GrowSurf vs Prefinery

Why is Prefinery the Best GrowSurf Alternative in 2024?

Prefinery is a powerful and customizable GrowSurf alternative that lets you build a referral program right into your product.

From startups to the Fortune 500
We power the world's most successful referral programs.

TL;DR;

Comparison Summary

When should you choose GrowSurf, and when Prefinery, for your referral marketing campaign? Let's compare both tools.

  • Prefinery is built to handle the largest referral programs with massive email lists.
  • Prefinery is hyper-customizable and 100% unbranded for any subscription plan.
  • Prefinery allows your business to run unlimited campaigns.
  • Prefinery allows your business to run custom drip campaigns using unlimited email automation setups.
  • Prefinery has pre-launch & beta management features not offered elsewhere.
  • Prefinery provides more comprehensive and actionable insights about your data.
  • Prefinery has the most robust API among everybody else.
  • Prefinery has multi-member support with no cap on the number of team members.
  • Prefinery works for any business size and type due to its scalability and reliability coming from more than 16 years of experience successfully handling massive campaigns.
  • Prefinery takes data privacy and security seriously.
  • GrowSurf offers you a simple, no frills landing page you can use if you don't have a website.
  • GrowSurf supports a few more direct integrations, without having to go through Zapier.

Ease of Use

Prefinery is user-friendly software for both marketers and experienced developers.

Both tools greet you with the campaign creation wizard right after you signup, but one makes everything easier for you than the other. We and our customers think it's Prefinery, but don't take our word for it — we encourage you to try both platforms.

GrowSurf's entire campaign configuration is through their wizard, so if you want to modify anything on the campaign you just get brought back to the wizard. Setting up a campaign seems quicker, but it assumes you know what you're doing from the start.

With Prefinery, the wizard requires the bare minimum information to set up your whole campaign dashboard according to your specs. There is a short checklist to help guide you afterwards which you can refer to at any time, but you are not forced to follow it. This makes it easy for you to find what you are looking for.

We believe that you should be able set up a referral program your way, not how we think you should.

Customization

Prefinery allows greater customization than GrowSurf.

With Prefinery's signup form you can collect more than just a name and an email address from your participants. You get a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) form builder to create a 100% customizable form in your own design and language. images, videos, custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to your form. On the other hand, GrowSurf's signup form supports very limited customization, including only colors and font sizes and does not support adding custom CSS.

When it comes to email layouts, GrowSurf requires you to use HTML code and inline styles to fully customize how your emails look. With Prefinery, you can also directly edit the HTML, if that's your thing, but we make it more convenient with fully customizable email layouts by using an easy, visual, block-based editor that you can use to create beautiful emails from scratch. Or, you can customize one of Prefinery's built-in templates.

Prefinery doesn't offer hosted landing pages, but does integrate with most landing page providers. GrowSurf does offer simple landing pages; however, they're no where near as full-featured as what is offered by dedicated landing page providers.

Prefinery GrowSurf

Advanced Signup Form Builder

Collect more than just name and email address from your customers.

Custom Signup Form HTML & CSS

Add custom HTML to your signup form or add some CSS to make the form match the rest of your page.

Your Language

Participant-facing copy can be authored in the language of your choice.

Branded Referral Links

Each participant receives a referral link, which uses your domain.

Vanity Referral Codes

Use the person's name or email address to create unique, memorable referral codes like jason997 instead of xQ7f2.

Branding

Prefinery lets you use your own company branding.

When it comes to branding, Prefinery — right out the box — will not have any kind of branding anywhere in your campaign for any of our paid plans.

With GrowSurf on the other hand, you kind of need to hunt those tick boxes down in their campaign editor.

Email Automation

Create unlimited email automations with Prefinery.

Using Prefinery you can create unlimited email automation setups based on triggers, making Prefinery more like a drip-style email service. Prefinery's behavior-triggered emails can be used to promote your referral program and keep your customers highly engaged.

GrowSurf only gives you a fixed set of emails, where you can edit the subject or body, but you cannot add more emails. This means you cannot build complex drip campaigns, like send email 3 days after the participant opts in.

Prefinery GrowSurf

Flexible Email Automation

Build behavior-driven, drip-style email campaigns that keep your customers highly engaged.

Customize The 'From' Email Address

Verify your domain by adding a DKIM key and emails will look as if they've been sent directly from you.

Custom SMTP Server

Optionally, send email through your own SMTP servers.

Double Opt-in

Optionally, require that users confirm their email address.

Email Analytics

View the open, click and bounce rates for your emails over time.

Visual Email Layout Builder

Easily build reusable email layouts with a visual, block-based editor.

Viral Referral & Reward System

Both the Prefinery and GrowSurf software have a viral referral and reward system which tracks and automates delivery of rewards to your customers.

Both Prefinery and GrowSurf allow you to automate your referral program from end to end and support the following reward types:

Single-sided Rewards — Reward a person when they refer a friend, or when their friend performs a goal-based action.

Double-sided Rewards — Reward both people when a referral happens, or when the friend performs a goal-based action.

Milestone Rewards — Reward people when they reach specific referral goals.

However, only Prefinery supports vanity referral codes, which are based off a participant's name or email address, and are much easier to remember.

Prefinery GrowSurf

Viral Referral Links

Viral referral links encourage social sharing and are proven to accelerate growth.

Vanity Referral Codes

Use the customer's name or email address to create unique, memorable referral codes like jason997 instead of xQ7f2.

Reward People for Referring Friends

Set referral goals for your customers and reward them with early access, discounts, prizes and other stuff.

Action-based Rewards

Reward a person when they refer a friend and their friend later performs a goal-based action, such as makes a purchase, subscribes to your newsletter, requests a demo, etc.

Automated Reward Delivery

Use our webhooks or integration partners to automate the delivery of rewards.

Pre-launch & Beta Management

Prefinery offers additional features for pre-launch campaigns.

No other competitor offers specific features around running pre-launch or closed beta waitlist referral programs. With Prefinery, you can invite and send unique invitation codes to your participants. You can also choose from 4 different waitlist algorithms for how participants are ranked.

Prefinery GrowSurf

Waiting List Queues

Participants wait in a virtual line for access and move up in line by referring their friends.

Gate Access & Deliver Invitation Codes

Gate access to your product and require that visitors first apply. Generating and delivering the invitation code is as simple as clicking a button.

Stateful User Flow

Track users from waitlist and beyond as they move through the flow from AppliedInvited/RejectedActive users.

Invite-a-Friend System

Let your active users invite their friends to your beta. You decide how many friends each user is allowed to invite. Similar to how Gmail launched back in the day.

Data Analytics

Prefinery provides better, actionable insights about your data.

GrowSurf offers basic analytics whereas Prefinery tracks more KPIs like opt-ins, referral source, conversion rate, email metrics, demographics and form responses.

Prefinery's participant table lets you search, sort and filter participant information by over 55 data points (and you can customize the columns in the table). No other competitor offers the ability to dig this deep into participant data. Once your list gets massive, you'll appreciate this even more. GrowSurf unfortunately only provides a basic search (in the past X days/months) functionality.

Furthermore, accessing each participant's profile in Prefinery shows a ton of info, including their demographics, notes, email history, webhook history, referral history, etc.

Integrations

GrowSurf offers more direct integrations, but Prefinery's API is second to none.

GrowSurf supports more direct integrations namely with Tango Card, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, GetResponse, Mailchimp, Mailerlite, Hubspot, Slack and Integromat.

Both offer Zapier and webhooks integration which means you can also easily integrate Prefinery with any of the above.

When it comes to API, Prefinery's is the most robust in comparison to others.

Prefinery GrowSurf

REST API

A JSON-based REST API.

Webhooks

Sync data with your own servers.

JavaScript Code Injection

Paste 3rd party scripts into your campaign assets (signup form, referral page, etc.).

Zapier

Integrate with over 3,000+ popular web apps on Zapier.com.

Google Analytics

Facebook Pixel

Slack

Tango Card

(via no-code integration)
(direct)

Mailchimp

(via no-code integration)
(direct)

ConvertKit

(via no-code integration)
(direct)

Klaviyo

(via no-code integration)
(direct)

Constant Contact

(via no-code integration)
(direct)

ActiveCampaign

(via no-code integration)
(direct)

Scalability & Reliability

Prefinery works for any business size and type.

Prefinery offers unlimited number of campaigns, even with our Free plan. GrowSurf only allows you up to 2 campaigns on their cheapest plan, with only up to 20 on the highest tier.

Over the past 16 years Prefinery has smoothly handled HUGE marketing campaigns, some with more than 800,000 participants. Many of our customers come from from competitors that just couldn't handle the load.

Prefinery has been around since 2008 — that's 16 years of experience — and was around years before any of our competitors.

Privacy & Security

Prefinery takes data privacy and security seriously.

Both Prefinery and GrowSurf have opt-in consent features requiring participants to agree to your terms when signing up, but only Prefinery actually records this on the participant's profile which you can reference as needed.

Prefinery was the first to offer GDPR compliance. Privacy, Security, and Cookie policies are duly published and our Data Processing Amendment includes the EU's SCCs (Standard Contractural Clauses). Everything is encrypted whether at rest or in transit. Prefinery doesn't use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or other trackers when you visit our homepage or use Prefinery.

GrowSurf also has no multi-user account support. Prefinery provides it for free and with no limits on the number of team members. You can specify their privileges (role-based access control), require 2FA for all team members on account, and audit log of who did what and when for all changes to the campaign.

Prefinery respects you and your participants' privacy.

Prefinery GrowSurf

Respects Browser Do Not Track Setting

Observes your right not to be tracked and respects your browser's Do Not Track setting.

# of Spy Trackers Deployed on Homepage

The number of analytics, advertising, and other tracking scripts that are loaded when you visit the website.

0 8

SSL Labs' Rating

Rating, as reported by ssllabs.com, an independent company which scores web servers for their compliance to security standards.

A+ B

Team Management

Collaborate with your coworkers in an account that is centrally managed.

Role Based Access Control

Limit your teammate permissions by account functionality or data.

Two-factor Authentication (2FA)

Require an authentication code from your mobile device in addition to your account password.

Track Participant Opt-in Consent

Require signups to agree to your terms and we'll record their consent, including timestamp and IP address.

Privacy Shield Compliance

Self-certified to both the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks.

GDPR and CCPA Compliance

Compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation and California Consumer Privacy Act.

Price

Prefinery's price is lower than GrowSurf.

With Prefinery, your participants will continue to be able to sign up even if you've reached your participant count limit — no person will ever be turned away! While an unlimited number of people can submit your signup form, if you go over your limit you won't be able to view those additional subscribers until you upgrade your subscription.

If you go over your participant limit with GrowSurf, they automatically upgrade you to the next plan up, pro-rated. However, Prefinery's per-participant overage fee is more cost-effective.

Users/Participants Prefinery $/month GrowSurf $/month
2,000 $54 $450
5,000 $69 $450
10,000 $94 $450
25,000 $169 $650
30,000 $194 $1,050
40,000 $244 $1,050
50,000 $294 $1,050
75,000 $419 $1,050
100,000 $544 $1,450
150,000 $794 $1,450
200,000 $1,044 $1,950

Prefinery has been chosen by over 22,878 tech businesses.

From the biggest hi-tech firms to small startups, clients have chosen our referral marketing platform over the past 16 years for for a secure, customizable way to put customer acquisition on autopilot.

Years
16
Campaigns
22k+
Leads Collected
17M+

Ready to kick-start your explosive growth?

On average, our customers boost their leads by a whopping 40%.

Start Free Trial

14-day free trial · No credit card required · 30-day refund policy