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Clara Central

Referral management, open-core

Give your partners a real program — not a spreadsheet

Clara Central is a referral management platform for agencies, consultancies, and SaaS companies. Partners log referrals, track their pipeline, and see exactly what they’ve earned. You stay in control.

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  • Open-core
  • $299one-time license
  • No revenue cuts
The Clara Central admin dashboard: commission earned, paid out, outstanding balance and active partners across the top, then pending applications, total referrals, conversions and conversion rate, with a commission-over-time chart and a referral funnel broken down by pipeline stage below.

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We’ll walk you through setup, pricing, and whether self-hosting or a managed deployment fits you better.

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The problem

Referral programs fail when partners can’t see what’s happening. Most agencies track referrals in email threads and spreadsheets. Commission gets calculated manually. Payouts are delayed. Partners lose interest — and stop referring.

Clara Central fixes this by giving your partners their own portal, and giving you a clear admin view of the whole program.

How it works

Up and running in three steps

Set it up once. Partners log their own referrals, and commission calculates itself from the invoices you record as paid.

  1. Step 1

    Invite your partners

    Send a personal invite link or share your public apply page. Partners complete a short profile and get immediate access to their portal.

    The Invite a partner dialog, which sends an invitation email and generates an onboarding link, over the public Apply to join form where a partner fills in their own details.

  2. Step 2

    Partners log referrals, you track the pipeline

    Partners submit contacts directly from their portal. You move referrals through the pipeline — from first conversation to signed contract — and record invoices as they’re paid.

    A partner’s My Referrals page: their own referral link, totals for referrals, conversions and commission earned, and a table of the contacts they have referred with the status of each.

  3. Step 3

    Commission calculates automatically, payouts go out on your schedule

    Clara Central calculates each partner’s commission based on paid invoices within a configurable earning window. No manual math. Partners see their balance in real time.

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    The admin Partners panel: partner and commission totals, a pending application waiting on Approve or Decline, and one partner’s detail view showing commission earned, paid and still owed.

Features

Everything a referral program needs. Nothing it doesn’t

For your partners

Partners get a portal of their own, so they can see where every referral stands without emailing you to ask.

  • Personal portal with live referral status and commission balance
  • Sign in with a one-time code — no password to manage
  • Submit referrals in under a minute
  • Download co-branded marketing materials
  • Full payout history
A laptop held on someone’s lap in an open-plan office, showing the partner portal’s My Referrals page: the partner’s own referral link, totals for referrals, conversions and commission earned, and a table of the contacts they have referred with the status of each.

For your team

You get the whole program in one view: the pipeline, the rates, the invoices and the payouts, with an audit trail behind each one.

  • Multi-stage referral pipeline (from submitted to paid)
  • Per-partner commission rates
  • Invoice recording and automatic commission calculation
  • Payout processing on a configurable schedule with a full audit trail
  • Marketing asset library for your partners
  • Multi-organization support
A laptop on a desk beside a city window, showing the admin Partners panel: totals for partners, approvals and commission paid, a pending application awaiting a decision, an outstanding invitation, and the partner list with each partner’s rate and commission owed.

Who it’s for

Built for two types of partner programs

Agencies and consultancies

Your past clients and industry contacts know what you do. Clara Central gives them a structured way to refer new business — and a reason to keep doing it. Commission is calculated on the actual invoices you issue, not on clicks or signups.

Clara Central's commission-over-time chart, plotting earned against paid across six months, beside totals for commission earned and paid out.

SaaS companies

Running a partner or affiliate program alongside your product? Clara Central gives your partners a branded portal to log referrals and watch their commission grow as deals close. Flexible rates, clear payout records, and a marketing library.

Clara Central's referral funnel, showing referrals by pipeline status from submitted through to negotiating, beside totals for outstanding balance and total referrals.

Either way, you can click through the whole thing.

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Open-core

Own your platform. Host it yourself or let us run it

Clara Central is open-core. The source code is publicly available — you can inspect it, deploy it, and run it on your own infrastructure. No lock-in.

If you’d rather skip the setup, we handle installation, hosting, and maintenance. You get a fully managed instance without touching a server.

self-hosted

Run it yourself

  • The source is public — read it before you trust it
  • Your infrastructure, your data, no lock-in
  • Free for non-commercial use — $299 to trade on it
git clone https://github.com/DesignKeyStudio/clara-central.git

View on GitHub

managed

Let us run it

  • We deploy, configure, and host it for you
  • Maintenance, upgrades, and support included
  • Extended features the open version doesn’t carry
Contact sales

Pricing

Simple pricing. No per-seat fees. No revenue cuts

Use the code yourself or have us run it for you. Either way, we never take a percentage of your partner payouts.

Commercial license

$299

One-time fee. Best for teams who want to self-host.

  • Full access to the Clara Central codebase
  • Commercial use permitted
  • Deploy to your own server or cloud provider
  • Community support via GitHub
Get the license

Managed deployment

On request

Best for teams who want it done for them.

  • We deploy, configure, and host Clara Central for you
  • Extended features not available in the open-source version
  • Ongoing maintenance and support included
  • Custom setup tailored to your organization
Contact sales

Commercial license is a one-time fee, non-refundable. Managed deployment pricing is provided on request. Prices in USD.

Not sure which option is right for you? Contact us and we’ll help you decide.

Demo

See it before you commit to anything

The Clara Central demo is a live instance pre-loaded with sample partners, referrals, and commission data. Click through the admin panel and the partner portal — no signup required.

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The Clara Central admin dashboard: commission earned $5,720.00, paid out $1,950.00, an outstanding balance of $3,770.00, three active partners and nine referrals, above charts for commission over time and the referral funnel.

FAQ

Common questions

Have a question we didn’t answer? Contact us

What does “open-core” mean?

The Clara Central source code is publicly available on GitHub. You can read it, run it, and deploy it yourself for free for non-commercial use. Commercial use requires a one-time $299 license. If you’d rather not handle the setup yourself, we offer a fully managed deployment — contact sales for pricing. View the source on GitHub

How is commission calculated?

Commission is a percentage of the invoices you issue to referred clients — not clicks, not signups. It accrues on paid invoices issued within a 12-month window from the referral date. Your partners see their running balance in real time.

Can I set different commission rates per partner?

Yes. Each partner has their own rate, which you set and can update at any time.

What happens to commission if a contract ends early?

The commission window closes when the contract ends or after 12 months — whichever comes first. Invoices paid before the window closes count toward commission; invoices after do not.

Do I need a developer to set this up?

Not with managed deployment. We handle everything — installation, configuration, and hosting. If you choose to self-host with the commercial license, you’ll need someone comfortable with server deployment.

Can partners apply to join without being invited?

Yes. You can share a public apply link (shown in your settings page) that lets anyone submit an application. You review and approve each one before they get portal access.

Who builds it

Built by Design Key

Clara Central is developed and maintained by Design Key, a software studio that builds products for agencies, consultancies, and growing businesses. We built Clara Central to solve a problem we kept seeing in the wild — and we use it ourselves.

Questions about Clara Central?

Get in touch

Have questions? We’re happy to help

Whether you’re evaluating Clara Central for your business, need help with a self-hosted setup, or want to talk through which plan fits your team — reach out and we’ll get back to you within one business day.

  • A person replies within one business day
  • No sales sequence, no newsletter — just an answer
  • Happy to talk through self-hosting specifics

Prefer email? Reach us at info@designkey.studio