Customer referral software

ViralPayouts vs Cello

ViralPayouts has no monthly fee, pays your affiliates for you and pays recruiters on every program. You pay 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3%, and nothing in a month when nobody sells. Cello also pays affiliates for you and does not say it has two-tier recruiting. It costs $0 to $750 a month + 3.5% of transactions.

Every figure for Cello comes from its own pages or named review sites, checked 12 October 2026. Sources are listed at the bottom.

Why brands pick ViralPayouts over Cello

Best fit: A brand that wants affiliates who recruit other affiliates, wants no monthly fee, and wants discovery through a public program directory.

$0 a month
No plan and no setup fee. 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3% at $10,000 a month.
Payouts done for you
One invoice per program. ViralPayouts sends every partner and recruiter their money and collects tax forms.
Recruiters built in
Customer links and recruit links on every program, with the override set your way and reversed on refunds.

Start a program free

Side by side

	Cello	ViralPayouts
Price	$0 to $750 a month + 3.5% of transactionsTerm: Monthly plans cancel any time; yearly plans have a 12-month commitment	$0 a month. 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3% at $10,000 a month.
Setup fee	None ("There are no setup or currency conversion fees.")	None
Fee for paying affiliates	Partner referrals: 'transaction costs' of 5% (Free), 3.5% (Plus/Pro), 2% (Enterprise); user referrals 0%. 0% currency conversion on all plans.	Included in the fee above: no charge to the brand for sending payoutsPartners pay Whop's own fee when they withdraw to their bank
Pays your affiliates for you	Yesvia PayPal / Venmo; Cello bills the brand's card up to twice a month to fund payouts	Yes You fund by bank transfer; we pay every partner
Two-tier recruiting	Not stated	Yes Two levels on every program: share of commission, share of sale or fixed. Paid on approved sales, never sign-ups
Public program directory	No	Yes Partners browse and join with one account
Tracking	Personal referral links with ucc code; First-party cookie via Attribution JS; Stripe / Chargebee / Paddle / Recurly webhooks; REST API events (signup, purchase, refund, demo-attended)	First-party links with click IDs, signed server-to-server events, Stripe Checkout webhook
Coupon tracking	Not stated	Yes A code per partner, per program
Mobile app tracking	Yes	App installs, sign-ups and purchases reported from your server through the signed event API, with bounties on them. No SDK to ship in your app.
API, webhooks, MCP	API, MCP server	REST API for brands and partners with an OpenAPI spec, an MCP server for AI agents, a signed event API and partner postbacks
Integrations	Stripe, Chargebee, Paddle, Recurly, HubSpot	Stripe Checkout, Shopify orders, any backend via the event API

Cello plans in full

User referrals - Start: $65 a month billed yearly. Up to $10K referral ARR, 1 campaign, unlimited referrals
User referrals - Grow: $200 a month billed yearly. Up to $50K referral ARR, unlimited campaigns, dedicated success manager
User referrals - Scale: $750 a month. Up to $100K referral ARR, custom SLAs
User referrals - Enterprise: price not published. Unlimited referral ARR, custom price
Partner referrals - Free: $0 a month, plus 5% of transactions. 1 partner campaign, 5 transacting partners
Partner referrals - Plus: $80 a month billed yearly, plus 3.5% of transactions. 3 partner campaigns, 25 transacting partners

Pricing source

Where ViralPayouts comes out ahead of Cello

What Cello offers

B2B and B2C SaaS companies with a logged-in web or mobile app that want an in-product user referral widget, plus an optional affiliate/influencer partner program in the same tool. Products without a logged-in experience are not eligible.

Customer referral software · G2 4.9 (32 reviews) · Capterra 4.9 (20 reviews)

Why ViralPayouts is the better choice

Two levels built in (partner commission plus recruiter override); Cello states no multi-tier
No monthly fee; Cello partner plans charge a subscription plus 2-5% transaction costs and cap transacting partners
Public directory where partners browse and join programs with one account
Works for any product with a checkout, not only logged-in apps

What Cello users say

Paraphrased from public reviews. Follow each link to read the original.

Praise

Fast setup, some teams live within hours or two days with little developer time capterra.com
Referral widget lives inside the product, so users share without leaving the app capterra.com
Success-based pricing lowers upfront risk capterra.com
Managed payouts plus GDPR and KYC handling capterra.com

Complaints

Reward options are mostly cash payouts; users want discounts or donations capterra.com
Dashboards and analytics not detailed enough capterra.com
Some changes must be requested from Cello rather than self-served; limited UI customisation capterra.com
Attribution is harder when sales teams are involved capterra.com

About Cello

In their words:: "Referrals on Autopilot" / "Cello is the AI-powered referral platform for building and automating User Referral and Partner programs."
Company:: Munich, Germany (legal entity Powerplay GmbH, Munich; also a Berlin postbox) · Powerplay GmbH (managing directors Stefan Bader, Robert Coletti)
Funding:: EUR 3.1M preempted seed led by HV Capital (July 2023), after a EUR 2.3M pre-seed in 2022
Named customers:: Typeform, tl;dv, VEED, Smoobu, Hera, Plancraft, Amuse
Website:: cello.so

Try ViralPayouts on test money

Set your commission and recruiter override, see what each sale costs you, and run it on the test network before a real partner joins. No monthly fee.

Start a program See pricing

More comparisons

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Sources for Cello (16), checked 12 October 2026

Cello is a trademark of its owner. ViralPayouts is not affiliated with Cello. Prices and features change: check cello.so before you decide. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we will fix it.