Complementary tools

Apphud vs Insert Affiliate

Not competitors, but complementary: Apphud runs and verifies your in-app purchases, Insert Affiliate rewards the affiliates who drive them.

The short version

These two operate at different layers of the subscription stack and are designed to work together.

Apphud is subscription infrastructure: it integrates and verifies in-app purchases, and adds paywalls, A/B pricing tests and analytics. Insert Affiliate is an affiliate platform: it attributes each verified purchase to the affiliate who referred the user, then calculates and pays the commission.

Apphud verifies the purchase; Insert Affiliate rewards whoever drove it, and it uses Apphud as one of its supported verification sources.

At a glance

FeatureApphudInsert Affiliate
CategorySubscription infrastructure, paywalls & A/B testingAffiliate tracking & payouts
Core jobIntegrate, verify and grow in-app purchasesAttribute purchases to affiliates and pay commissions
Purchase verificationYes (core function)Yes (via Apphud, RevenueCat, Adapty, Iaptic or direct)
Paywalls / A-B experimentsYesNo
Affiliate commissions & payoutsNoYes, via Stripe Connect
Affiliate marketplaceNoYes, free to join
PricingFree under $10k MTR; Pro $49/mo; Expert $59/moFree tier; from £20/mo + 10%
RelationshipVerification source for Insert AffiliateRuns the affiliate programme on top

What Apphud does

Apphud lets developers set up cross-platform in-app purchases with no server code and adds server-side receipt verification, remote paywalls, A/B experiments, revenue analytics and 20+ integrations. It supports iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS and Android through an open-source SDK. Pricing is free up to $10,000 in monthly tracked revenue, then Pro at $49/mo and Expert at $59/mo, with custom Enterprise plans.

What Apphud doesn’t do

Apphud does not track affiliate referrals, calculate affiliate commissions, or run affiliate payouts or a marketplace. Its own competitive framing is against other subscription-infrastructure tools, not affiliate platforms — so it sits neatly beneath one rather than competing.

How they work together

Insert Affiliate lists Apphud as a supported purchase-verification source. Using Apphud’s Customers API, verified purchase events flow into Insert Affiliate, which attributes each one to the right affiliate and pays the commission. Integration paths are documented for iOS and Unity.

In plain terms: Apphud runs and verifies the purchase; Insert Affiliate reads it and rewards the affiliate who drove it.

Bottom line

Apphud and Insert Affiliate are complementary. Apphud is a strong subscription backend with verification, paywalls and experiments; Insert Affiliate is the affiliate layer that turns those verified purchases into tracked, paid commissions. If you run affiliates, use both.

Sources

Every factual claim above is drawn from the primary sources below (accessed 1 July 2026). Figures attributed to third parties or to a company’s own marketing are flagged in the text.

  1. Apphud — why Apphud
  2. Apphud — pricing
  3. Apphud — product
  4. Apphud — GitHub (open-source SDKs)
  5. Insert Affiliate — Apphud integration
  6. Insert Affiliate — homepage & docs

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I couldn't use affiliate marketing in my subscription app, so I built insert affiliate to solve this issue
- Michael Butler, CEO
Michael Butler, CEO