Social Snowball
Social Snowball vs UpPromote: which affiliate app fits your store?
Pick Social Snowball if turning your own buyers into affiliates is the plan. It starts at $249 a month. Pick UpPromote for a free plan, a marketplace listing or a paid creator search. Either way, you must still find people and get them to apply. Social Snowball and UpPromote are third-party affiliate apps on the Shopify App Store. An affiliate is anyone who sends you buyers for a cut of each sale. That cut is the commission.
Social Snowball and UpPromote side by side
| Social Snowball | UpPromote | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | None listed | Yes. It covers up to $3,000 of referral sales a month (App Store listing) |
| Paid plans | Snow Day $249 a month, Blizzard from $899 (App Store listing) | Growth $29.99, Professional $89.99, Enterprise $199.99 a month (UpPromote pricing) |
| Fee on sales | 3% of affiliate revenue on Snow Day | 2%, 1.5% or 1% of referral sales on paid plans (UpPromote pricing) |
| Free trial | Not on its listing. A 2021 help article mentions 14 days. Check at sign-up | 14 days on paid plans (UpPromote pricing) |
| Customers into affiliates | Core feature, automatic after purchase | Customer referral and refer-a-friend on Growth and above (UpPromote docs) |
| Marketplace | Not described on its listing | Listing from Growth (UpPromote docs) |
| Search for creators | Creator Search and Outreach on Blizzard, for Instagram and Facebook creators verified by Meta | Creator Discovery add-on, from $39 a month (UpPromote docs) |
| App Store rating | 4.6 from 211 reviews (listing) | 4.9 from 3,904 reviews (listing) |
Every fact comes from each app's own pages, read on 23 October 2026. Links are at the foot of the page.
How much do Social Snowball and UpPromote cost?
Social Snowball's Snow Day plan is $249 a month plus 3% of affiliate revenue (Shopify App Store, checked 23 October 2026). UpPromote's Growth plan is $29.99 a month, or $24.99 billed yearly, plus 2% of successful referral sales. The fee drops to 1.5% on Professional and 1% on Enterprise (UpPromote pricing).
Under $3,000 of referral sales a month, UpPromote's free plan applies (Shopify App Store). The fees below use different bases: affiliate revenue for Social Snowball, referral sales for UpPromote. Let's say affiliates bring you $5,000 of sales in a month. Snow Day is $249 plus $150, about $399. UpPromote Growth is $29.99 plus $100, about $130. At $20,000 a month, Snow Day would be about $849. UpPromote Growth would be about $430, and Professional about $390. UpPromote's creator search is a $39 add-on on top.
The two prices buy different things. Its listing shows Snow Day with unlimited affiliates, influencer management and post-purchase referrals (Shopify App Store). Match plans to what you need, not to the lowest number.
How do they help you find affiliates?
Social Snowball leads with customers. Its help center says every new customer gets an affiliate account after they buy, with a tracking link or discount code (Social Snowball help center, checked 23 October 2026). It also gives you a sign-up form to embed. Creator Search and Outreach, on Blizzard, searches "2M+ META-verified creators" and sends them email sequences (Social Snowball help center).
UpPromote lists six ways in, from a free registration link to a paid creator search (UpPromote docs). Its marketplace is "just one way to find affiliates", in its own words (UpPromote docs). Creator Discovery costs $39 a month for 35 profile views per billing cycle, or $79 for 75 (UpPromote docs).
In the docs we read on 23 October 2026, neither describes emailing the blogs and sites that promote your rivals. Our guide on finding affiliates beyond your customers covers that step.
What do reviewers say?
These are single opinions. One Social Snowball reviewer wrote "the program cost us more than it brought in" (Shopify App Store review, 7 September 2026). Another wrote "Support was very helpful in resolving the issue" (Shopify App Store review, 27 August 2026). An UpPromote reviewer wrote "I'm getting scam and trash affiliates" (Shopify App Store review, 14 September 2026). UpPromote's listing is rated 4.9 and Social Snowball's 4.6. The two counts differ by nearly 19 times (211 against 3,904), so test each on your own store.
Which one to pick
- Your buyers love you and share. Social Snowball is built around that. UpPromote lists customer referral from Growth too.
- You want to start cheaply. UpPromote's free plan costs nothing until you outgrow it.
- You want a marketplace listing. UpPromote lists one from Growth.
- You mainly work with Instagram creators. Social Snowball's Blizzard search covers Meta creators. UpPromote's Creator Discovery is a paid creator search (UpPromote docs).
- You need people beyond buyers and creators. Neither does that on its own, going by the docs we read. Add a way to find them, and send your sign-up link.
Where RecruitAffiliates.ai fits
It works alongside whichever app you pick, with no integration. RecruitAffiliates.ai starts from your website and your rivals. It finds sites, blogs, newsletters, podcasts, YouTube channels and creators who appear to promote or write about shops like yours. It looks for an email address for each person (what each result means) and sends the outreach from your inbox. Each email carries your own sign-up link. It doesn't track sales or pay commission. See our pricing, or the UpPromote guides and Social Snowball alternatives, or start at the Social Snowball guides.
What did our scan find?
Neither app's pages that we read describe emailing the sites that promote your rivals. Here is what that step finds. The scan isn't about either app's users. Don't read it as a test of them.
We ran this · 22 October 2026
A first scan showed a median of 92 people per brand
- Median 92 people shown per brand, from 35 to 188.
- 64% had a review, roundup or comparison page as their best evidence.
- 916 of 2,924 (31%) had an email address on record, found but not checked.
A first search for a brand, 22 Oct 2026, 30 public Shopify brands in all. It stopped at finding addresses and ran no email checks, which the product runs when a campaign starts (what each result means). In a 30-row check, 9 were not promoters (likely 17% to 48%). Full method and limits.
Questions people ask
Is Social Snowball better than UpPromote?
Neither is better for everyone. Social Snowball is built around turning buyers into affiliates and costs more. UpPromote has a free plan and a marketplace. Pick by the job.
Does UpPromote have a free plan and Social Snowball does not?
Going by their pages on 23 October 2026, yes. UpPromote lists a free plan. Social Snowball's listing shows two paid plans and no free one.
Can I move from one to the other?
Both are Shopify apps. Neither app's pages that we read say what happens to your affiliate list after uninstall. One Social Snowball reviewer wrote that their data was deleted soon after (Shopify App Store review, 7 September 2026). That is one opinion. Ask each app before you move, and export what you can first.
Is RecruitAffiliates.ai a Social Snowball or UpPromote app?
No. It is a web app that works alongside your affiliate app. It finds people and emails them your own sign-up link. It has no integration with either.
Sources
All checked on 23 October 2026, apart from the review dates shown.
- Shopify App Store, Social Snowball, plans, features, 4.6 from 211 reviews.
- Shopify App Store, Social Snowball reviews, the quoted review and data comment.
- Social Snowball help center, turning customers into affiliates, how it works.
- Social Snowball help center, Creator Search and Automated Outreach, Meta creators.
- Social Snowball help center, is it right for me, 2021 trial mention.
- UpPromote, pricing, plans, fees, 14-day trial.
- UpPromote docs, how to recruit affiliates, six ways in.
- UpPromote docs, marketplace listing, "just one way".
- UpPromote docs, pricing details, Creator Discovery tiers.
- Shopify App Store, UpPromote, free plan cap, 4.9 from 3,904 reviews.
- Shopify App Store, UpPromote reviews, the quoted review.