Two different jobs
What Branch does
Branch is best-in-class at getting users to the right place and measuring how they got there: deep links and deferred deep links that survive an install, cross-platform and cross-device attribution, SKAdNetwork tooling, and branded links and QR codes. Pricing scales with monthly active users across Basics, Essentials and Enterprise tiers, with larger contracts quoted through sales.
What Branch does not do
Branch does not run affiliate commission accounting, affiliate onboarding, or affiliate payouts. In its own description of affiliate marketing, Branch provides the deep linking and attribution and sends postbacks to the affiliate networks, which then handle reporting and payouts. In other words, Branch measures the affiliate’s traffic; it doesn’t calculate or pay the affiliate’s commission.
What Insert Affiliate adds
Insert Affiliate is the affiliate layer: it attributes each verified purchase to the affiliate who referred it, applies your commission rules (including tiered and daisy-chain structures), and pays affiliates through Stripe Connect, with a free marketplace for finding new promoters. It verifies purchases through RevenueCat, Adapty, Apphud, Iaptic or directly against the stores.
How they work together
Insert Affiliate lists Branch as a supported deep-linking option, so if you already run Branch you can plug it in as the layer that routes and attributes referred users, while Insert Affiliate handles the affiliate programme, commissions and payouts on top. Because Insert Affiliate also ships its own built-in Insert Links deep linking, Branch is entirely optional: you can run Insert Affiliate on its own, or alongside Branch if it is already part of your stack.
In plain terms: Branch gets the referred user into the app and measures the journey. Insert Affiliate answers the question Branch doesn’t: which affiliate earned a commission on the resulting purchase, and how do they get paid.
Branch.io pricing in 2026
Branch does not publish prices. Its pricing page lists three plans and what each includes, and you get a figure by starting a trial or asking for a demo.
| Branch plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Basics | Not published; free trial available | Enough to launch and measure first campaigns, limited to 3 ad partners, 3 data webhooks and 3 ad partner postbacks |
| Essentials | Not published; quoted after a demo | Unlimited ad partners and data connections, plus lifetime value analytics |
| Enterprise | Not published; quoted after a demo | Custom integrations, connected TV measurement as a paid extra, and API access |
If you are pricing Branch only to give affiliates and creators a link that opens your app, you may not need it. Insert Links, the deep links built into Insert Affiliate, do that job and are included in every Insert Affiliate plan, including the free one.
| Insert Affiliate plan | Monthly price | Share of affiliate revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Free | £0 | None (2 affiliates, 100 transactions) |
| Starter | £20 | 10% |
| Growth | £70 | 8% |
| Enterprise | £200 | 7.5% |
Insert Links are made for affiliate and creator links. If you also need deep links for email, ads or QR codes, or measurement across all of your marketing, that is what Branch is for, and the two work side by side.
Do you need both?
- If you don’t run affiliates: Branch covers deep linking and attribution on its own.
- If affiliates drive your growth: add Insert Affiliate to attribute purchases to affiliates and pay them, using Branch as the deep-linking layer if you already have it, or Insert Affiliate’s built-in Insert Links if you don’t.
Bottom line
Branch and Insert Affiliate are complementary, not competing. Branch is a powerful deep-linking and attribution platform; Insert Affiliate is the affiliate layer that turns verified in-app purchases into tracked, paid commissions. If you run an affiliate programme, Insert Affiliate does the part Branch leaves to others, and it works with Branch or entirely on its own.
