BrandChamp vs Club: Which ambassador platform fits your program?
How BrandChamp and Club (formerly Brandbassador) compare on who owns the ambassador relationship, and what each platform costs as a program scales in 2027.
Taken from referral sales, at any volume
Sharing your audience with other brands
Portal with no third-party app to download
Club’s similarities to BrandChamp?
Club and BrandChamp handle much of the same daily work. Brands recruit ambassadors, publish missions, track discount codes and referral links against online sales, move members through tiers, and drive communications when new work goes live. Both also help brands get set up and launched. The real difference is in how much control brands have over their destiny on each platform.
Club runs as a marketplace app with brand programs inside it. Members can browse brands, get direct invites, and join multiple programs from one hub. This makes recruiting fast, but it also means participants see your brand next to others in a Club-branded app, receive Club emails about other programs, and manage everything for your program in the same place where they manage every other program. Because program rewards all resolve to cash value and every Club program brings a similar, templated experience, it becomes very difficult to differentiate on Club and maintain ambassador attention. With an 8% fee taken from referral sales and a 4.79% fee taken from rewards, control over costs can become tricky as a program grows.
On BrandChamp, the brand stays in control. Participants join a private portal that carries only your brand's name, branding, and experience. Every notification and email comes branded and other brands on the platform have no way to reach your members. Your program is the only one participants manage, so your missions and updates never compete with anyone else's. Brands can reward with points, custom rewards, gifts, recognition, and status alongside cash. Brands have the ability to customize the shape of their experience for each audience. The platform is offered at a fixed price with no variable fees on referral sales or non-cash rewards.
The deciding question is whether a brand wants access to Club's audience or compound value with full ownership of its own community.
Club comparison at a glance
Missions, codes, and tiers work on both. The rows below focus on what the brand controls and what it pays, including the places Club comes out ahead.
Program scope
- Built for ecommerce brands, with conversions tied to an online checkout.
- Built for any community a brand runs, from customers and creators to employees, practitioners, partners, and volunteers.
Participant app
- The Club app on iOS and Android. Sign-in, notifications, and email carry Club's name across all programs a participant joins.
- Portal and mobile experience carrying the brand's name, with branded push notifications and email.
Community model
- Shared. One account spans every brand a member joins and the app promotes programs they haven't joined yet with open discovery.
- Closed to other brands. Participants exist only inside the brand's own program.
Recruiting
- Brand channels plus Club's member marketplace, where creators browse and join programs on their own.
- Brand-owned channels such as customers, email, and social. For recruiting outside creators, we recommend our partner Crewfire.
Day-to-day management
- Higher plans add Club staff who run the program inside the brand's account.
- Run by the brand, with optional program management services on flexible quarterly terms.
Personalization
- Missions are built from templates and published to the community, grouped by club type and level.
- Onboarding, activities, rewards, and messaging can differ for each audience or program.
Rewards
- Cash commissions, gift cards, product, and boosters, all held as cash value in one cross-brand wallet for all programs.
- Points, cash in multiple currencies, gifts, tiered perks, milestone-based gifts, recognition, and a brand-curated catalog.
Payouts
- Club pays out from a wallet the brand funds and keeps above a minimum balance.
- Pay manually at no cost or automate with optional on-demand payouts. No balance to prefund.
Referral tracking
- Discount codes and tracking links credited to online ecommerce orders.
- Codes and links, plus in-store sales, subscription renewals, software installs, and B2B leads tracked in stages.
Pricing model
- Platform price plus 8% of referral sales and 4.79% of cash-equivalent rewards.
- One fixed platform price, unaffected by referral volume or rewards issued.
When to choose BrandChamp
BrandChamp makes sense once the community is an asset the brand wants to keep for itself.
If none of these apply, a marketplace-led platform like Club may be the quicker way to start.
When to choose Club
Club's model trades some ownership for speed and hands-off management, which can be the right call for a brand starting from scratch.
Club may suit you better if:
How each platform is priced
Starting price
- $1,500 / month if paid annually.
- $433.33 / month if paid annually.
Price of full capabilities
- $1,500 / month if paid annually.
- $1,250 / month if paid annually.
What the pricing is based on
- Support level or managed service hours.
- Features included and the number of member seats.
Seat limits & activity limits
- Unlimited ambassadors and missions on every plan.
- 350 seats on the first plan and more available on-demand without the need to upgrade. No limits on missions.
Referral fees
- 8% of sales ambassadors drive through Club.
- None, at any referral volume.
Reward fees
- 4.79% of rewards issued.
- None on non-cash rewards. Manual cash payouts are free.
Wallet funding
- Club wallet that brands must fund with a minimum balance.
- Not required.
Programs running at scale
“If you’re building for the future and the long term in business, BrandChamp is an essential piece of the puzzle for building your community.”
James Greenwell
Co-Founder, U Perform
Learn how sports nutrition brand U Perform transformed its ambassador program with BrandChamp—streamlining recruitment, automating rewards, and growing from a founder-led network to a scalable, revenue-generating community.
“When we first made the switch to BrandChamp, my department was doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue. Now, I’m seeing millions of dollars in annual revenue.”
Miles Putney
Senior Director of Sponsorship, Legion Athletics
What’s Legion Athletics’ recipe for success? One ingredient is BrandChamp’s ambassador management software.
What moving a program involves
Leaving Club means moving your ambassadors out of a shared app and into a program where yours is the only brand they see.
Kick-Off & Configure
BrandChamp will train your team, align around the vision, set a launch date, and work to integrate your team’s operations into BrandChamp. We’ll help configure the platform to your needs and get a head start on any IT, web, or design-related action items.
Strategize & Setup
If you have a strategy, we can help you implement the vision. If you need help, our team can help put together a program strategy based on how you want it to run. From there, we’ll help build it in the platform so we can review it together.
Migrate & Launch
Import your ambassadors, referral codes, and any earned points or commission balances along with any segmentation data to ensure everyone gets the experiences most relevant to them. After testing the experience as a member, we’ll invite everyone to register, launch the program, and close out the previous platform.
Three questions to ask any vendor:
Yes. Brandbassador rebranded as Club. The platform and its ambassador app now run under the Club name. Brands researching either name are evaluating the same product.
Your own audience in most cases. BrandChamp programs typically fill from customers, email subscribers, social followers, package inserts, and point of sale, using a branded application that can sit on your site, in emails, or on social profiles. If you need creators from outside that audience, BrandChamp’s partner Crewfire offers a creator discovery marketplace with integrations with social for direct messaging within the platform. For a brand with no audience at all, Club's member base is the quicker route.
They can discover other brands. Club members use one account across every program they join, can look up and join new programs in the app, and receive Club emails promoting other brands. On BrandChamp, participants exist only inside your program, and no other company on the platform can find, message, or recruit them.
On BrandChamp, the platform bill stays the same. We charge no fees on referrals, non-cash rewards, and activity levels, so only participant seats or feature access move the price. On Club, the 8% referral fee and 4.79% reward fee are calculated on what the program produces, so a strong season raises the invoice along with the results.
Yes. Program management is available as an optional add-on sold in quarterly commitments, so extra help can be added for a busy season and dropped afterward. Our team can take on the boring day-to-day program work, while payments, reward fulfillment, and budget decisions stay with the brand. Brands that want a vendor to run every part of the program will find Club's plans are better built for that type of experience.
Yes. Good-fit brands can start with a 90-day pilot to confirm BrandChamp suits the program before signing an annual plan. We set up the program around your goals, train your team, help with launch, and stay involved as participation builds. Starting a few months ahead of your Club renewal leaves time to compare results first.
