The 11 Best PRM Software Options for 2024

Partnerships can unlock huge growth for your business by expanding your pool of potential customers.

But nurturing a partnership’s success takes work: education, communication, incentives, and more. Thankfully, PRM software (partner relationship management software) makes it easier to keep these relationships in top shape, including businesses with:

• Channel partners
• Distributors
• Affiliates
• Resellers
• Recruited advocates (i.e., brand ambassadors, influencers, referral partners)

What is PRM software?

PRM software assists your company in and managing relationships with your business partners (and sometimes recruiting and training as well). Most importantly, it streamlines the tracking of all partnership sales and marketing activities, so it’s easy for you and your partners to measure the success of your partnerships throughout the lifecycle without using a spreadsheet.

(PRM software is also called partner relationship management software, partner management software, partner marketing software, or partnership management software.)

What types of companies does PRM software work well for?

PRM software is valuable for any company that has made (or intends to make) agreements with multiple partners, as it automates many aspects of partner management. If you plan to work with distributors, run an affiliate program, start a channel partner program, recruit resellers, or form a network of ambassadors, PRM software will help you take on these partnerships.

Finding the best PRM software depends on your business needs; for example, some software helps you recruit partners (e.g. an affiliate marketplace) as well as manage them; others are focused on management and education. That’s why it’s important to consider:

• Company fit: What size company, and what industries, is the software best for?
• Partner types: What types of partners does the PRM solution best help you manage?
• Integrations: Does the software integrate with your existing tools and processes?

What are the best PRM software options?

We evaluated 11 of the best PRM software tools based on features, pricing, reviews, and more.

Note: This list focuses on solutions for small businesses and mid-market. If you’re looking for a more enterprise-level tool, check out solutions like PartnerTap, Impartner PRM, Channeltivity, Allbound, or Impact Partnership Cloud. 

1. Referral Rock

Referral Rock’s PRM software stands out because of the options it offers for your business to scale. What sets Referral Rock apart from other PRMs is that it has the flexibility to manage all types of referral and partner programs, including channel partner programs, affiliate programs, brand ambassador programs, influencer programs, and customer referral programs.

Referral Rock is user-friendly and is highly customizable. Having a dedicated onboarding specialist and expert support means you can automate many aspects of your program (including partner engagement). Both B2B and B2C businesses can design an incentive-based program to capture new leads and sales, and issue rewards automatically.

Key features: 

• Identify and enroll individual partners: Once you determine the partners you want to enroll (i.e., customers, affiliates, channel partners, employees, advocates), you can easily create and personalize the program.
• Track and manage leads and partners: Track and capture referrals from e-commerce purchases, form completions, demos, trials, or subscriptions. You can also opt to build your own lead capture form. Both you and your partners can monitor campaigns and all key performance indicators right on the platform’s dashboard.
• Mobile app and API integration: Referral Rock seamlessly integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, and plenty of other marketing and sales tools you’re already using. Referral Rock also offers a mobile app and API integration.
• Exceptional support: Expert services to help onboard and tailor the program to your unique business needs.

Pros:

• Dedicated member portal for partners
• Deep integrations, including a 2-way HubSpot integration
• Lots of customization options
• Robust data reporting
• Suitable for multi-step sales processes
• API available

Cons: 

• You’ll need to find and recruit your own partners (not associated with an affiliate network)
• Doesn’t provide onboarding, training, and certification of partners

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
Professional: $175+/month (for businesses with sales reps and servicepeople) Engage: $200+/month (for businesses with self-checkouts) Enterprise plan also available	Yes	Onboarding specialists, live chat, support center, product guide, resource guides, webinars	4.5 stars (55 reviews)

“Referral Rock has helped increase our referral partner program leads [and our] internal bonus campaign for employees to earn incentives. The integrations and automations with the software [have] worked seamlessly. I particularly like that it creates a one-click link for members to access their portal and track their referrals and payouts.” – TrustRadius

2. Zinfi

Zinfi’s PRM is part of a detailed suite of partner marketing solutions that include partner marketing, partner sales, and partner portal management options. Within just the PRM itself, Zinfi’s approach lets you choose the partner relationship management solutions you need and scale based on your business needs.

Key features: 

• Choose from Zinfi’s eight stand-alone PRM modules: business planning, contracts management, learning management, onboarding, partner lead management, MDF, deals management, partner rebate management
• Pick what you need in a given moment and grow into additional PRM features as you need them, at no additional cost.
• Onboarding, training, contracts, partner tracking, and lead tracking
• Best for channel management (vs. other types of partnerships)

Pros: 

• Pay for what you need as you scale

Cons: 

• Pricing is unclear (and combining modules could get pricey)
• Can be confusing/overwhelming if you’re just starting out

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
Contact Zinfi for pricing	No	Phone, guides, webinars	4.8 stars (191 reviews)

 

3. Affise

Affise is a partner marketing platform for full-cycle ad campaign and affiliate management. Not only does Affise deliver technology to track ad campaigns, it also provides the platform to connect and communicate with affiliates and build new partnerships.

On Affise, marketers can optimize the whole partner program management with 50+ data breakdown statistics, AI-driven features, and BI analytics.

Key features: 

• Performance-based pricing plan: With Affise, you only pay for clicks that result in conversions. With space to test different advertising hypotheses and find out what works better without spending money in vain, you are taking on less risk.
• Flexibility in customization: Even though Affise is a SaaS platform, you can customize it to feel like an in-house platform. You can apply your brand design, customize the platform layouts, implement additional modules in statistics, or conduct new integrations.
• Advanced targeting: You can improve the effectiveness of traffic management within your network by applying different targeting settings across general and personal levels.
• Strong fraud prevention with both in-house tools and integrated services

Pros: 

• Easy to customize your program
• Options to find partners
• Performance-based pricing plan

Cons:

• Limited to affiliate partnerships

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
$500-$1500/month; custom plan also available	No	Live chat, knowledge base, webinars, dedicated success manager, email, video support, phone	4.55 stars (119 reviews)

 

4. PartnerStack

PartnerStack offers a PRM platform built to handle every part of managing and growing your partnerships channel, with automated partner onboarding, link-tracking, goal-setting, and more. And because partners get paid through their Stripe or PayPal accounts, you won’t to worry about managing payouts. Best for B2B businesses and agencies.

Key features: 

• Ability to manage all your reseller, affiliate and ambassador programs from a single platform
• Connect PartnerStack to your CRM and other tools with a wealth of stable and functional integrations
• Connect with thousands of qualified agencies and partners, and grow your program with the PartnerStack Marketplace
• Partners get paid directly through PartnerStack, so your team never has to worry about compliance and manual payouts
• Internal chat system, calendars/reminders, partner tracking, onboarding, reporting capabilities, integration with other programs, compliant payouts

Pros:

• Works with multiple partner types
• Lots of integrations

Cons: 

• Operates as a partner network (easier to find partners, but Partnerstack owns the relationship)
• Pricing not transparent
• Not for B2C

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
Contact PartnerStack for pricing	No	Email, dedicated success manager, knowledge base, instructional videos, webinars	4.82 stars (398 reviews)

 

5. Crossbeam

Crossbeam is a partner ecosystem platform. It acts as a data escrow service that finds overlapping customers and prospects shared by your partners, while keeping the rest of your data private and secure. It’s best for medium-sized to enterprise B2Bs with channel partner programs.

 

Key features: 

• Finds data overlaps while keeping the rest of your data secure — all in a SOC 2 Type 2 environment.
• Easily vet possible partnerships and generate leads and pipeline from your partner ecosystem.
• It’s easy to find partners at no cost to you or them
• Internal chat system, reporting capabilities, calendars/reminders, onboarding, integration with other programs

Pros: 

• Lots of detailed partner discovery options (the “LinkedIn for partners” model of finding partners)

Cons: 

• May require other systems for partner management
• Not compatible with affiliate partnerships
• Pricing not listed

 

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
Contact Crossbeam for pricing	Yes	Email, video support, phone, dedicated success manager, live chat, knowledge base, webinars	4.8 stars (42 reviews)

 

6. Everflow

Everflow allows you to manage all of your performance marketing relationships, including affiliates, influencers, in-app publishers, and media buying channels. It’s targeted at B2C businesses of all sizes.

Key features: 

• Clickless tracking solutions
• Automated optimization
• Completely flexible APIs
• Dedication to customer success through the onboarding training, ongoing support, and in-platform chat
• Internal chat system, onboarding, partner tracking, integration with other programs, reporting capabilities

Pros:

• Lots of customer service features
• Works with several partner types
• Optimizes your program automatically

Cons:

• Steep learning curve (hard to navigate and use)
• More expensive than other options

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
$750+/month; custom plan also available	No	Email, phone, dedicated success manager, live chat, knowledge base, webinars	4.82 stars  (158 reviews)

 

7. Partnerize

Partnerize is a SaaS PRM platform that empowers leading brands to make every affiliate and brand partnership program “customer-first.” Brands can target their ideal customers with messages, placements, and offers for maximum growth. Targeted to medium-sized to enterprise businesses, both B2B and B2C, and all types of partnerships.

Key features:

• Efficient and simplified workflows: Create clear workflows for every aspect of partner management, including discovery, conversion tracking, reporting and insights, anti-fraud protection, and payments.
• Flexibility using robust API-first reporting: Partnerize eliminates historical constraints on partner recruitment, and gives brands the ability to give commission based on any KPI (revenue, profit, LTV, AOV, acquisition, retention, split commissioning across multiple partners)
• Intelligent AI automation: Partnerize uses proprietary AI to automate manual work, such as simplifying the discovery of new partners, increasing scalability, and providing comprehensive insights based on real-time data review.
• Reporting capabilities, calendars/reminders, integration with other programs, onboarding, partner tracking, document sharing options

Pros: 

• AI-enhanced partner management
• Can manage several partner types

Cons: 

• Operates like an affiliate network (all potential partners can compare your program side-by-side with competing programs)
• Difficult to use

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
Contact Partnerize for pricing	No	Email, video support, phone, dedicated success manager, knowledge base, webinars	4.55 stars (71 reviews)

 

8. PartnerPortal.io

PartnerPortal.io helps provide your partners with all the information they need to track leads, deals, and promotions. Users can connect with top CRMs, issue payments, keep partners satisfied and motivated, and make sure your channel sales pipeline runs smoothly. Its partner portal interface includes both training-related and tracking-related resources.

Key features: 

• Fully customizable: Personalize your portal with your logo, colors, and even a custom domain
• Partners can track leads and access resources all in one place. Add any resource your partners may need, and adjust all of your settings to suit your and your partner’s needs.
• Smooth integrations and REST API: Sync your sales pipeline to efficiently track leads and pay partner commissions. Fully customize PartnerPortal to bring in data from other applications, including your CRM.
• Deal registration, commissions, document sharing, partner communications, reporting

Pros: 

• Easy to customize your program, especially the portal component
• Reasonable pricing

Cons: 

• No partner registration on business side

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
$333-$999+/month	Yes	Email, phone	No reviews available

 

9. Magentrix PRM

Magentrix specializes in PRM portals and customer portals. Their PRM software seamlessly integrates with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics to maintain a single corporate data source. Deliver content, share information, and engage your partners with a completely customizable and branded portal that matches the look and feel of your organization. Designed for B2B and B2C businesses of all sizes that need to share lots of data with partners

Key features: 

• PRM and customer success portals (as opposed to just PRM)
• Deep level of integration with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics
• Lots of built-in self-service modules for partner education: Training and certification, knowledge articles, playbooks, document library and more
• Easy to customize, with exceptional customer support

Pros: 

• Strong focus on partner portal building, as well as customer portal building
• Strong customer support
• Lots of customization options

Cons: 

• Workflows and admin side can be complex to learn
• Pricing can get expensive as you scale

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
$250-1200/month	Yes	Email, instructional videos, phone, knowledge base, webinars, dedicated success manager	4.62 stars (102 reviews)

 

10. Salesforce PRM

Personalize your channel sales, build supportive relationships with partners, provide the training they need to succeed, and collect real-time data on performance with Salesforce’s partner management system. Salesforce PRM helps you manage several types of partnerships, such as distributors, resellers, and affiliates, all from one interface. The platform can automatically source leads, register deals, and more.

Note: Salesforce PRM is an add-on to the Sales Cloud, and PRM features are only available on Enterprise and Unlimited plans.

Key features: 

• Engaging onboarding and training: Create, assign, and track your partner’s progress through training modules that carry the fun touch you’ve come to expect from Salesforce. Customize each partner and role, and recommend next training steps with their lightning component.
• Partner support: Empower partners to make decisions in real-time with insights about each deal and recommendations about how to take action. Answer any partner questions and get them unstuck in real-time with a priority ticket system.
• Fully customizable: Launch a personalized program with Salesforce’s quick start template. Add branding to your portals, and easily set up lead distribution, deal registration, MDFs, and AppExchange components.
• Lead tracking, partner tracking, reporting

Pros: 

• Purpose-built for a Salesforce workflow
• Onboarding/training features Salesforce is famous for

Cons: 

• Only an add-on to one of the higher-priced Salesforce Sales Cloud plans
• Not a dedicated PRM

Pricing	Free trial?	Customer support	Review score
$150-$300/user/month for Sales Cloud, plus additional costs to access certain PRM features	No	Email, phone, live chat, customer support portal, webinars, “guided journeys,” premium support for additional fees	4.32 stars (28,930 reviews*) *For Salesforce platform as a whole

 

11. TUNE

TUNE offers a robust and customizable PRM platform on desktop and mobile for all types of partners (i.e., affiliates, influencers, agencies, channel partners), allowing you to “partner the way you want to.” From onboarding to payout, TUNE’s flexibility helps you maximize the ROI of your partner relationships. TUNE offers two main PRM software solutions: one for advertisers, and one for networks.

Key features:

• Flexible customization: Fully personalize your portals to reflect your branding, and use an API-based foundation with over 650 endpoints for even more detailed personalization. Onboard, manage, and compensate partners in an environment that feels truly unique to your brand.
• Reporting from anywhere: Track and manage partner performance and lead data across web and mobile interfaces to make better partner decisions, and use task automation to save time.
• High security standards: SOC and GDPR compliance, Privacy Shield certification, and more proactive prevention against fraud
• Option to recruit partners

Pros: 

• Can handle several partner types, with option to recruit partners (network)
• Flexible with lots of customization and tracking options
• SOC/GDPR compliant

Cons: 

• Difficult to use
• Other PRMs have similar features at a lower price

Pricing	Free demo or trial	Customer support	Review score
Plans for networks start at $899/month; custom plans also available	Free trial	Live chat, knowledge base, support ticket submission, email, phone, training courses	4.33 stars (166 reviews)

 

PRM software FAQ

Still wondering how to choose the best PRM software?  We’ve got the answers to your most common questions.

What is PRM?

PRM is partner relationship management. Any strategy, process, and software that you use to manage your partners (e.g. channel partners, distributors, affiliates, resellers) falls under the PRM umbrella. PRM strategies and tools make partner management easier and streamline the process, so you can get the most out of your partnerships.

Why do I need PRM software?

PRM software is more than just partner portal software. It can help your brand perform and automate a wide variety of tasks related to partnership programs. When deciding on the best PRM platform for your business, screen how well it accomplishes these key features:

• Partner discovery: Search, discover, and form partnerships with other companies, including affiliates and resellers
• Partner portal creation: Onboard partners and equip them with all the information they need to drive revenue and maintain your brand’s integrity
• Partner tracking and attribution: Track and measure the success of each partnership in real time across all channels with robust metrics. Automatically attribute every sale to the partner responsible. Analyze the strength of each partnership with actionable insights.
• Lead management and tracking: Assign relevant leads to partners and track how they move leads through the funnel
• Partner and channel management: Manage and communicate with partners using a partner portal or partner CRM
• Resource sharing: Share documents and other co-branded sales assets with partners
• Partner compensation: Track and schedule any payments owed to your partners, such as finder’s fees or referral fees for any leads they bring in
• Fraud prevention: Protect your brand from fraud and safeguard your brand’s integrity

How do I choose the best PRM software?

It’s important to choose the right type of PRM software for your specific business and partnership. Look back at our list carefully, and make sure the partnership software has functionality that aligns with the programs you plan to run, as well as the type and size of your own business. And make sure your business can afford the partnership software – transparent pricing is best, as you’ll know what you need to invest upfront.

What factors should I consider in choosing PRM software?

Consider these factors in your evaluation:

• Key features: What makes this PRM software stand out from other offerings?
• Pricing: How much does the PRM software cost? What different plans are available?
• Free trial: Does the software provider let you try out the software for free, before you purchase?
• Company fit: Is the software best for small businesses, or is it targeted at enterprise? What industries are in the featured logos on the website?
• Partner types: What types of partners does the PRM solution help you manage? Is it focused on one type or multiple types?
• Integrations: Does the software integrate with your existing tools and processes?
• Customer support: How does the company help assist you when using the PRM solution? What are the ways you can contact them for questions or issues?
• Review score: How do existing users of the PRM software rate the program? What do they like and dislike?

What’s the difference between CRM and PRM software?

Before you decide on a PRM system, you might also be wondering about the difference between CRM and PRM software. Why do you need a dedicated PRM SaaS tool if you want to manage partners, when you already have a CRM (customer relationship management tool)?

While CRM and PRM software are both focused on managing relationships, a CRM helps you manage relationships with customers and typically has some marketing automation, while PRM software helps you manage relationships with partners.

Find a PRM software that works for you

When choosing the best PRM software tool to help you track and manage your partners, be sure it’s suited for all the types of partnerships you plan to create and manage.

It’s also important to consider all aspects of how you will manage the partnership: Do you need assistance finding and filtering partners? Will you need to share documents? Do you want to personalize your partner portal experience? Be sure to pick PRM software that will make all of your processes easier.

If you’re looking for a tool to manage affiliates, channel partners, or brand ambassadors, check out Referral Rock — you can start a program with up to 10,000 members, build an on-board portal, integrate with your CRM (or other system of record), and automate reward payouts! You can also read this case study for more inspiration.