Dub.co vs. PartnerStack: Which Partner Platform Is Better in 2026?

Partner programs are a strategic lever for SaaS companies that want to expand reach without sinking all their budget into paid ads. They turn creators, affiliates, agencies, and resellers into revenue-driving channels.

Two tools often considered in this space are Dub.co (specifically via its Dub Partners module) and PartnerStack. At first glance, both promise to help you manage affiliate and referral programs, automate payouts, and grow partner revenue. But when you look closer, the differences in scope, focus, and ease of scaling become clearer.

In this article, we’ll break down what these platforms are, what they offer, and which one might fit your needs best — with a slight lean toward Dub.co, not out of bias, but because of how it approaches the problem in practice.

What Is Dub.co?

Dub.co is a modern link attribution and partner management platform built around the premise that marketing should be about outcomes, not just vanity metrics.

It starts with links — short, trackable, scalable links — and turns those signals into real insights across clicks, leads, and conversions. Dub then layers affiliate and partner program management on top, through Dub Partners, which lives inside the broader Dub ecosystem.

Dub Partners helps you create and reward affiliate, referral, and partner channels, with features like real-time attribution, flexible reward structures, automated payouts, and analytics that tie back to revenue events.

Rather than treating affiliate tracking as an afterthought, Dub.co centers the program around attribution data that actually drives decisions.

What Is PartnerStack?

PartnerStack is a partner ecosystem management platform originally built with B2B SaaS companies in mind. Its goal is to help businesses launch, manage, and scale partnerships — including affiliate, referral, reseller, co-sell, and other partner models — in a unified environment.

Where Dub.co puts attribution and link-level outcomes first, PartnerStack places emphasis on broader partner program orchestration: recruiting partners, onboarding, automating payouts, and tracking engagement across multiple partnership types.

It’s positioned more like a partner relationship management (PRM) tool with affiliate and incentive primitives built in, rather than a link-first analytics platform.

Feature Comparison

Both platforms address partner and affiliate management, but they do so from slightly different angles.

Attribution & Tracking

• Dub.co: Built around links and real-time attribution across clicks, leads, and revenue events. It avoids fragmented data by centralizing analytics and tying every conversion back to a unique link.
• PartnerStack: Offers first-party tracking by setting cookies and synchronizing revenue data with your CRM and billing platforms. It provides a full-funnel view but can be impacted by cookie limitations unless advanced tracking setups are used.

The practical difference shows up once you scale: Dub’s link-first model makes it easier to answer not just who generated revenue, but how — which content, channel, or sequence drove the outcome.

Partner Management & Onboarding

• Dub.co: Partner onboarding is streamlined and integrated into the platform with minimal setup. It doesn’t require affiliates to manage separate credentials across programs.
• PartnerStack: Provides robust partner onboarding, segmentation, and engagement tools — including program-specific training and content delivery — that suit multi-channel partnership initiatives across resellers, affiliates, and co-sell partners.

If your goal is a multi-layered strategy involving different partner types with structured training and lifecycle stages, PartnerStack’s breadth here shines. For many SaaS teams starting with affiliate/referral programs, Dub’s simpler setup is often enough.

Payouts & Compliance

• PartnerStack automates partner payouts and integrates with global payment rails, handling compliance and commission scheduling as part of its core workflow.
• Dub.co’s payout system — particularly via Stripe Express and PayPal — is similarly automated and doesn’t require CSV exports or manual reconciliation. 

The key difference is that Dub’s payout experience is designed to be simpler and less error-prone, especially for high-frequency payouts, whereas PartnerStack’s payout schedule revolves around a monthly invoice cycle and may feel more “enterprise process” in nature.

Analytics & Insights

• PartnerStack: Offers tracking across partner activity, revenue, and lifecycle stages, with reporting that reflects different partnership types and their contribution to your pipeline.
• Dub.co: Its analytics are tightly connected to attribution data from link click through revenue events. Dub’s real-time events stream and filtering by partner, geography, and device give teams a more granular view of what happens when — not just what the totals looked like at month’s end.

In practice, Dub’s analytics tend to feel more operational — they guide action and optimization — while PartnerStack’s reporting leans toward program-level visibility and health rather than deep attribution troubleshooting.

Partner Network & Discovery

• One of PartnerStack’s distinguishing features is its partner marketplace, which connects brands with thousands of SaaS-ready partner profiles. This gives teams a ready-made audience of potential partners to recruit and activate.
• Dub.co doesn’t provide a built-in partner marketplace, but its simpler onboarding and link-based attribution make it easier to recruit and manage partners on your own.

For organizations that want partner discovery + recruiting tools baked into the platform, PartnerStack has an edge here.

Pricing and Commitment

• PartnerStack does not publish flat plans. Pricing is typically custom and tailored to your partnership scale, the number and type of channels you want to run, and the complexity of your programs. This makes sense for enterprise-level partner ecosystems, but it can obscure comparison for smaller SaaS firms.
• Dub.co uses a more transparent usage-based pricing model depending on click volume, link creation quotas, and analytics retention — with clear tiers starting at $25 per month.

Support and Ease of Use

Both platforms are regarded as usable tools, but they serve slightly different audiences:

• PartnerStack’s interface is polished and robust, albeit non-modern, with workflows built for program managers handling multiple partner types.
• Dub.co’s UI and controls feel more direct and nimble, especially for teams focused on affiliate/referral link performance and attribution.

Setup friction is generally higher with PartnerStack because of its breadth and outdated UI — Dub.co tends to be faster to launch and iterate without as much configuration overhead.

The Bottom Line

PartnerStack is a strong choice when your partnership strategy goes beyond affiliate links and into multi-channel ecosystems that include resellers, co-sell partners, and full lifecycle engagement. Its marketplace and program infrastructure reflect that ambition.

Dub.co, through its Dub Partners module, excels when your priority is clear attribution, flexible rewards, and automated operations without enterprise overhead. If your focus begins — and stays — with referral and affiliate revenue tied to real outcomes, Dub’s simplicity, transparent pricing, and analytics-first approach make it an excellent option.

For many SaaS teams, the decision isn’t “which is objectively better.” It’s about fit. But if your growth motion leans heavily on attribution clarity, automation, and ease of use, it’s worth giving Dub.co first consideration — and building your affiliate strategies around tools that help you understand not just that revenue happened, but why it did.