Referral marketing is a process of promoting products or services through referrals from your existing customer base. This is mostly done through word-of mouth and it can be a highly effective way of marketing. Using this process, you can shorten your workload by using people (whether they’re customers or simply seeking some sort of incentive) to advocate for your brand, for you.
The problem is (especially when we’re talking about business related software), is that there are far too few solutions that are willing you grow with your financial situation. $50 per month on the surface may not seem a lot, but if you’re a busy freelancer or small business owner, you’ll need to learn the software and slowly adopt it. Those “$50/month” subscriptions can really add up. Trust me, we know all about that.
So we did our homework and found the best solutions that we could that start you off free, and as you grow, allow you to subscribe to premium referral marketing software packages.
Referral marketing software is a great tool and if utilized correctly, can result in gaining new customers or clients. Business owners can obtain success in referral marketing through several strategies usually in the form of subscriptions, social shares, app installs, registrations, sales, email referral, and phone calls.
In this era, referral marketing seems a highly adoptive way for grassroots marketing, especially since is much easier to track the sale. Whether you’re an established small business, or someone just starting out, we found a set of various software that will grow with you before you have to start shelling out cash.
Our Evaluation Criteria for Referral Marketing Apps & Tools with Free Plans
When we went through our selection process, this is what we had in mind:
Do they offer a free plan?
Does the software offer easy-to-use processes?
Is the software easily accessible through a browser?
Does the software have a relatively easy learning-curve?
We also took into some other factors like tracking, promotional tools, and integrations.
NoticeAre we missing any good software in this post? Post in the comments to let us know.
Different Referral Marketing Needs
We realized that various industries and types of businesses will be looking for different features. Note that in the end, the goal is to get one person to daylight your product or service to another. Some of the software below may focus on specific channels like email marketing or social media, while others focus on completely different strategies altogether. Keep an open mind and be privy to the various methods a person could share your business or organization (including non-profits) with someone else.
The list below is not in any specific order, at the end of the article, the editor will summarize his or her selection.
Free Referral Marketing Software #1
Ekoma
Don't waste anytime. If you have Shopify or WooCommerce, get started with your referral marketing right now.
The first tool on our list is Ekoma. It is a customer engagement tool that offers its users to grow their sales and develop their community with highly customizable referral, loyalty and VIP programs.
Ekoma is integrated with other powerful marketing tools such as Klayviyo, omnisend, Mailchimp, Hubspot, Judge.Me, Stamped.io, Instagram and many more.
The goal of Ekoma is to help users to create relations with customers and convert more sales. It helps to create an experience maximizing customer retention and acquisition through its intuitive interface and amazing tools. You can create rewards like Coupons, Points multipliers, Custom, Freebies to engage your customers.
Features:
CRM
Corporate Memberships
Membership Management
Customer Activity Tracking
Member Portal
Loyalty Card System
Referral Tracking
No-Card Loyalty System
Rewards Management
Ekoma Pricing:
Free Plan: Free plan includes features of the paid plans, but you don’t have access to the app toolkit and you’re limited to 20 transactions/purchases and Ekoma branding is included with the tool.
Pricing Begins: Pro plan begins at $29/month, included all features with 400 transactions included per month.
Referral Marketing Strategies
View the video to get an overview (no Ekoma videos)
8.1Expert Score
Ekoma Features Pro's & Cons
Ease of Use
9
Features
8.5
Support
7
Price
8
PROS
Ekoma provides deep customization to match your branding without even writing a code.
Ekoma allows you to create rewards ranging from simple coupons to fully custom rewards.
You can do detailed analytics to better understand your customers and convert more sales.
Ekoma is partnered with other powerful marketing tools. So it provides you an all in one package.
CONS
The paid version of ekoma is relatively expensive as compared to its competitors. However, it offers a free version with less features.
Ekoma does not provide SEO management and email marketing for ecommerce.
This opensource plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce that allows you to reward users who signup through your link via multi-levels. meaning that there’s no limit to how many levels of referrals can sign up.
As people signup and succeed at referring others, you can set customized rewards, whether monetary or otherwise.
Multilevel Referral Affiliate Plugin Pricing:
Free Plan: This plugin is completely free without limits.
Premium Plan: There is a premium plan with enhanced features, found on CodeCanyon.
WooCommerce Multilevel Referral Affiliate Plugin
View the video to get an overview
8.1Expert Score
Multilevel Referral Affiliate Features Pro's & Cons
Ease of Use
7
Features
8
Support
8
Price
9.5
PROS
Premium features are affordable
multiple tiers of tracking
Customized incentives at various levels
CONS
No standalone version
No automated methods of emailing/SMS guidance for using the platform
Smile.io is an all in one platform that allows its customers to launch pints, referrals, and VIP programs. It is serving over 50 million customers and features more than 15,000 rewards programs.
Smile.io has made it easy for customers to launch customizable rewards in just a few clicks. You can reward your customers for different activities like social media sharing, product reviews and more.
Smile also has built in integrations with apps like Mailchimp, Hubspot, Kalviyo, Bronto, ReCharge, Judge.me and many more. These integrated apps allow you to link your program with the tools you already have.
Features:
POS rewards
Email customization
Customer segmentation
Referral message customization
Basic reporting
Launcher-less programs
Basic design customization
Basic reporting
Smile.io Pricing:
Free Plan: Yes – you get access to the referral program software, but it will be branded without any customizations.
Pricing Begins: $49/month for most features except API access and some other advanced customizations.
Setup Smile.io on Shopify
View the video to see an overview.
8Expert Score
Smile.io Features Pro's & Cons
Ease of Use
8.5
Features
8.5
Support
7
Price
8
PROS
Tool allows for 4 different reward types
Two different goal types: get people to share an offer, or to join your program(s)
Offer perks to stimulate action from your current clients or customers.
CONS
Limited ecommerce or website compatibility (it won't work with Woocommerce or WordPress as of 2020)
Entry-level pricing tier is a bit high at $49 (except for Wix, which is $9.99)
upGive helps you to generate revenue and increase brand loyalty. They make it easy for you to invest your charity funds in marketing before donating it. With marketing you can get more sales and increase your revenue. In this way you can get a double benefit from the CSR fund.
First you ask your customers to support a cause they care about from nonprofits. Next your existing customers refer leads to your company that can convert to new paying customers. Your company donates to the nonprofits for each successful referral.
upGive.io Features:
Referral Tracking
Rewards Management
upGive.io Pricing:
Free Plan: The (completely) Free Plan is available to non-profits who pay $0.30 processing fees per transaction.
Pricing Begins: There is no monthly pricing for corporations, but rather you’re charged 16.4% + $0.30 per transaction, but the software access itself is free.
How CSR Influences Reputation
View the video to get an overview
8.4Expert Score
upGive.io Features Pro's & Cons
Ease of Use
8.5
Features
9
Support
7
Price
9
PROS
Simple Interface.
No monthly fees.
Direct integration with Hubspot
Unique model of utilizing giving to build reputation.
CONS
High commission fees for for-profit organizations.
Account must be manually setup.
Features may not be as robust as other competitors.
Refer is an online platform that helps to promote your sales and client relationships. You can stay in touch with people who provide referrals. The platform provides hands-on referral partner advisory services to drive customers to your business and promote them to buy your products. Refer.com is also launching My Referral Card that is an innovative profile for showing your business and asking for referrals.
Refer Features:
Referral Tracker
Online Visibility
Referral Email Signature
Referral Suggestions
Team-Up Platform
Dedicated Tech Support
Contact Organizer
Refer.com Pricing:
Free Plan – Gives you access to the core features of the referral card and referral system.
Pricing Begins for $10/month which gives you access to a few minor additional features but more noteworthy the “TeamUp” feature to team with other professionals.
Refer.com Introduction
View the video to get an overview
8.1Expert Score
Refer Features Pro's & Cons
Ease of Use
9
Features
8
Support
7.5
Price
8
PROS
With refer.com you can showcase your visibility and build your brand, as well as quickly create a digital refer card
It allows you to manage your referrals and to know who sent them.
Your business can be found in Google and other search engines.
IMAP and Google Gmail integrations.
CONS
We felt like more could have been done to integrate with their referralkey.com platform, as well as Linkedin (maybe in future releases?)
Better (step-by-step) guidance with how the platform can create immediate reviews would have been helpful, but the platform has a sophisticated onboarding wizard.
ReferralWeb is a referral management software designed to serve dentists and doctors. This system works to increase the visibility for the medical professional through his existing customers and contact-base. It utilizes email to deliver personalized referrals.
This fully featured system offers a very simple and extremely quick way to send reviews of a given doctor or dentist in their directory, no accounts are required.
Features of ReferralWeb
Send a referral with a message to a phone number and/or an email.
No need to sign up for an account, although doing so gives you added features.
Simple interface and analytics.
ReferralWeb Pricing:
Free Plan: Includes full use of the basic tool.
Pricing Begins: No Premium Plans.
FotoJet Overview
View the video to get an overview
7.5Expert Score
ReferralWeb Feature Pro's & Cons
Ease of Use
9
Features
5.5
Support
6
Price
9.5
PROS
Great templates
Its practical
Easy to work around
CONS
Doesn't automatically save your work
You don’t get much to work with on the free package
Editor’s Opinion: The Thing that People Forget to Do is to Ask
Referral programs are one of the most overlooked strategies of small business marketing. Referrals provide business owners both the ability to identify their loyal customers and to multiply their customer base. These customers, also called champions, are the ones who naturally want to advocate for your brand, but just need a reminder or small incentive to do so. Share your content with others, and ask to have your name pushed out to other networks, by asking in a personalized way, you business can go far. With referral programs you can reward your customers in different ways to keep them consistently motivated to be your advocate.
