A Trackdesk alternative, import in one file

What you pay, on each side

Trackdesk was for a long time the answer to "a free affiliate platform". Most comparison articles online still say so, and it is no longer true: the free plan is closed to new accounts. A program starting today comes in at $299 a month.

Prices checked on September 8, 2026 on each vendor's own site. They change without notice: check them before you decide.

Three times Meritt's absolute ceiling, for the first row of their grid. And the ratio never turns around: $99 is the most we bill, whatever the volume.

The free plan did not throttle, it locked

If you are on the old free plan you keep it — existing accounts stay on their original terms. You only need to know what those terms do at the moment you cross them, because it is not a cap on tracking: it is a lock on the account, cleared by moving to a paid plan.

• $1,000 of affiliate-generated revenue. This is the ceiling that arrives first, and it is low: one good week clears it.
• 50 affiliates, 5,000 clicks and 500 conversions a month. Three more counters, each enough on its own.
• One seat, one active offer, one currency. A colleague to give access to, or a second product, and you are out of the plan.
• Beyond that the account is locked until a paid plan is taken. The data is not lost, but access stops there.

The timing is the problem more than the ceiling. An account locks on the day the program starts working — the day your affiliates are waiting to see their numbers and you most need yours. At Meritt the starter plan is free until your first commission and locks nothing: when it ends, it is because you have made money, and the next step is $49.

What Trackdesk does better

Once the subscription is paid, Trackdesk stops counting anything: unlimited clicks, unlimited conversions, and on the higher plan unlimited affiliates and offers too. On that specific point they are more honest than Rewardful, FirstPromoter or Tapfiliate, who keep metering after they have billed you.

It is also a tool built for affiliate networks rather than for a single merchant: several advertisers, several live offers, coupon tracking at scale, reporting cut for someone who does this full time. If you run a network rather than a program, the comparison is not with us — we do something else.

Moving from Trackdesk to Meritt, today

This is the only page in this series where migration is not in the future tense. Trackdesk is the platform whose import is written, and it runs by dropping in your export files.

• You export from Trackdesk — four files, over the last twelve months. The exact steps are on the import screen, not in documentation somewhere else.
• You see the result before confirming: how many affiliates, how many clicks, how many sales, how much you have already paid them and how much is still owed there. Refunded and rejected orders are kept out of the count.
• Your affiliates keep their original code. Links already published carry on crediting the right person.
• Your coupon codes come across, except those shared between several affiliates or unknown to your payment system — those are flagged rather than guessed.
• You choose what happens to the balances: commissions unsettled at Trackdesk become owed here, or you settle there and start from zero.
• No email goes out during the import. Your affiliates' accounts are created without notification, and you announce the move when you decide to.

Since the starter account is free until your first commission, nothing forces you to decide straight away: you can import, compare both counts on the same links for a few weeks, and only close the Trackdesk account once you are sure.

The other comparisons