRev uses a read-only key.

How do the plans and limits compare?

Dub meters tracked events and new links on every links plan, from 25 new links and 1,000 events a month on Free to 10,000 new links and 250,000 events on Business. Yearly billing takes 10% off at Dub.

TrackRev's paid plans have unlimited links and events and no cap on tracked commission. TrackRev sells Indie monthly and Growth yearly, so it has no discount to choose.

Indie covers 1 tracked domain and the owner only, at $348 over 12 months. Growth covers up to 10 workspaces and 10 tracked domains, with unlimited team members, for $299, which is $49 less over the same year.

Enterprise is custom at Dub. In practice, Dub Pro at $30 a month covers 1,000 new links and 50,000 events but tracks no revenue.

Sources: dub.co/pricing

Where is Dub.co stronger?

On links, Dub has more tools. Geo targeting, device targeting, link cloaking, expiration, password protection and deep links are in its links plan table from Dub Pro up, and Dub Business adds link A/B testing.

TrackRev covers custom tracking domains, bulk import, QR codes, deep links, expiration and password protection, with no A/B testing.

The developer side is wider too: native SDKs, API limits of 600, 1,200 and 3,000 requests a minute on Dub Pro, Business and Advanced, and event webhooks on every paid plan.

TrackRev offers a REST API, CSV export and a sale.created webhook.

Partner payouts are where Dub does the most work. Dub sends the money, collects W-9 and W-8 forms, and sends 1099-NEC forms to US partners paid $600 or more in a year, as its payout documentation describes.

Rewards can pay per sale, per qualified lead or per click, and a refund creates a clawback automatically. Business caps a program at 500 partners and 3 partner groups.

TrackRev's payouts end at a file you upload to your payout service and mark paid.

Sources: dub.co/help

Does Dub.co track revenue?

Dub.co tracks revenue from Dub Business at $90 a month. Dub Pro tracks clicks only: Dub's docs say conversion tracking, the Stripe integration and direct sale tracking all need Business or above.

Dub records each click on its server and appends a dub_id parameter to the destination URL.

Its Dub Analytics script keeps that ID in a first-party cookie for 90 days by default, as Dub's attribution guide explains, and a lead event ties the ID to a signup.

The Stripe app then listens for customer.created, customer.updated, checkout.session.completed, invoice.paid and charge.refunded and turns payments into sales. Last click wins by default, with first click as the alternative.

For example, a $39 Stripe subscription created after a tracked click appears as one sale on the link that sent the visitor.

Sources: dub.co/docs

What does a Dub.co revenue setup involve?

A Dub.co revenue setup is an engineering job with 4 parts.

For subscriptions, Dub's Stripe docs recommend this order: first, install the app; second, add the analytics script; third, call the server SDK at signup; finally, pass your own user ID in Stripe Checkout metadata.

Stripe Payment Links carry the click in a client_reference_id parameter prefixed with dub_id_ instead.

Sources: dub.co/docs

Dub's integrations directory lists Stripe and Shopify as payment integrations, Polar as coming soon, and no Paddle or Lemon Squeezy entry, although the sale tracking API accepts paddle, polar and lemonsqueezy as payment processor values, so teams on those post each sale from their own webhook handler.

Sources: dub.co/integrations · dub.co/docs

How does TrackRev track revenue by channel?

TrackRev revenue attribution is a 2-part method: a server-side click record at the redirect, as Dub does, plus one first-party pixel when you want revenue. We built TrackRev so that for Stripe you paste a restricted read-only key.

When a visitor identifies through a signup form, a checkout email field or a magic-link login, TrackRev binds the visitor ID to that email, then matches paid charges to the click by customer email inside the attribution window, which defaults to 90 days.

The other 5 processors connect from their own integration pages in 2026.

Nothing in your checkout code changes, and the key also works with Stripe Connect accounts.

The trade-off is that an email join can miss when a customer pays with a different address than the one given to your site, and revenue arrives on an hourly poll unless you add the optional webhook.

How do last-touch, first-touch and linear credit differ?

TrackRev computes all three models from the same click data.

For example, take a $39 subscription bought after a YouTube link, an email and a Google Ads click, in that order: last-touch gives Google Ads all $39, first-touch gives YouTube all $39, and linear gives each of the three $13.

Last-touch vs first-touch vs linear covers which model suits which decision. Renewals keep crediting the original click, and refunds net out of channel revenue.

Processor wiring is in attributing Stripe revenue to marketing channels, and the product is on the revenue attribution page.

What does the same job cost?

Revenue by channel is the entry requirement: Dub Business at $90 a month or TrackRev Indie at $29.

A partner program changes the sums, because Dub meters payouts and charges a fee to send them, while TrackRev caps no commission and leaves the sending to you, since we built payouts as a CSV export.

TrackRev collects W-9 and W-8 forms during partner onboarding, and its pages mention no 1099 filing.

Whether $300 on a $6,000 month is worth it depends on how much of that work your team would otherwise do by hand, and how to pay affiliates walks through the manual route.

To test either, Dub gives a 14-day free trial on every paid plan, and TrackRev pricing lists both paid plans.

Can you self-host Dub.co, and what stays open source?

Self-hosting Dub.co is a partial option, because Dub's license file puts most of the repository under AGPLv3 and the apps/web/app/(ee) folder under a commercial license.

That folder's own README names Dub Conversions and Dub Partners among its features and says the code may not be used to host your own copy of Dub's app without a license.

A free self-host therefore covers links and click analytics, while revenue tracking and partner programs need a commercial license or Dub's hosted Business plan.

Dub's self-hosting guide has 9 steps and starts with six accounts: GitHub, Tinybird for click analytics, Upstash for Redis, PlanetScale for MySQL, Vercel for hosting, and Cloudflare or AWS for file storage, plus a domain.

PlanetScale no longer has a free tier, and the guide suggests a $5-a-month Railway database as the cheaper route.

The app depends on Vercel Edge Middleware, Docker is unsupported, and AGPLv3 obliges you to publish your changes if you offer a modified copy to users over a network. The stack is unpriced here because each service bills on usage.

Sources: dub.co/docs

When is Dub.co or TrackRev the better pick?

Choose Dub for link data that has to sit in cloud accounts you control with no revenue tracking involved, link creation built into your own product on Dub's SDKs and API, a vendor that sends partner payouts and the 1099s, or a free start on 3 custom domains with geo targeting from Dub Pro at $30 a month and A/B tests from Dub Business at $90.

As a Dub.co alternative, TrackRev makes sense when the job is revenue by channel inside an affiliate program, at $29 a month against $90, which is $61 or 68% less, with each billing system connected by key instead of through your own webhook code.

The same plan adds linear attribution, a commission hold of 0 to 180 days set per program, and unlimited partners.

The limits are real: TrackRev is closed source, hands you a payout file, has no link A/B testing and relies on an email match.

The Dub comparison page lays the features out row by row, and best link tracking software for SaaS covers the wider field.