PartnerPortal Affiliate Review: Features, Integrations and Pricing

Is your affiliate program eating hours of your workday? From partner recruitment and partner relationship management to handling your commission schedules, affiliate program management is no joke. The most successful affiliate marketing programs have one thing in common: solid affiliate management software to lean on for their partnership channels.

Tapfiliate is a flexible, affordable affiliate platform with customization and management features that help you launch, manage, and scale your affiliate program. But you should consider other contenders on the market before you decide on a software. Today, we’ll review PartnerPortal, a partnership software primarily focused on lead generation, and compare its features with Tapfiliate’s.

PartnerPortal Affiliate Tracking

PartnerPortal is an ideal affiliate software for brands that want to put their marketing efforts on lead generation and crave fully customizable affiliate software. Let’s take a look at the platform’s key features.

Partner Portal Key Features

PartnerPortal’s custom partner program features range across automation, payment reports, metrics, white-labeled portal styles, and the ability for brands to share leads with affiliates, too.

Deal registration

Deal registration is PartnerPortal’s process for partners to submit new leads to your affiliate program. The custom form builder helps you decide the most important attributes you want to know about potential leads and integrates with CRMs as well. On top of that, PartnerPortal includes a notes and comments subfeature that helps you communicate with your partner, whether to clarify details or praise their work.

Automation

PartnerPortal offers automation features via its integrations to account mapping platforms and customer relationship management (CRM) software, like PayPal, QuickBooks, HubSpot, and Salesforce. Notably, you can mirror your automated commission schedule into Quickbooks for easy accounting. High-tier subscribers can also power through more workflows through the Zapier integration. Apart from that, the platform automates various processes in the partnership lifecycle, like partner registration and commissions.

Payments

Payments is Partner Portal’s way to help brands customize their affiliate program down to the last dollar. You can use this feature to automate commission payouts and set minimum revenue thresholds to trigger a payout. Then, you can view all these insights on transaction history reports. Separate commission rules and schedules aren’t automatically shared with affiliates either. Furthermore, you can set expiration dates for leads.

Metrics

PartnerPortal uses colorful, yet accessible charts to display data points that demonstrate performance, such as:

• Number of leads registered
• Partners registered
• Total revenue from leads
• Commissions paid out
• Leading partners

The platform also shows graphs where you can access insights over time, referencing historical performance month over month or quarter over quarter.

Additionally, the platform’s custom lead generation form helps you see the integrations and services that have the biggest impact on channel sales.

Resource Center

The Resource Center is a hub for partners to get everything they need from your affiliate program. This feature offers unlimited file sharing for creative assets, logos, branding, information guides, and everything else affiliates need to market your products properly. You can also provide a unique resource center to each of your partners depending on their unique needs, enabled by different folders and custom groups and permissions. Additionally, brands can decide hierarchies and naming conventions.

Portal Styles

White-labeling describes customization abilities to make a software look aligned with a company’s branding. PartnerPortal offers these customizable partner portals to high-tier subscribers, though the platform’s Portal Styles still offer some customization. This feature can change fonts, logos, and color schemes on your affiliate dashboards. The Program tab offers image and body text customization as well, which works similar to a branded landing page.

Opportunities

Opportunities are leads sent by a brand to its affiliates. If an opportunity comes up, brands can share it with 1+ affiliates through the PartnerPortal, and the affiliate doesn’t even have to be registered. This feature also comes with a live chat function to discuss details and answer affiliate questions when necessary.

Integrations

PartnerPortal offers direct integrations with eight marketing software applications, including:

• PayPal
• Zoho
• Salesforce
• HubSpot
• Stripe
• Pipedrive
• Quickbooks
• Zapier
• Crossbeam

However, keep in mind that the Salesforce and Zapier integrations aren’t available on the first two pricing plans (you need to upgrade to the highest tier). If you want to integrate with software outside the list above, you can only do so through custom integrations on the highest tier.

Can I Use Customization with PartnerPortal?

Yes, PartnerPortal offers a few customization features like custom color styles, logos, and custom domains (the latter only on the mid-tier subscription plan and higher). If you’re not too creative, the platform gives you the option to have web designers customize the partner portal for you.

You can also customize affiliate commissions by grouping affiliates into different tiers (including a $0 commission option. Finally, PartnerPortal offers a custom form builder to collect your most relevant data on potential leads. This features integrates to your customer relationship management (CRM) system, which might be HubSpot for some brands. If you use a different CRM, you can’t integrate the lead builder unless you pay for the higher-tier pricing plan.

PartnerPortal Pricing

All of PartnerPortal’s plans come with partner and lead registration, lead tracking, payment processing, metrics, partner tiers, announcements, data storage, custom branding, opportunity passing, and integrations to various platforms like Salesforce, QuickBooks, PayPal, Zoho, and more. Tiers go up depending on the number of partners you have, as well as a few more customization and support perks. The highest-tier plan stands out with integrations to Salesforce, Zapier, and custom integrations. However, it’s not clear how much that plan costs.

• Trial: Free. 5 partners, 3 staff, 1 seat per partner.
• Starter: $199 per month. 10+ partners, 5 staff, 3 seats per partner, custom domain, live support
• Premium: Talk to sales team. 25+ partners, unlimited staff, unlimited partner seats, custom SSO, live partner onboarding

Who Are Some of PartnerPortal’s Customers?

PartnerPortal tends to service online service providers and SaaS companies. Here are some examples of their clientele:

• Searchspring: A software company that provides dynamic search, personalization, and merchandising for ecommerce websites
• Events.com: A platform for selling and promoting events, managing event administration, and boosting attendance.
• Talon One: A growth marketing software that offers rewards, loyalty, and pricing management services.

What are PartnerPortal Reviews Like?

PartnerPortal’s Reviews are generally positive, with an average of 4.5/5 stars on G2. Positive comments praise the platform’s intuitive interface, HubSpot integration, and robust branding and customization features.

Points of criticism call for better flexibility with commission groups, user permissions, and data exporting. Here’s an example from a Verified User in Computer Security:

The platform does not allow you to segment your customers, user roles, and provide conditional incentives based on different products and services

How You Can Get Affiliate Tracking Software for Your Affiliate Program

What Do You Need?

Consider the biggest potential benefit an affiliate software could offer you. What do you want to achieve with it? Goals might look a little different for every business, but might include:

• More niche affiliates and strategic partners
  
• Better affiliate communication
  
• Stronger affiliate engagement
  
• Better financial records and bookkeeping
  
• More web traffic and exposure
  
• More conversions
  
• More brand alignment
  

And if all of the above sound ideal? Then we’d recommend you stick to our affiliate software selection guide so you pick the best possible fit!

Do Your Research

Google is just the beginning. You might find a longlist of affiliate marketing software in your search engine results, but deeper research should explore how long a particular software has been on the market, types of business partner programs the company specializes in, ease of use, and mentions or reviews from other affiliate marketing authorities.

Additionally, you could research partnership management solutions by connecting within your industry network. If you have an acquaintance with a similar business as yours and you know they have an affiliate program, see what they’re using and how it helps them.

Can You Connect Your Tech Stack?

Affiliate management software can connect your affiliate tasks to other business operations through integrations. Swear by Mailchimp for email marketing campaigns? Your affiliate software better have an integration to it, otherwise you’ll be repeating the same tasks over and over again there and in your new software.

Ideally, you want a software that will grow with your brand’s affiliate program. One indication of this potential is custom integrations, where you can create integrations to software not listed on their direct integrations with a bit of code.

Think About Your Budget

Affiliate programs are popular for its relatively small investment, since you don’t pay any affiliate until you see a sale or other type of conversion. But affiliate software can cost a pretty penny, anywhere from $50 for super basic functionalities, all the way to thousands of dollars for more enterprise plan.

Make sure there’s room in your marketing budget for at least $80 a month for a decent platform, otherwise you’ll be using valuable marketing resources to do work that could otherwise be done by a software. And, don’t be afraid to upgrade to higher plans higher than your budget if you’re convinced the features can bring you more revenue.

When You’ve Found Something, Try a Free Trial

Most affiliate marketing software offer a free trial for you to test out its features. These trials last anywhere from 7 days to two weeks on average. Our advice? Go with one that has a two-week trial. Think about how busy your schedule is already — a week can fly by before you know it, so that extra week acts as a cushion for you to make sure you’re happy with your investment.

Think About How Easy it is to Use

Does it take you ten tries to access the reporting metrics you need to assess performance? How about integrating into your favorite CRM? Is everything accessible on a single platform Ease of use is synonymous with saved marketing dollars when we’re talking about affiliate software. Anything that eats up more of your time eats up more potential conversions and revenue. Your affiliate software should feel intuitive and easy to navigate.

Think About Security

Affiliate fraud is real, and there’s no shortage of hackers trying to access your unique personal information or that of your affiliates. Protect your business with affiliate software that prioritizes security. Some green flags include end-to-end encryption, GDPR compliance, suspicious click notifications, and permission controls.

Talk to Customer Service

You might notice some reviewers comment on affiliate software support, and there’s a good reason. Imagine managing an affiliate relationship with a high-performing partner and they can’t get their commission payout. You reach out to customer support, and here crickets. Responsiveness is 100% vital for a software support team.

Look for software with multiple channels of communication, quick response times, and, of course, competence and knowledge about the software. You can assess these details through reviews, as well as your own communications with support.

An Affordable Alternative to PartnerPortal: Tapfiliate Affiliate Software

PartnerPortal’s features certainly help streamline affiliate programs, but what if you want to scale to more affiliates? Or customize commission schedules even more? Tapfiliate might be a better fit if you want the utmost customization and commission flexibility without as high a price tag. Here are some of our advanced features.

Automated Partner Recruitment

Tapfiliate makes partner recruitment seamless and efficient with our automated customer referral program. This is an essential feature if you’re looking to build your word of mouth marketing. Whether a customer makes a purchase or reaches out to your customer support team, these are customizable triggers that you can enable to activate an automated email invitation for that customer to join your program.

We create a unique referral code for all referral partners that they can share with their family and friends, as you reap the rewards of their word-of-mouth marketing.

Integrations

We know just how connected and efficient the modern marketer is, with email marketing tools, ecommerce platforms, and payment solutions to keep things flowing quickly. That’s why we offer 34 unique, direct, seamless integrations to the software tools our clients use the most, including payment processors like PayPal and Stripe, as well as ecommerce solutions like Shopify and WixStores. And if you don’t see a software on our integrations list? Don’t worry; you can create a custom integration via our REST API or Javascript; you just might need a little support from a developer to handle all the coding.

Multi-Language

Tapfiliate offers 6 language options for your affiliate dashboard: Dutch, Spanish, English, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and French. This opens your affiliate program to promotional potential from millions of worldwide affiliates.

Multi-currency:

International affiliates won’t want the hassle of being paid in USD and having to pay conversion fees out of pocket. That’s why Tapfiliate offers multiple currencies for you to run your program, and if you’re not sure whether we offer yours? Just contact our customer support team and we’ll make it happen.

Talk about how you can choose which currency you use for your affiliate program. We support multiple currencies, and if your currency is not available you can contact customer support.

Works for Affiliate, Referral and Influencer Programs

Partnership marketing is a wide umbrella that covers affiliate, referral, and influencer marketing. You can leverage all three partner types with Tapfiliate. Our flexible commissions, real-time tracking and reporting, and automation features streamline any and all affiliate programs.

Our creative branded assets and email templates help you appeal to influencer affiliates, too. Plus, partner onboarding is as simple as an automated email invitation to your customers via our automated referral function.

Direct Messages:

Tapfiliate offers its unique in-platform chat functionality where you can send notifications and custom messages to all your affiliates, either individually or in groups. Your partners will appreciate the direct line of communication and feel more connected to you and your brand. This feature is only available with our enterprise plan, and you can explore other features when you contact sales at Tapfiliate.

Flexible Commissions

Percentage-based, fixed-fee, lifetime, product-specific — the possibilities with Tapfiliate’s flexible commissions are endless. We offer affiliate grouping where you can toggle different commission models and rates based on certain affiliate characteristics, and even trigger automated commission increases based on performance. On top of that, you can get rid of overstock or promote specific products with our SKU-specific commissions.

We offer clients one of the most flexible commission features to engage a wide variety of affiliates and mesh with your business goals and key performance indicators.

Automation:

Affiliate marketing is a massive operation, and we know that today’s program managers will look for as many ways possible to streamline activities. Tapfiliate’s automation features are up to the task. We integrate directly with Zapier to help you automate workflows across multiple departments, and our triggered emails and drip campaigns save you hours of time in your process.

MLM:

Multi-level marketing (MLM) helps you leverage your existing affiliate network to find more qualified affiliates (here known as sub affiliates). You can invite affiliates to find you more partners and incentive them with commissions on those leads as well. Win, win; right? This feature is available on our Pro plan, with more advanced MLM sales goals available on our Enterprise plan

White Labeling:

White-labeling gives you full reign of branding on Tapfiliate’s platform, as it removes our branding in exchange for your own. You can add logos, colors, themes, and customize the affiliate portal to reflect your brand as extensively as possible.

Pricing:

We offer a free 14-day-trial for brands to try out all of our features. Once you’re sold? Subscribe to one of our three subscription tiers. Keep in mind that all tiers include unlimited affiliates and affiliate programs.

• Essential: $89/month. 20,000 clicks and 2,000 conversions tracked, deep affiliate tracking links, coupons, flexible commissions, real-time reporting, and access for one team member.
• Pro: $149/month. 100,000 clicks and 10,000 conversions tracked, product-specific commissions, affiliate groups, private creative assets, and affiliate performance bonuses.
• Enterprise: Custom. All the above plus custom verbiage, in-platform messenger, unlimited tracking requests, and advanced MLM sales goals

PartnerPortal Affiliate Management vs Tapfiliate Affiliate Management

PartnerPortal and Tapfiliate both offer revenue attribution, conversion tracking, integrations, and flexible commissions for your affiliate program. But if you really want to engage your affiliates? You’re limited with PartnerPoral in a few areas, namely its limited languages and currencies, lack of MLM features, and high price tag that prohibits some newer brands from signing up.

Affiliate Program Management:

Remember, PartnerPortal is primarily a lead generation platform, as most of its web content centers around lead form tracking and reporting. It’s also known for its strong CRM and accounting software integrations, though it doesn’t integrate with any ecommerce sofyware. Plus, it’s dedicated to all kinds of partnerships and not specifically affiliates. While it does have some functions to communicate with affiliates via notes and comments, it isn’t as robust in program management features as Tapfiliate.

Tapfiliate integrates to a wide range of software across the CRM, email marketing, learning and development, and ecommerce spaces. If you have an online store, you’ll find it easy to connect affiliate insights to your transactions via our BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Shopify integrations. We also provide more partner engagement functionality with an in-platform messenger, affiliate commission tiers, MLM features, and performance bonuses.

Tracking and Reporting Analytics:

PartnerPortal offers reporting on a range of data points like individual close rates, total commissions issued, total partner revenue generated, and the overall impact your program is producing for your organization

Tapfiliate: Offers in-depth tracking in real-time for several metrics including sale value, commission rate, country, creatives and more, so you can keep track of your marketing activities with affiliates on one centralized platform.

Languages:

The affiliate marketing industry and partner ecosystem exists outside the US and UK, which is why Tapfiliate offers our affiliate portal in six different languages: French, English, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Brazilian Portuguese. On the other hand, PartnerPortal’s affiliate portal is only available in English.

Currencies:

Say you have a global audience — or dream of having one. Wouldn’t you want to harness affiliate partnerships outside your home country? Well, you can’t do that if you can’t pay them in their currency of choice. Tapfiliate offers six supported currencies including the dollar and Euro, and if you’re uncertain of whether we support your currency? We do – just get in touch with us if you don’t see it listed on our website.

PartnerPortal, on the other hand, doesn’t mention any information about supported currencies on their website.

Customization

You can customize your affiliate portal with different fonts, logos, domains, and colors with PartnerPortal. However, you can’t segment user roles or customize performance incentives for affiliates that meet milestones. Tapfiliate offers more customization on the affiliate and partner relationship management side with its product-specific commissions, performance bonuses, and detailed commission schedule. Plus, we offer branding customization with unique referral links, coupon codes, social media creative templates, and a branded dashboard for your affiliates as well.

Automation

PartnerPortal stands out with its impressive automation features from its many integrations to CRM systems and accounting software. On top of that, you can automate deal tracking, payments, and commission management easily within your sales pipeline. The QuickBooks integration also automates commission and payment reconciliation. Additionally, you can automate more workflows with the Zapier integration, though it’s only available on the highest tier.

Tapfiliate, on the other hand, gives you full automation potential with our Zapier integration no matter what tier you’re on. Plus, you can enable triggered emails and drip campaigns with the integration or through our REST API.

MLM:

Tapfiliate offers multi-level-marketing (MLM) features that enable brands to leverage their existing partner network to find other affiliates to market their products. These are known as sub-affiliates, and the process can streamline your recruitment process. You can then enable different MLM levels that give affiliates a unique recruitment link to bring your brand more leads for partnerships. The level dictates the commission they’re eligible to earn on any leads the sub-affiliates bring you as a brand.

Not only does our MLM feature bring you more potential exposure and sales, but it also engages your affiliates by rewarding them with even more commissions.

On the other hand, PartnerPortal doesn’t offer any MLM features for affiliates.

Support

PartnerPortal has a help center where you can look for answers to your queries, as well as a live chat function. Tapfiliate offers similar support features but goes further with a more extensive knowledge base with how-to articles and detailed guides, and a promise of 24/7 live chat availability not only on our website, but also on Facebook and Twitter.

Pricing

Tapfiliate’s pricing reflects the evolution of a successful affiliate program. Our basic plan is an affordable $89 and offers you unlimited affiliates, flexible commissions, and ample management features to streamline and grow your program. For a little more customization like product-specific commissions and custom domains, you can upgrade to our Pro plan at an (also) affordable $149 per month. And if you want custom verbiage, unlimited tracking requests, and total branding potential with white-labeling, we offer our Enterprise plan.

We also offer a 14-day free trial so you have plenty of time to get acquainted with our software.

PartnerPortal doesn’t offer a free trial, and their plans feel more expensive without as many clear affiliate management benefits. It does feel like primarily a lead generaiton software anyway, but the price point at $199 monthly with a cap on affiliate partners and missing integrations to Salesforce feels like it falls short.

FAQs about PartnerPortal

What’s PartnerPortal?

PartnerPortal is a partnership marketing software that focuses on lead tracking and generation for a wide roster of client industries.

What are the limitations of PartnerPortal?

PartnerPortal doesn’t offer unlimited affiliate partnerships on the platform, or the ability to have your affiliates recruit new affiliates via MLM. Additionally, the price point isn’t as accessible to newer businesses looking to launch their affiliate program. The free plan doesn’t include nearly enough partnerships to launch a program without having to upgrade if you reach 10 affiliate partners.

Who are PartnerPortal’s competitors?

1. Tapfiliate: An affordable and scalable affiliate software that prioritizes customization and affiliate engagement via performance bonuses, flexible commissions, white-labeling, and automated partner recruitment.
3. LinkMink: An affiliate management solution dedicated to SaaS affiliate programs with affiliate segments, automated monthly payouts, and direct linking.
5. Partnerstack: An affiliate marketing platform for B2B SaaS brands with branded assets, deals for resellers, and a publisher network.
7. OSI Affiliate: A referral marketing software that recruits customers as affiliates with marketing materials like customizable web popups, smart rewards, email templates, and banners.
9. Cake: A performance marketing software that serves brands in lead generation, multi-channel marketing, and affiliate marketing.

Want to take your affiliate program to the next level? Try Tapfiliate for a  👉 free 14-day trial