7 Best WooCommerce Refer a Friend & Referral Plugins (2026)

A WooCommerce refer a friend plugin (also called a referral plugin) lets your existing customers earn rewards like discounts, store credit, points, or cash for bringing you new customers. WooCommerce has no referral system built in, so a plugin is the only practical way to run one.

We compared seven options for this guide. The short version:

• Coupon-Affiliates: best for referral programs with cash or store credit rewards, and programs that may grow into full affiliate marketing.
• Einfache Punkte und Belohnungen: best for points-based refer a friend and loyalty rewards. Our pick for the loyalty category.
• Refer a Friend for WooCommerce (WPGens): best for a basic program, including for guest customers.
• WPLoyalty: best for large loyalty programs that need conditional campaign rules and paid add-ons.
• ReferralCandy: best for stores that want a hosted platform with automated referral emails.
• Referral System for WooCommerce (Codup): best for a budget option on the official WooCommerce Marketplace.
• Refer a Friend for WooCommerce (Addify): best for a basic email and code-based referral setup.

Transparency note: the first two plugins on this list, Coupon-Affiliates und Einfache Punkte und Belohnungen, are our own products (both built by RelyWP). We think they are the best tools for the jobs described below, but we are obviously biased, so we have given every plugin here a real downside, including ours, and verified every price against the live pricing pages.

How we compared these referral plugins

We looked at five things: how referrals are tracked (links, coupon codes, or both), what rewards you can offer (coupons, points, store credit, or cash), whether the free version is usable or just a demo, total cost including any commission fees, and how well each plugin handles fraud. Pricing was checked against each developer’s live pricing page in July 2026, since several have changed their rates in the past year.

At a glance: the best WooCommerce referral plugins compared

Last updated: July 2026. Prices are the entry-level paid option for a single site.

One thing to clear up before the reviews, because it trips a lot of people up: a referral program rewards your existing customers for recommending you to friends, while an affiliate program pays external partners (bloggers, influencers, publishers) a commission for driving sales. The mechanics overlap heavily, and some plugins here handle both, but if what you actually want is to work with professional promoters, our roundup of the best WooCommerce affiliate plugins is the better place to start.

1. Coupon Affiliates

Plugin-Entwickler: RelyWP

Coupon-Affiliates runs referral programs where each participant gets their own coupon code, referral link, and QR code. When a friend uses any of them, the sale is tracked and the referrer earns a reward: a percentage of the order, a fixed amount, or store credit. Because tracking runs through coupon codes rather than cookies alone, referrals still get credited when someone hears a code on a podcast, sees it on Instagram, or types it in weeks after clicking nothing at all.

Participants get their own dashboard showing referrals, rewards earned, and payout history, and they can request payouts once they hit a threshold you set. On the admin side you get Berichte, one-click PayPal and Stripe payouts, automated email notifications, Anmeldeformulare with auto-approval if you want a hands-off program, and fraud prevention tools. It is trusted by 7,000+ businesses and rated 4.9 out of 5 on WordPress.org.

The other reason stores pick it for refer a friend programs specifically: room to grow. A referral program that works often turns into something bigger, and the same plugin handles influencer partnerships and a full affiliate program without migrating your data to a new tool. You can read more about how the coupon-based model works in our guide to the benefits of coupon-based referral programs.

Best for: referral programs that reward cash or store credit, and stores that may later expand into influencer or affiliate marketing.

Pros:

• Referrals tracked via coupon codes, links, and QR codes, so credit is not lost to blocked cookies.
• Reward options include percentage commission, fixed amounts, and store credit, with custom rates per participant, product, or group.
• One-click payouts via PayPal, Stripe, or store credit, plus scheduled automatic payouts.
• Usable free version, and UK-based support for free and PRO users alike.

Cons:

• The coupon-centered model takes a little adjustment if you were expecting a pure link-only setup.
• No points system. If you want customers earning points rather than money, Simple Points and Rewards below is the better fit.

Preisgestaltung: free version on WordPress.org. PRO starts at $19.99 per month with a 7-day free trial and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

2. Simple Points and Rewards

Plugin-Entwickler: RelyWP

Einfache Punkte und Belohnungen is our points-based loyalty plugin, and it includes a complete refer a friend system. Customers get a referral link and an optional gift coupon to share. When a referred friend makes a purchase, the referrer earns points, and the friend can receive a gift discount on their order, shown in a floating “gift widget” when they land on your site through the referral link. That double-sided setup (referrer gets points, friend gets a discount) is the classic refer a friend structure, and here it comes bundled with the rest of a loyalty program.

Beyond referrals, customers can earn points for signups, orders, spending, reviews, birthdays, social shares, and daily logins, then redeem them for vouchers, free products, or discounts at checkout. Referral activity is tracked on the same rewards dashboard as everything else, so customers have one place to see their points, their referral link, and what their referrals have earned them.

If you are weighing it against WPLoyalty further down this list for the loyalty-plus-referrals job, the practical differences are these: Simple Points and Rewards is quicker to set up because there is no campaign builder to configure, referrals are included in every version with no paid add-ons, and the $12.99 monthly plan is a smaller commitment than an annual license. WPLoyalty earns its place when you need conditional campaign logic at scale; for everyone else, that machinery is setup time you do not get back.

Best for: stores that want a refer a friend program built on points and loyalty rather than cash payouts. Our pick for the loyalty category.

Pros:

• Double-sided referrals: points for the referrer, an optional gift coupon for the friend.
• The gift widget shows referred visitors their discount as soon as they arrive, which helps convert that first order.
• Referrals sit inside a wider loyalty system with levels, badges, and many ways to earn, so one plugin covers both jobs with nothing to buy separately.
• Rated 5 out of 5 on WordPress.org, with a usable free version.

Cons:

• A newer plugin with a smaller install base than the others on this list (350+ active installs at the time of writing).
• Rewards are points, vouchers, and products, not cash. If your referrers expect money, use something like Coupon Affiliates instead.

Preisgestaltung: free version available. PRO starts at $12.99 per month or $99.99 per year, with a 7-day free trial and a 14-day money-back guarantee. A lifetime license is $349.99.

3. Refer a Friend for WooCommerce (WPGens)

Plugin-Entwickler: WPGens

Refer a Friend for WooCommerce by WPGens has been around for over a decade and does one thing: customers share a referral link or code, and when a friend buys, the referrer gets a discount coupon. No cash, no points, just coupons, which keeps the whole program simple to explain and cheap to run since rewards are discounts on your own products.

A few details stand out. Guests can have referral links as well as registered customers, something most plugins here do not offer. It supports WooCommerce Subscriptions, so referrers can earn a discounted or free renewal. And the fraud prevention is thorough for the price, checking IP, email, shipping address, and phone number against past orders to block self-referrals. The free version rewards the referrer only; rewarding the friend as well requires the premium version.

Best for: a straightforward basic refer a friend program without any fancy features, especially if you want guest customers included.

Pros:

• Guests can generate referral links without creating an account.
• Fraud checks on IP, email, shipping address, and phone number.
• WooCommerce Subscriptions support with rewards applied to renewals.
• Lightweight, with referral data stored in its own database table.

Cons:

• Coupon rewards only. There is no way to pay referrers cash or store credit, and no points option without pairing it with a separate points plugin.
• The free version is one-sided (referrer only), so the double-sided setup most stores want means paying.

Preisgestaltung: free version available. Premium is $59 per year for one site, or $139 for a lifetime license, with a 14-day money-back guarantee.

4. WPLoyalty

Plugin-Entwickler: WPLoyalty

WPLoyalty is a loyalty platform first and a referral plugin second, and it sits at the heavyweight end of that category. Customers earn points or rewards for purchases, signups, reviews, birthdays, social shares, and referrals, and referral campaigns can reward both the advocate and the friend with points, discounts, free shipping, or free products.

Its campaign builder is the reason to choose it: conditional campaigns by user role, product category, currency, and order properties, plus VIP levels and point expiry with reminder emails. That depth is built for larger programs with segmented customer bases. If your loyalty plans are simpler than that, the same depth becomes overhead, since even a single referral campaign runs through the full campaign system, and features like guest referrals sit behind the separate Guest Referral premium add-on on top of the $105 license.

Best for: larger stores that need conditional campaign rules and segmentation, and are prepared to pay for add-ons as the program grows.

Pros:

• Referral rewards can be points, discounts, free shipping, or free products, for both sides.
• Conditional campaign rules and VIP tiers for more targeted programs.
• Free Lite version on WordPress.org to test with.

Cons:

• Guest referrals cost extra as a premium add-on on top of the license.
• It is a lot of plugin if referrals are all you want. Setup involves the whole campaign system even for a single referral program, where Simple Points and Rewards above covers the same points-plus-referrals job with far less configuration.

Preisgestaltung: free Lite version available. Paid plans start at $105 per year for one site, with a 14-day money-back guarantee.

5. ReferralCandy

Developer: ReferralCandy (hosted platform)

ReferralCandy is different from everything else here: it is a hosted SaaS platform that connects to WooCommerce rather than a plugin that lives on your site. That brings polish you will not find in most plugins, including templated referral landing pages, automated invitation emails to past customers, post-purchase popups, and integrations with Klaviyo and Mailchimp. It also works across Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento, and is used by large consumer brands.

The cost structure is the thing to understand before signing up. Every plan charges a monthly base fee plus a “success fee” on referred sales: the Basic plan is $39 per month plus 10.5% of referral revenue, and the Grow plan is $79 per month plus 3.5%. The fee applies to the first three orders from each referred customer. For a program doing real volume, that percentage usually dwarfs the base fee, so model your expected referral revenue before choosing it over a flat-fee plugin.

Best for: stores that want a polished, hands-off referral platform with email automation, and are comfortable paying a share of referral revenue for it.

Pros:

• Automated referral invitations, landing pages, and popups with minimal setup.
• Multi-platform, so it travels with you if you ever move off WooCommerce.
• Long ecommerce brand track record and email tool integrations.

Cons:

• The success fee scales with your success: at $10,000 per month in referred sales, the Basic plan costs over $1,000 per month in total.
• No free plan, only a 7-day trial, and your program data lives on their platform rather than your own site.

Preisgestaltung: from $39 per month plus a 10.5% success fee on referred sales (Grow plan: $79 per month plus 3.5%). 7-day free trial, no free plan.

6. Referral System for WooCommerce (Codup)

Plugin-Entwickler: Codup

Sold on the official WooCommerce Marketplace, Empfehlungssystem für WooCommerce covers the fundamentals at a low price. Customers share referral links, and you can reward both the referrer and the referred friend either when the friend signs up or when they place orders, with fixed or percentage discount coupons. If you run the official WooCommerce Points and Rewards extension, it can hand out loyalty points as referral rewards instead.

At $49 per year with a 30-day money-back guarantee through the marketplace, it is the cheapest paid-only option here. The trade-off is depth: no QR codes, no payout system, limited fraud tooling, and a smaller feature set generally. For a store that just wants “share a link, both sides get a coupon,” that may be all that is needed.

Best for: budget-conscious stores that want a basic link-based referral program from the official marketplace.

Pros:

• Rewards on signup or on orders, for referrer, referee, or both.
• Integrates with the WooCommerce Points and Rewards extension for point rewards.
• Cheap, with the marketplace’s 30-day money-back guarantee.

Cons:

• No free version to try before buying.
• Light on extras: fraud prevention, analytics, and reward types are all more basic than the plugins above.

Preisgestaltung: $49 per year (premium only) with a 30-day money-back guarantee via the WooCommerce Marketplace.

7. Refer a Friend for WooCommerce (Addify)

Plugin-Entwickler: Addify

Not to be confused with the WPGens plugin of the same name, Addify’s Refer a Friend for WooCommerce is another WooCommerce Marketplace extension that runs an email and code-based referral program. Existing customers share a referral code or link; new customers enter the code at registration, and discount coupons are generated for the referrer, the friend, or both, triggered either by the signup itself or by the friend’s first completed order.

Its useful wrinkle is restriction control: you can limit referral discounts by user role, include or exclude product categories, cap the maximum discount, and set minimum cart amounts, which makes it easy to keep the program away from low-margin products. Like the Codup option, it is basic beyond that, and with 100+ active installs it has a small user base.

Best for: simple referral-code programs where you need tight control over which products and user roles qualify.

Pros:

• Rewards can trigger on signup, first order, or both.
• Category, user role, and cart-amount restrictions on referral discounts.
• Referral code field built into the registration form.

Cons:

• No free version, and a small install base with few public reviews so far.
• Coupon rewards only, with no dashboard for customers beyond the My Account section.

Preisgestaltung: $49 per year (premium only) with a 30-day money-back guarantee via the WooCommerce Marketplace.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best WooCommerce refer a friend plugin?

It depends on the reward you want to offer. For cash or store credit rewards, Coupon Affiliates is the most complete option (with the disclosure that it is our plugin). For points-based rewards inside a loyalty program, Simple Points and Rewards is our pick, also ours, with WPLoyalty as the alternative for large programs that need conditional campaign rules. For plain coupon rewards on a budget, WPGens’ Refer a Friend is the established pick.

What is the best WooCommerce loyalty plugin with a built-in referral program?

Simple Points and Rewards is our pick, with the usual disclosure that we built it. It includes a double-sided refer a friend system (points for the referrer, a gift coupon for the friend) in every version with no add-ons to buy, and setup is a matter of minutes rather than campaign configuration. WPLoyalty is the alternative for larger stores that need conditional campaigns, segmentation, and VIP tiers, at $105 per year plus paid add-ons for features like guest referrals.

What is the difference between a referral program and an affiliate program?

A referral (or refer a friend) program rewards your existing customers for recommending your store to people they know, usually with discounts, points, or store credit. An affiliate program pays external partners, such as bloggers and influencers, a cash commission for driving sales to an audience of strangers. Referral programs tend to produce fewer but higher-trust customers; affiliate programs scale further. Some plugins, including Coupon Affiliates, can run both from one system. If the affiliate side is what you need, see our WooCommerce affiliate plugin comparison.

Is there a free WooCommerce referral plugin?

Yes. Coupon Affiliates, Simple Points and Rewards, WPGens’ Refer a Friend, and WPLoyalty Lite all have free versions on WordPress.org that can run a working referral program. The free tiers are one-sided or feature-limited in various ways, but they are real programs, not demos, so you can validate that referrals work for your store before paying.

Should referral rewards be discounts, points, or cash?

Discounts and points cost you less, since the reward is margin on your own products and it pulls the referrer back to buy again. Cash is the bigger motivator and suits higher-value purchases, but it is a direct cost and needs payout handling. Many stores start with discounts or points and add cash rewards later for their most active referrers.

Do refer a friend programs work for guest customers?

Only with some plugins. WPGens’ Refer a Friend supports guest referral links out of the box, and WPLoyalty offers guest referrals through a paid add-on. Most other plugins require the referrer to have an account, which is usually fine since your best referrers are repeat customers anyway.

Which WooCommerce referral plugin should you pick?

Match the plugin to the reward structure you want. Coupon rewards on a budget point to WPGens or the two marketplace extensions. A loyalty program with referrals inside it points to Simple Points and Rewards, or WPLoyalty if you need its heavier campaign machinery. A hosted platform with automated emails points to ReferralCandy, as long as the success fee math works for your volume.

Our own recommendation is the one you would expect from us, so weigh it accordingly: Coupon Affiliates for referral programs with real money involved, and Simple Points and Rewards for points-based ones. Both are our products and the only two on this list we know from the inside. What we can say without bias is that every option above has a free version, trial, or money-back guarantee, so whichever direction fits your store, you can test it before committing. And once your program is live, our guide to Rekrutierung von Teilnehmern covers how to get those first referrers sharing.

Priyanka Okidi

Priyanka ist Autorin für WordPress- und eCommerce-Unternehmen. Sie liebt es, komplexe Ideen in einfache Konzepte zu zerlegen.