Comparison
Cello vs Stickly
These are not competing products so much as different answers to different questions. Cello is referral infrastructure: it attributes a signup to a referrer, works out a share of that customer’s recurring revenue, and pays it out as real money through PayPal or Venmo, with the tax and fraud handling that implies. Stickly is a task widget: twenty-six things a user can do, each worth some of your own credits, with no money and no attribution anywhere in the loop. If you want to pay people cash for revenue they bring you, Cello is the correct tool and Stickly is not a substitute.
Every figure on this page was read from cello.so on 3 October 2026. Prices change — if something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
Choose Cello if
- Referral revenue is the programme — you want attribution from link to signup to MRR.
- You want to pay referrers real money, and you do not want to own tax, KYC or payouts.
- You need fraud detection on self-referrals and chargebacks.
- Your product has a logged-in experience and a real revenue engine behind it.
Choose Stickly if
- Referrals are one of several things you want, alongside reviews, stars, follows and joins.
- You would rather pay in product credits than in cash — it costs margin, not money.
- You are early, and a $65-a-month floor before any revenue arrives is the wrong shape.
- You want it live this afternoon rather than wired into Stripe and Salesforce.
Side by side
| Cello | Stickly | |
|---|---|---|
| What a user does | Shares a personal referral link | Any of 26 link tasks — follow, star, join, review, upvote, share, refer |
| What a user gets | Cash, as a share of the referred customer’s recurring revenue | Your own product credits |
| How the reward is paid | Cello pays out via PayPal or Venmo, and handles tax, KYC and credit notes | A signed webhook to your system; Stickly never holds money |
| Attribution | Server-side, from Stripe, Chargebee, HubSpot, Salesforce or their API | None. There is nothing to attribute |
| Fraud handling | Automatic risk assessment, a review queue, 30-day window, refund and chargeback cancellation | None beyond server-signed identity |
| Product requirement | Their FAQ states they cannot onboard products without an authenticated logged-in web or mobile experience | Live keys need a signed token; test keys need nothing |
| Entry price | $65 / month on annual billing, $95 / month on monthly, up to $10K referral ARR | $0 for 1,000 participants, then $19 / month for 10,000 |
| Transaction fees | None on user referrals; 5% on the free partner tier, 3.5% on Plus and Pro, 2% on Enterprise | None |
| Mobile | SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter | Web only |
| Compliance | GDPR and CCPA; their own table lists SOC 2 as coming soon | GDPR; no SOC 2 |
The darker column in each row is the one we think wins it. Several of them are theirs.
Pricing
| Cello | Stickly | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | No free user-referrals tier. The partner product has a free tier: 1 campaign, 5 transacting partners, 5% transaction fee | $0 — 1,000 participants / month |
| Entry paid | Start — $65 / month billed annually, $95 / month billed monthly, up to $10K referral ARR, 1 campaign | Pro — $19 / month, 10,000 participants |
| Next tier | Grow — $200 / month annually, $300 monthly, up to $50K referral ARR | — |
| Upper tier | Scale — $750 / month, up to $100K referral ARR. Enterprise is custom | — |
| Lifetime | Not offered | $199 once, 10,000 participants |
Where Cello is better
A comparison page with no section like this one is an advertisement. These are the places we would tell you to use them instead.
They own the money
Cello calculates the reward, converts the currency, handles the tax and KYC, issues credit notes, and pays the referrer. If you want to pay cash for referrals, that whole stack is work you are not going to want to build. Stickly deliberately never touches money, which means it also cannot do any of this.
Attribution is a real engineering problem and they solved it
Link to signup to purchase to recurring revenue, reconciled against Stripe or Chargebee, with missed attributions recovered and refunds clawed back. Stickly has none of this, because a task widget has nothing to attribute — but if referral revenue is what you are measuring, "none of this" is disqualifying.
Fraud detection that exists
Self-referral risk scoring, a review queue with a 30-day window, automatic cancellation on refund. When the reward is cash this is not optional. Stickly is on the honour system, which is only defensible because the reward is a few of your own credits.
Mobile
iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter SDKs. Stickly is a web widget and nothing else.
Questions people actually ask
- Is Stickly a Cello alternative?
- Only for part of what Cello does. If you are using Cello purely as an in-product nudge to get users sharing, Stickly covers that and adds reviews, stars, follows and community joins. If you are using Cello to attribute revenue and pay cash commissions, Stickly is not a replacement and will not become one — it has no attribution and never touches money.
- How much does Cello actually cost?
- Their pricing page defaults to the annual-billing figure, which is what makes it look cheaper than it is. User referrals start at $65 a month billed annually or $95 billed monthly for up to $10K of referral ARR, then $200/$300 up to $50K, then $750 up to $100K. The partner product is separate and carries a transaction fee at every tier, including the free one. Figures read from their live pricing page on 3 October 2026.
- Cello says the integration needs no developer time. Is that right?
- Their marketing says "~0hr dev time". Their documentation also says the authentication token must be signed with HS512 in your backend, never in the browser. Both are true at once: the front-end is a script tag and about fifteen lines, and there is still a backend task. Stickly has the same backend requirement on live keys, for the same reason.
- Can I use both?
- Yes, and for some products that is the right answer: Cello for the referral programme, where the money and the attribution are, and Stickly for everything else a user can do that is worth a few credits. They do not overlap in the database or in the widget.
Try it before you decide.
The free plan covers 1,000 participants a month and takes one script tag. That is a cheaper way to settle this than reading another comparison page.