Rewardful vs Impact: Choosing the Right Partner Platform

Loyalty and referral marketing platforms empower brands to increase repeat business and acquire new customers through word-of-mouth recommendations. But with dozens of providers to choose from, selecting the right solution for your needs can be daunting.

This guide examines Rewardful and Impact head-to-head – two leading platforms for loyalty and referral programs. We’ll compare features, customization, ease of use, support, pricing, ideal use cases and customer reviews.

By understanding the pros and cons of Rewardful vs Impact in depth, you can determine which is better suited for your customer engagement and acquisition goals. Let’s dive in.

Rewardful Overview

Rewardful provides a white-labeled, customizable loyalty and referral marketing platform for brands. Key capabilities:

Loyalty Programs

• Flexible point systems
• Custom rewards catalogs
• Automatic enrollment
• Gamification through tiers and badges
• Rewards through incentives or discounts
• Integrations with POS, CRM, etc

Referral Programs

• Create shareable links
• Reward for signups and confirmed actions
• Facebook sharing capabilities
• Manage referral tiers
• Track referral metrics
• Deliver referral rewards

Why Rewardful

Rewardful makes it easy for brands to build automated loyalty and referral programs that keep customers engaged long-term and acquire new ones through word-of-mouth marketing.

Over 700 businesses use Rewardful to boost engagement and growth.

Impact Overview

Impact provides a customizable referral marketing platform focused on driving new customer acquisition through incentives. Main features:

Referral Programs

• Automated referral links
• Custom signup bonuses
• Reward referral milestones
• Facebook sharing integration
• Detailed referral analytics
• Reward delivery mechanisms

Additional Capabilities

• Segment users
• A/B test campaigns
• Email new user notifications
• Integrate with ecommerce platforms
• Partner portals to manage joint programs
• Localization

Why Impact

Impact enables businesses to tap into their current customers’ networks to rapidly grow through incentivized word-of-mouth referrals.

Over 1,500 brands leverage Impact’s acquisition-focused referral software.

Now that we’ve provided an introduction to Rewardful and Impact, let’s compare them across some of the key features for loyalty and referral programs.

Rewardful vs Impact Feature Comparison

While Rewardful and Impact share some functionality, Rewardful offers more robust loyalty capabilities while Impact specializes in streamlined referred customer acquisition.

As this comparison shows, Rewardful supports loyalty program capabilities like points and rewards catalogs in addition to referrals. Impact focuses squarely on maximizing referred signups.

Next let’s examine ease of use, customization, and support.

Rewardful vs Impact Ease of Use

Both Rewardful and Impact aim to provide intuitive interfaces so non-technical users can manage programs without extensive training.

Based on user reviews, Rewardful appears to have a slight edge in ease of use and simplicity for the average user. Their predefined templates require less expertise to launch basic programs faster.

Impact may involve more initial setup and customization before launching a referral program. But Impact still offers solid usability – just catering more to sophisticated marketers.

For quick rollout and management by general staff, Rewardful seems simpler out of the box. But both are viable without technical skills.

Rewardful vs Impact Customization

When it comes to tailoring programs to your brand, Rewardful and Impact both provide extensive customization including:

• Whitelabeling with your branding
• Customizing program rules and settings
• Configuring your own rewards catalogs
• Designing tailored email templates
• Tweaking rewards delivery integrations
• Building automated trigger-based workflows

Rewardful starts users off with predefined templates which allow faster setup. But Impact may enable deeper customization for more technically advanced users.

For most loyalty and referral program needs, both platforms provide sufficient tailoring and personalization without requiring engineering resources.

Rewardful vs Impact Support

In terms of customer support, Rewardful and Impact offer:

• Email and in-app messaging
• Detailed knowledge bases and documentation
• Onboarding assistance
• Technical support for integrating and troubleshooting
• Account management

Support satisfaction seems very similar across both platforms, with users praising attentiveness and expertise responding to issues.

Rewardful support may be slightly more suited to casual business users vs Impact catering better to technical marketing staff. But you can expect quality assistance from both.

Next let’s examine the mobile and analytics capabilities.

Rewardful vs Impact Mobile Apps

To allow users to engage on-the-go, mobile apps are key.

Rewardful

• iOS and Android apps
• View loyalty balances and rewards
• Browse rewards catalogs
• Refer friends from mobile
• Receive notifications

Impact

• iOS and Android apps
• Invite friends and share links
• Track referrals and payouts
• View program updates and notifications

While basic, the mobile experience is solid on both Rewardful and Impact covering the core user actions.

Rewardful vs Impact Analytics

To track program performance and ROI, in-depth analytics are crucial. Here is an overview of reporting:

Rewardful

• Charts showing key loyalty metrics
• Segment user demographics
• Track reward redemptions
• Measure customer engagement over time
• Export reports

Impact

• Charts for signups, referrals, redemptions
• ROI reporting
• Track referral funnels
• Segment users
• Export reports

Both platforms offer excellent analytics into the key metrics around participation, engagement, referrals, and ROI. Rewardful provides a more well-rounded view while Impact focuses specifically on measuring referral funnel performance. But you gain ample data with either.

Next let’s look at integrations.

Rewardful vs Impact Integrations

Expanding functionality through third-party integrations is important. Here are some of the key integration capabilities:

Rewardful

• CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot
• Email systems like Mailchimp, Drip
• Commerce platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify
• Slack, Segment, Zapier

Impact

• CRMs like Salesforce, Hubspot
• Email tools like Mailchimp, ConvertKit
• Shopify, Wix, WordPress
• Slack, Segment, Zapier

With both platforms, you can connect with all major marketing, sales, support and commerce stacks thanks to integrations like Zapier and Segment.

Rewardful vs Impact Pricing

Rewardful and Impact both offer free trial periods. Their entry-level paid plans start at:

As you can see, Rewardful offers significantly more affordable pricing for small businesses to get started. Impact costs over 2X more monthly for core features.

Both platforms offer enterprise quotes for large brands and customization. But Rewardful pricing remains more accessible for SMBs.

Ideal Users for Rewardful

Rewardful is an excellent fit for:

• Ecommerce brands wanting to increase repeat purchases
• Restaurants seeking to encourage loyalty among patrons
• Consumer apps needing sticky engagement from users
• Employers aiming to improve retention by incentivizing employees
• B2C companies that market to consumers and segmented demographics
• Brands without big budgets but seeking proven loyalty and referral techniques

With strong loyalty capabilities and affordable pricing, Rewardful suits consumer-facing organizations focused on driving measurable engagement and retention.

Ideal Users for Impact

Impact best suits:

• High-growth startups looking to cost-effectively scale users
• Digital companies with highly sharable products
• Businesses with referral incentives built into their model
• Apps seeking to viral growth through invites
• Sites with strong social sharing capabilities
• Brands looking specifically to track and optimize referral funnels
• Bigger budgets focused squarely on new customer acquisition

For startups and digital companies focused on explosive referrals and sharing for user acquisition, Impact hits the mark.

Rewardful vs Impact Customer Reviews

Rewardful Reviews

“We launched our customer loyalty program on Rewardful and have seen member enrollments increase over 15x in under a year.”

“Rewardful enabled us to easily set up a professionally branded loyalty program that improved member engagement and retention.”

“The biggest value by far is the ability to fully customize our multi-tiered loyalty rewards program in our brand image.”

Impact Reviews

“We doubled our monthly user sign ups within 3 months of launching a referral program using Impact.”

“The referral dashboard and analytics have been invaluable for understanding what incentivizes our customers to refer others.”

“Impact enabled us to drive viral growth at a critical time – incredibly flexible platform with robust analytics.”

Both platforms boast outstanding customer feedback and results. Rewardful helps maximize loyalty and Impact drives impressive referral volumes.

Rewardful vs Impact: Which is Ideal for You?

So which is better for your needs – Rewardful or Impact? Here are some key points:

• Rewardful supports loyalty programs in addition to referrals with more baked-in templates for faster setup.
• Impact focuses solely on maximizing customer referral volumes with more advanced configuration and customization.
• Rewardful likely suits smaller teams and budgets based on simpler interface and lower pricing.
• Impact enables meticulously tailoring referral program parameters but likely requires more expertise.
• If you just need basic referral tracking and lack bigger budgets, Rewardful is harder to beat on value.
• For advanced referral marketers and bigger brands, Impact provides robust enterprise-level capabilities.

For most small businesses, Rewardful should provide all the features necessary for successful loyalty and referral marketing at very reasonable prices. But Impact shines for large brands obsessed with maximizing and perfecting referral funnels.

Think critically about your budget, needs, objectives and team strengths to determine if Rewardful or Impact is a better match. Both platforms deliver results but through slightly different approaches.

Loyalty and Referral Program Alternatives

While Rewardful and Impact lead the market, here are some alternative referral program software options to consider:

• Referral SaaSquatch – Strong loyalty focus with referrals addon. From $199/mo.
• Viral Loops – Specializes in viral referral and waitlist capabilities. From $205/mo.
• Extole – Advanced segmentation and social advocacy tools. Enterprise quotes.
• Ambassador – Rewards user referrals and shares. From $65/mo.
• Friendbuy – Built-in calculators for tracking referral ROI. From $299/mo.
• Amplifinity – Loyalty and engagement platform tailored to retailers. Custom quotes.
• Referral Rock – Focuses solely on customer referrals. From $49/mo.

All leading platforms offer free trials to test drive. Comparing user experiences helps determine the ideal fit.

Key Things to Know About Rewardful and Impact

When evaluating Rewardful vs Impact, keep these key differences in mind:

• Rewardful supports loyalty programs in addition to referral marketing.
• Impact specializes solely in maximizing customer referral generation.
• Rewardful has slightly simpler interface and predefined templates.
• Impact enables more advanced customization possibilities.
• Rewardful starts at just $199/month with more budget-friendly pricing.
• Impact costs $499+ monthly but supports enterprise-scale programs.
• Rewardful better suits smaller brands focused on overall engagement.
• Impact made for growing pureplay digital companies obsessed with accelerating referrals.

The “superior” platform depends entirely on your specific objectives, budget, and needs. But compare these factors closely to make the right decision.

The Bottom Line

Both Rewardful and Impact enable you to drive measurable business results through loyalty programs and referrals. But they take slightly different approaches:

• Rewardful provides combined loyalty and referral features with more starter templates for faster setup.
• Impact focuses squarely on maximizing customer referral rates through advanced configuration.
• Rewardful starts at just $199 monthly, significantly more budget-friendly.
• Impact costs $499+ monthly but supports large-scale enterprise programs.
• Rewardful likely better suits SMBs wanting basic loyalty and referral tracking.
• Impact made for large high-growth brands fixated on optimizing referral funnels specifically.

Carefully consider your budget, maturity level, needs and goals. But either platform can be extremely effective. Just ensure you select the solution tailored most closely to your specific objectives.