# What good looks like for a referral program > Referral rates, what rewarding both sides and an integration change, and where people really share. Measured across hundreds of real programs on GrowSurf. - URL: https://growsurf.com/statistics/referral-program-benchmarks/ --- ## Start with your participant referral rate Participants who make a successful referral 19.2% in the typical program Half of programs land between 4.4% and 49.3%. Measured across hundreds of referral programs running on GrowSurf Check this number first. It tells you whether the people who joined your program are doing anything at all. The range is wide because audiences differ, so treat the typical figure as a starting line rather than a target. If you are well under it, the reward or the ask is usually the problem, not the traffic. Fix the offer before you spend on getting more people in. ## Then check what happens after the click Referral link views that turn into a referral 29.0% in the typical program Half of programs land between 16.1% and 48.3%. Measured across hundreds of referral programs running on GrowSurf Plenty of link views but few referrals means the page people land on is losing them: the offer is unclear, the sign-up is long, or there is nothing in it for the friend. Few link views in the first place is a different problem. Your participants are not sharing, and no landing page fix will change that. Go back to visibility. ## Reward both sides Programs that reward both sides vs. programs that reward the referrer only +36% more successful referrals Referrer only 1.0× Both sides rewarded 1.36× Comparing the typical program in each group. Measured across hundreds of referral programs running on GrowSurf A reward for the referrer gets the link sent. A reward for the friend gets it opened. Programs that do both produce more referrals than programs that pay only the referrer, and the gap is not small. It is a pattern we see across programs rather than a guarantee, but if you reward one side today, this is the first thing to test. ## Connect your email tool Programs with at least one integration connected vs. programs with none +14% more successful referrals No integration 1.0× Integration connected 1.14× Comparing the typical program in each group. Measured across hundreds of referral programs running on GrowSurf The integration itself does not make anyone refer. It puts the program in front of people who would otherwise never see it: the welcome email, the newsletter, the places customers already look. If your program lives on one page nobody visits, this is why. ## Offer the channels people actually use Sharing channels vary by audience. Enable channels that fit your audience. Consumer and newsletter audiences favor WhatsApp, followed by email, Facebook, and SMS. Business audiences favor email and copy-link; LinkedIn is meaningful mainly for SaaS. Healthcare audiences favor copy-link, email, and SMS. Education audiences favor SMS and WhatsApp. The overall mix below combines sharing across audiences. It does not predict your program’s channel mix or mean every program should enable WhatsApp. | Channel | Share of recorded sharing across all audiences | | --- | --- | | WhatsApp | 55.3% | | Email | 14.6% | | Facebook | 8.4% | | SMS | 7.7% | | Copy link | 5.1% | | X / Twitter | 4.7% | | Messenger | 2.4% | | Pinterest | 0.8% | | LinkedIn | 0.6% | | Other channels | 0.5% | Measured across the highest-performing referral programs on GrowSurf. Percentages describe the combined share actions, not the typical program or an industry-specific benchmark. ## Set the bar for your industry | Industry | Participants who make a successful referral | | --- | --- | | Financial services & fintech | 33.5% | | Consumer subscriptions & commerce | 8.6% | | SaaS & AI | 5.9% | | Healthcare & wellness | 5.8% | | Education & workforce | 4.0% | Measured across the highest-performing referral programs on GrowSurf. Fintech audiences refer at several times the rate of every other industry. ## How we measured this Measured across hundreds of referral programs running on GrowSurf. The industry figures and the share-channel mix come from the highest-performing programs, and each panel says which. ### What we publish - The typical program, not the average one. A handful of very large programs would drag an average somewhere no real program lives. - Rates and comparisons, because a rate tells you where you stand. - The band the middle half of programs land in, so you can see how wide normal is. ### What we leave out - Raw counts. A count only tells you how big someone else is. - Any group too small to say anything reliable. We left those out rather than guess. - Anything we cannot measure directly, like which share buttons a program offers. We report what people actually used. ## Marketing and product teams choose GrowSurf's refer a friend software to maximize their results With our top-rated referral/affiliate software, GrowSurf customers launch faster and enjoy results like these: 312% return on investment, 30% of new leads from referrals, 15% of ARR from referrals. "I had tried several referral marketing platforms before committing to GrowSurf. The UI/UX is much better than any of the competitors in the market, and integration was done quickly without much developer help. You can't beat it." Wes Wagner Head of Growth & Marketing at Microverse "We wanted a cost-savvy solution that could be managed and changed easily without the help of IT/devs. GrowSurf provided us exactly what our business needed! They saved me and our development team valuable time by providing an easy-to-use solution of building an internal system, with minimal coding. With GrowSurf's support, I was able to set up the entire program within a day." Gabriella Di Fazio Marketing Manager at SurveyMonkey "We were looking for a flexible system to implement on the development side, and easy enough for our marketing team to be able to explore and manage. GrowSurf checked all the boxes." Michelangelo Guarise Founder, CEO at Volumio [Why A B2C Music Web App Chose GrowSurf To Launch Their Custom Referral Program To Achieve **9% Monthly Growth**](/case-studies/#volumio) "Growsurf made it incredibly easy to launch a referral program for our new and existing users and website visitors. We considered a wide array of options and Growsurf was by far the best value for money." Max Friedman Co-Founder & CEO at Givebutter "The most important thing for us was that the referral program had to be something that we could build and execute without having to have someone technical on the team. GrowSurf's ease of implementation was pretty awesome." Tommy Gamba Strategy & Growth at Not Boring "We use Growsurf to track ALL of our referrals, from paid acquisition channels to newsletters. GrowSurf is responsible for 15% of our new ARR from the last six weeks." Nick Abouzeid Head of Marketing at MainStreet [Hyper-Growth B2B Startup Scales Marketing with GrowSurf, Driving **15% ARR from Referrals**](/case-studies/#mainstreet) "No need to compare other referral marketing solutions. I've compared them all, and we went with GrowSurf.…Their quick-campaign creation and super fast customer support are amazing. Value for price is also unmatched." Chino Lex Founder, CEO at Keyring "GrowSurf is residual lead gen that we don't have to think about. We wanted something that we could put on autopilot. For every one person who signs up for Draftbit, we essentially get 1.33 new leads from that person." Nick Selman Head of Growth at Draftbit [How A B2C SaaS Platform Uses GrowSurf To Get **30% More Leads Every Month**](/case-studies/#draftbit) "We ditched a lot of GrowSurf's competitors because they were too expensive. GrowSurf was our saving grace. We wouldn't have a referral program if we had to pay $1,000 per month." Diego Dal Cero Founder, CEO at EvenFi [How A Fintech Crowdlending Platform Uses GrowSurf To Drive **40% Monthly Growth**](/case-studies/#criptalia) "I had about ten other referral software providers I looked at. We chose GrowSurf because it was something we could customize without having to get developers to build the whole thing out. The price was another big plus for us." Tracy Laranjo Growth Manager at Willful [How GrowSurf Helps A B2C Financial Company Generate **300% Returns**](/case-studies/#willful) "The level of time dedicated to thinking about what we want as a referral program was made easy by GrowSurf.…Referrals make up 5% of our sales and generate more 5-star reviews on Trustpilot." Jacomo Deschatelets Co-Founder, CMO at Emma Life Insurance "I have been working with a ton of different referral programs for the past year and Growsurf takes pretty much all the development work out of setting up a seemingly integrated referral program. I was set up in less than 12 hours...Hats off to you guys, for building what I think is a very unique product." Christopher Krohn Marketing Coordinator at 24onoff "GrowSurf customer support is a 10 out of 10. Their replies are real answers -- it's not the traditional customer support experience. They go above and beyond." Stéphane Le Mentec Digital Marketing Manager at International TEFL Academy [How An Education Company Achieves **1055% ROI** using GrowSurf](/case-studies/#ita) "I've built referral programs for Grab and a few other startups. I am now using GrowSurf for AI Camp. I love your product. Keep it going!" Dr. Michael Ke Zhang Co-founder at AI Camp [View Case Studies →](/case-studies/) ## Unlock the power of word-of-mouth marketing and deepen your bond with customers Set up your refer a friend program with customer referral and affiliate program software that lowers your acquisition costs, increases customer loyalty, and saves you gobs of time. [Launch Your Program](https://app.growsurf.com/signup) 14 day free trial No credit card required Trusted by marketing and product teams that grow through customer, user, and partner referrals.