How to Use Rewardful to Track Creator Sales With Promo Codes

The short answer: if your creators sell on podcasts, YouTube or TikTok and your checkout runs on Stripe, Rewardful's $49 Starter plan can credit them by promo code alone, with no tracking script on your site, until their sales pass $7,500 a month in attributed revenue (checked on 26 October 2026 on the pricing page). The steps: connect Stripe, build one campaign with a capped commission, choose the promo-code integration, create the campaign coupon with unique codes for new customers only, invite the creators, review the first redemptions, and pay on the 1st.

Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.

A creator says a code out loud; nobody types a link from a podcast. Rewardful matches the customer to the creator when the code is redeemed in Stripe, so there is no cookie to lose and no website visit to record, per its promo code article. What the product is and costs overall sits in the Rewardful glossary entry.

Do the arithmetic before the first code exists:

1. What one customer pays a creator. Percentage commissions are computed on the net amount after the discount, per the promo code article. For example, on a $100 monthly plan with a 20% creator discount and a 30% commission, the customer pays $80 and the creator earns 0.3 x $80 = $24 a month; capped at 12 months, that is 12 x $24 = $288 per customer.
2. The codes you already handed out. A creator who already has a code in Stripe can keep it: once the campaign has its coupon, the API assigns an existing code to an affiliate, but the token must match the Stripe code exactly or sales are not tracked, per the affiliate coupon reference.
3. A baseline to beat. Count last quarter's new paying customers who used any discount code. Creator codes should add to that number, not take over sales your existing codes already won.

What you need

• Admin access to the Stripe account. Rewardful's changes in Stripe are limited to tracking metadata and the coupons and promo codes this setup creates; it cannot move money, refund customers or edit prices, per its Stripe permissions article.
• Your refund window in days, because commissions should not fall due before a refund can still arrive.
• A Rewardful account. Every plan starts with a 14-day trial, per the pricing page.

Step 1: Connect Stripe

After sign-up, the first screen is Connect your Stripe account. Click Connect with Stripe, grant access, and you return to Rewardful to set up the campaign. Rewardful cannot work without it: it creates commissions by watching for paid invoices in Stripe, as the connection article explains.

Step 2: Build one campaign for creators

Name it, add your website URL and choose the reward: a percentage or a fixed amount. Commissions recur until the customer cancels unless you limit them, so set a maximum commission period, for example 12 months, in the campaign settings. Set Days before commissions become due to match your refund policy, which the same guide recommends, and add a minimum payout threshold if small balances are not worth a transfer. Starter allows one campaign, so this one carries the whole creator program until you move to Growth.

Step 3: Choose the promo-code integration

When onboarding offers ways to add Rewardful to your site, pick Stripe Promo Codes. It skips the tracking script entirely, per the promo code article. The trade-off is stated plainly there: link tracking does not work without the script. If some creators also publish show notes with links, choose another integration, install the script, and add codes on top.

Step 4: Create the campaign coupon

Open the campaign's Edit form, go to Advanced settings and click Enable affiliate discounts under Affiliate Discounts and Promo codes. Three screens follow:

• Discount terms: the coupon name as it will appear in Stripe, the rate, the duration (once, repeating or forever) and whether it is a percentage or a fixed amount.
• Application method: switch on Via promo codes, tick Generate unique promo codes for every affiliate when they join the campaign, and tick Limit promo codes to new customers only.
• Review: click Enable affiliate discounts.

Read the review screen twice. Once saved, promo codes cannot be disabled; removing the coupon from the campaign is the only way back, and it deactivates the current codes.

Step 5: Invite the creators

Each creator who joins receives a unique code built on the campaign coupon, and can keep it or generate a custom one in their dashboard. On Starter the campaign has a public signup form; invite-only campaigns are a Growth feature, per the plan comparison. Decide whether creators may see customer names: email addresses are never shown, and with names off they see an ID instead, according to the campaign settings guide.

Step 6: Review the first redemptions

When Rewardful identifies a possible self-referral, it emails you and marks the referral for review. Click Looks good if it is legitimate, or Looks suspicious to deactivate the referral, per the self-referral article. Also expect one rule to surprise a creator: attribution is first come, first served, so a customer first attributed to affiliate A keeps paying A even after using affiliate B's code later.

Step 7: Pay on the first of the month

Rewardful emails you on the 1st when commissions are due. Under Payments, the Payouts tab lists Due, Pending and Paid; select the due payouts, download the file formatted for PayPal or Wise, pay there, then click Mark Paid, as the commission payment article sets out. PayPal may ask you to phone them before mass payments are enabled. If you would rather send one payment, Managed Payouts does the distribution for a 3% processing fee on payouts, per the pricing FAQ.

An agent step: draft the creator brief

Rewardful publishes a free Claude skill trained on its playbooks, templates and program data, which writes recruitment emails and answers commission questions, per the skill page. Ask it for a one-page creator brief: the code format, the discount, the commission, the 12-month cap and the new-customers-only rule. A person then checks every figure in the draft against the live campaign before it reaches a creator. The skill does not read your account; the same page sends account-specific questions to Rewardful support.

What Rewardful's help centre warns about

• Two coupon mechanisms in one campaign. Stripe applies a single coupon per customer, so a campaign uses promo codes or double-sided incentives, not both, per the promo code article.
• Expecting the list price to be the base. Commissions exclude taxes, refunds and discounts, per the same article, so a deeper creator discount also cuts the creator's earnings.

When the codes start selling

Rewardful's plans follow the revenue its tracking credits, and its pricing schedule moves you up in the next billing cycle once you exceed a tier: after the first month in which creator codes pass $7,500 of attributed revenue, the invoice that follows is $99 for Growth instead of $49 for Starter (checked on 26 October 2026).

That makes the free check worth doing first. Coupon attribution credits a creator for every redemption, including customers who would have bought anyway and found the code on their own. Compare new paying customers in the two weeks after each episode with the two weeks before, against the baseline from the list above. Later, if you want that before-and-after run for every creator without a spreadsheet, a causal attribution product like Causality Engine measures it, and I founded it, so treat this sentence as a disclosure.

FAQ

Do I need the tracking script for promo codes?

No. The Stripe Promo Codes integration attributes customers when they redeem a code, without a script or even a website, per the promo code article. You need the script only if creators also share links.

Can a creator choose their own code?

Yes. Rewardful generates a unique code for each affiliate who joins the campaign, and affiliates can create their own custom codes instead, according to the same article.

Can I turn promo codes off later?

Not directly. Once enabled and saved, they stay on; removing the campaign coupon deactivates current codes, stops new ones and also switches off any double-sided incentives on that campaign.