Tapfiliate is $89 a month and FirstPromoter starts at $49 a month, forever, to answer one question: who sent this sale and what do I owe them. Reflink is $39 once. Give every affiliate a tracking link, count their clicks, attribute their conversions, compute their commissions, and export the payout CSV — from one Node process and one SQLite file that you own. No subscription.
If you've searched for a Tapfiliate alternative, Reflink is the pay-once option worth putting at the top of the list: Reflink is $39, one time, and covers the same core job Tapfiliate charges $89/mo for.
What makes Reflink the pick for 2026
- Tracking links — A short link records the click and 302-redirects to your landing page with a ref code appended for client-side pickup.
- Cookie-based attribution — A configurable window of 30, 60 or 90 days is your call.
- Conversion tracking two ways — A server-to-server postback from your checkout webhook, or a JS pixel with a convert call.
- Order-ID dedupe — The same order can never pay commission twice.
- Commission rules per affiliate — Percent of sale or a flat amount.
Reflink vs Tapfiliate, at a glance
| Reflink | Tapfiliate | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $39 once | $89/mo |
| Cost after 1 year | $39 | $1,068 |
| Data ownership | Your server, your SQLite file | Their cloud |
| Affiliates | Unlimited | Tiered limits |
| Clicks / conversions | Unlimited | Plan-capped |
| Affiliate portal | Yes | Yes |
| Payout CSV export | Yes | Yes |
| MLM tiers / integrations marketplace | No | Yes |
Pays for itself in the first two weeks of a Tapfiliate subscription, then keeps running for free.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — the source is MIT and always will be at github.com/bensblueprints/affiliate-tracker-mvp. The $39 buys a packaged Windows installer with updates; building from source is free.
Where does my affiliate data live?
On your server. Reflink is one Node process and one SQLite file that you own, and visitor IPs are stored only as salted hashes, never raw.
Does it replace Tapfiliate entirely?
No, on purpose. If you need multi-level marketing trees and 40 native integrations, buy Tapfiliate. If you need who sent this sale and what do I owe them, that's Reflink.
The bottom line
Reflink won't out-feature Tapfiliate on every axis — no subscription tool with a bigger team and a bigger roadmap loses on everything. But for the core job, $39 once against $89/mo forever is a trade most people should at least look at. Reflink is part of OneTimeSuite, a catalog of pay-once apps that replace subscription SaaS.
Try Reflink — $39, once
Self-hosted affiliate tracking with attribution, commissions, approvals and payout CSV export.