Whichever you pick, you always have the final say — no submission is ever paid without you approving it. Social metrics work out the reward amount; they don’t approve the post on their own.
Social metrics
With social metrics, the reward is tied to how a post actually performs. You set it up in three parts.The platform and metric
Pick the platform the post lives on — YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X / Twitter, or LinkedIn — and the metric that counts: Views or Likes. Most platforms support both; LinkedIn supports likes only (shown there as Reactions).How the reward is worked out
You have a few ways to price it:- A flat fee per post — turn on Pay a flat fee per post to reward a set amount for each qualifying post, with no minimum to hit. Good for simply paying creators to post.
- A threshold — leave the flat fee off to require the post to reach a minimum first: if their post hits a number of views (or likes), reward them a set amount. This rewards posts that actually get traction.
- Pay more for more — turn on Reward extra performance to keep paying as a post grows: for every extra chunk of views or likes, add a bit more, up to a cap you set. A post that keeps performing keeps earning.
How the numbers are checked
So the metrics are trustworthy, affiliates connect and verify the account they’ll post from before they can submit to a social campaign. Referly then reads that specific post’s views or likes from the connected account and keeps them up to date over time — which is what lets a reward grow after approval when you’ve turned on extra performance. If you ever need the latest figures on a submission, you can refresh them (roughly once a day per post).Manual submission
With manual submission, there’s no automatic metric — the affiliate sends you proof and you decide. By default they get an open text field to describe what they did, and you can also require:- At least one image — for a screenshot of the post or its stats.
- At least one link — the URL of the post. You can cap how many links they add and limit them to certain sites (for example, only
x.com).
- Flat rate — a fixed amount paid on approval, the same for every accepted submission.
- Custom amount — you set the exact amount when you approve each submission. You give affiliates a label to show on the campaign card (like Earn up to $100 or Get a free hoodie), and decide the real figure case by case.
Which should you use?
- Use social metrics when you want to reward reach and let performance set the price automatically — pay-per-view style campaigns, or paying for posts that clear a bar.
- Use manual submission when the content lives somewhere you can’t measure automatically, when “proof” is a screenshot or a link, or when you want to judge each entry and set its reward yourself.
Related
Create a campaign
Set up the campaign these criteria belong to.
Review submissions
Approve or reject submissions and set custom amounts.
Content rewards overview
How content rewards work from start to finish.
Social connections
How affiliates connect the accounts social campaigns measure.