Dub vs FirstPromoter: Features, Pricing, and Which Is Better for SaaS Affiliate Programs (2026)

FirstPromoter is a solid option for small affiliate and referral programs. It’s affordable, easy to set up, and covers the basics well.

The challenge starts as your program grows. Instead of focusing on growing affiliate revenue, you can end up spending more time fixing failed payouts, handling tax forms, and losing serious partners who are tired of juggling multiple logins.

Dub is built for that next stage of growth with its powerful analytics, flexible rewards, one-click global payouts, and a modern, intuitive UI that makes it easy to launch and scale partnerships.

Let's break down the key differences between FirstPromoter and Dub, so you can choose the best fit for your affiliate program.

Technical integration

This is the most important step for any program, as it determines how accurate your tracking will be.

FirstPromoter

Technical integration happens in 3 steps, and how much work each one takes depends on how your product is built.

Step 1: Add FirstPromoter’s main tracking script to your website.

Step 2: Track signups. When a referred visitor signs up, you send their email or user ID to FirstPromoter. You can do this with their fpr.js function or through their API. This is where most setups go wrong. If you use Stripe, the ID you send has to match the Stripe customer ID or an fp_uid field in the customer's metadata. If it doesn't match, the referral stays stuck as a lead and your partner never gets credit.

Step 3: Connect your billing provider. FirstPromoter integrates directly with Stripe, Chargebee, Braintree, Recurly, and Paddle to track sales. If you use another billing provider, expect additional API work.

But then there is also the cookie problem. FirstPromoter acknowledges that ad blockers and privacy tools can block its scripts, stop cookies from being set, and strip tracking parameters from URLs, leading to lost attribution.

The fix is FirstPromoter's optional proxy setup that routes tracking requests through your own domain, which adds another piece of infrastructure for your engineering team to configure and maintain.

Dub

Dub’s technical setup follows a similar flow, but gives you more flexibility around attribution and billing.

Step 1: Install the lightweight (~1kb) Dub Analytics script to your website. It captures the dub_id query parameter from affiliate links and stores it in a first-party cookie so future conversions can be tied back to the original click.

Step 2: Send lead and conversion events from your backend using Dub’s REST API for server-side tracking. You can also use native SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Go, PHP, and Ruby.

Step 3: Connect your billing provider. For sales and recurring revenue, Dub offers native integrations with Stripe and Shopify, so you don’t have to build billing attribution from scratch.

But what truly sets Dub apart from FirstPromoter is its powerful Stripe integration, which supports advanced billing use cases, such as:

• Tracking free trials as lead rewards
• Voiding commissions when refunds occur
• Handling currency conversion when using Stripe Adaptive Pricing
• Calculating commissions accurately for invoices with multiple line items
• Excluding taxes from commissionable sale amounts

Help me set up conversion tracking with Dub.co by referencing the following articles (and the linked articles within them):

- dub.co/docs/concepts/attribution
- dub.co/docs/quickstart/server
- dub.co/docs/integrations/stripe

Make sure to tailor the implementation to my existing tech stack, and leverage server-side tracking if possible for the most accurate results.

Reward structures

Flexible reward structures let you pay partners for the results that matter to your business, not just the ones your software can track.

FirstPromoter

With FirstPromoter, you have a few options:

• Pay a percentage or a flat amount per sale
• Choose how long commissions last (one-time, a set number of months, or the customer's lifetime)
• Set different rewards for different pricing plans
• Offer higher rewards when partners hit customer or revenue targets
• Offer non-cash rewards like credits or free months (requires developer work)

Dub

In addition to the reward structures available in FirstPromoter, with Dub you also have the following options:

• Click, lead, and sale rewards
• Staggered reward durations (e.g. higher rewards for the first 12 months, then a lower reward for the rest of the customer’s lifetime)
• Geo-specific rewards (e.g. higher rewards for sales and leads from a specific country)
• Product-specific rewards (e.g. higher rewards for sales of specific products)
• Billing cycle rewards (e.g. higher rewards for annual plans vs. monthly plans)

You can also mix-and-match and combine conditions with “AND” and “OR” logic parameters.

With Dub's AI reward builder, setting up rewards is easy – you can describe your desired reward structure in natural language and everything will be configured for you.

Analytics

Analytics can make a big difference in how effectively you manage and grow your partner program.

FirstPromoter

FirstPromoter's dashboard covers the basics – total revenue, new customers, new referrals, clicks, cancellations, and total commissions.

If you want to dig deeper, Reports let you break performance down by campaign, partner, traffic source, and landing page.

FirstPromoter provides a solid foundation with datapoints like new revenue, recurring revenue, monthly churn, and new customers. However, you’ll often need to export the data and analyze it separately.

Dub

Dub makes it easy to navigate all that data. With program analytics, you always have a clear view of what’s driving performance, from conversion rates and top partners to leading traffic sources, countries, and more.

It's also really easy to filter data by variables such as partner groups, UTM parameter, region, and more.

Dub also gives you customer-level insights that go beyond basic conversion tracking. Each customer page shows how they discovered your brand, along with their recent activity, LTV, time to sale, UTM campaigns, location, and more.

For more detailed analysis, Dub provides a real-time events stream where you can review individual clicks, leads, and sales, apply filters, and export the data for further analysis.

Dub also lets you track how applicants move through your program application funnel, so you can see where they’re dropping off and make targeted improvements to increase partner conversion.

Partner network

Finding good partners is already one of the hardest parts of growing an affiliate program, and without a built-in network, that work falls entirely on your team.

FirstPromoter

FirstPromoter doesn’t have a partner network, so you’ll need to find and recruit partners on your own.

Dub

With Dub's Enterprise plan, you get access to a network of 7,000+ active partners. The network is also curated – every partner has to apply, and each application is reviewed by the Dub team before they’re accepted.

Dub also uses a Trusted Partner badge to highlight top performers, helping you quickly identify partners with a stronger track record.

Partners in the Dub Partner Network can also browse programs through the marketplace. Once your program is listed, recruitment becomes two-way: you can proactively reach out to partners, and interested partners can discover your program and apply directly.

Partner payouts

What takes minutes in Dub can easily take hours each week in FirstPromoter.

FirstPromoter

You have four ways to send payouts:

• PayPal or Stripe API integration – requires engineering work to set up. With Stripe, tax compliance is still your responsibility because its payout API doesn’t handle it for you.
• Bulk external payouts – export a CSV, send the payments through your payment provider, then return to your dashboard and manually mark them as paid.
• Manual payouts – pay affiliates one by one outside of FirstPromoter, then return to your dashboard and manually mark them as paid.
• Managed auto-payouts – pay FirstPromoter a single invoice and they distribute the funds on your behalf 10 days after your payment is processed. This is only available on Enterprise 2 and above and requires an enterprise contract.

At year-end, tax compliance is also on you. If you’re on the Enterprise 2 plan or above and using "managed auto-payouts", FirstPromoter can handle tax documentation on your behalf.

Otherwise, it can collect W-9 and W-8BEN forms from affiliates, but this isn’t enabled by default, so some programs only realize it when tax deadlines are approaching. You’re still responsible for filing 1099s, which adds hours of operational work and additional accounting costs.

Dub

With Dub, paying partners truly takes just 1 click. You confirm the payouts, and we handle the rest – from sending invoices to you and your partners to managing tax compliance. For you, this means no spreadsheets, no CSV exports, no year-end tax responsibilities.

That becomes especially valuable as your program scales, because your team can stay focused on growing affiliate revenue instead of managing payouts.

Performing payouts in Dub has streamlined our payout process and is a breeze. We get real insights into our top-performing partners, filtered by month, quarter, etc.

Carla Giordano

Senior Financial Accountant, Framer

Fraud detection

Affiliate fraud, like any fraud, has gotten more sophisticated with AI, so fraud detection now matters more than ever.

FirstPromoter

FirstPromoter's fraud detection system includes the following:

• Using reCAPTCHA on affiliate application forms
• Flagging commissions above a set amount for manual approval
• Requiring email verification when affiliates change their payout method
• Tracking self-referrals
• Detecting traffic from paid channels

These checks help with obvious fraud, but they don’t cover many of the more sophisticated patterns that show up at scale.

Dub

Dub goes beyond basic fraud checks by looking at signals across partner accounts, customers, traffic, and the broader Dub Partner Network:

You can also customize risk alerts in your settings to match your program’s own rules and risk tolerance.

For example, if your program doesn't allow Google Ads, you can create a custom fraud alert that flags only those commissions instead of treating all paid traffic as potentially fraudulent.

Partner experience

Your best partners often promote several products at once, so you're always competing for their attention. Bad partner experience means they’ll put their time and effort somewhere else.

FirstPromoter

FirstPromoter can be frustrating for established affiliates and publishers who manage multiple programs.

Each program has its own portal and login. For a publisher working with 10+ programs, that means 10+ logins and no single place to see their earnings. That extra friction can make your program easier to deprioritize in favor of platforms where all partnerships live in one place.

Once partners log in, there isn't much to analyze. The dashboard centers on 4 totals: clicks, referrals, customers, and unpaid earnings. That tells partners how many people converted, but not much about why. And you can't optimize what you can't measure.

Dub

On Dub, partners get one clean, modern dashboard where they can manage their programs, track performance, and get paid without juggling separate accounts.

The analytics go well beyond basics. Partners can see their top-performing links, referrers, UTM parameters, countries, devices, and more, plus a conversion funnel from click to sale. That makes it much easier to see which channels are actually driving commissions, double down on what works, and send higher-quality leads to your program.

Getting paid is also simple. Partners can choose between bank transfers, PayPal, or USDC payouts (depending on their country of residence) instead of being limited to a single payout method.

When Framer migrated off FirstPromoter to Dub, partners noticed the difference too:

Pricing

Here's what you'll pay for each platform.

FirstPromoter

FirstPromoter is relatively affordable, but the lower-priced plans come with some meaningful limitations depending on how you run your program.

Dub

All plans on Dub include 1-click global payouts, so it's one less thing for your team to worry about. Here is a brief overview:

Though FirstPromoter does not charge any payout fees (yet), those fees are actually passed on to your partners, which results in a subpar experience for them.

Dub vs FirstPromoter

Final thoughts

FirstPromoter is a budget-friendly option for smaller programs, especially if you’re just getting started with a few affiliates. But as your program grows, so does the work, and with FirstPromoter, a lot of that work (payouts and tax forms included) lands on you.

Dub is built for modern teams that want to scale their partner program without adding more operational overhead. Tracking, flexible rewards, fraud detection, global payouts, and partner analytics all live in one place, while partners get a powerful dashboard with the insights they need to understand and improve their own performance.

Try Dub today and join amazing companies like Framer, Polymarket, Superpower, and Granola that are powering their affiliate programs with Dub.

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