Affiliate commission types: percentage, fixed, recurring and more

Two programs both say "30%". One pays 30% of a single $20 order. The other pays 30% of a $20 monthly subscription for as long as the customer stays. Same headline, very different money.

The rate is only half of the commission. The other half is what the rate applies to and how often. This guide covers each type you will meet, then a simple way to put them side by side.

Percentage of the sale

The most common type in retail and many digital products: you earn a percentage of the order value. Your income scales with the order size, so it pays best on expensive products and on stores where people buy several things at once.

Watch what the percentage applies to. Many programs calculate it on the order value after discounts, and excluding tax, shipping and gift cards. Some pay different rates on different product categories, so a store's headline rate may only apply to part of the catalogue.

Fixed amount per sale

A flat amount per qualifying sale, whatever the order size. Common for subscriptions, financial products and services with a set price. It makes earnings predictable, and it is often generous when the company values the customer far more than the first payment. Banks, brokers and card issuers often pay this way, per approved or funded account, and the highest paying finance affiliate programs covers what has to happen before that amount is yours.

Check what "a sale" means. It might be the first payment, a paid plan after a free trial, or a customer who stays past a minimum period.

Per lead or per action

You are paid when a reader completes an action short of buying: signing up for a trial, requesting a quote, booking a demo, installing an app. These amounts are usually smaller than per-sale commissions, but more of your readers will qualify.

Lead programs tend to have the strictest quality rules. Expect leads to be reviewed and rejected if they are duplicates, fake or outside the target market. Lead payouts are common in business software, where a sale can take weeks of trials and demos, and our guide to the highest paying B2B affiliate programs shows how to weigh them against a percentage of the sale.

Recurring commission

Common in software and other subscriptions: you earn a share of each payment the customer makes, for a set number of months or for as long as they stay. A recurring commission keeps paying after you stop promoting, which is why it builds income over time in a way one-off commissions do not. Email platforms, SEO tools and social schedulers are typical examples, and our guide to the highest paying marketing tool affiliate programs looks at how free plans and upgrades change what those recurring shares are worth.

Two details decide what it is worth: how long it recurs (12 months is very different from "lifetime"), and whether it continues if the customer upgrades, downgrades or switches to annual billing.

Tiered and performance-based rates

The rate rises once you pass a volume threshold, for example a higher percentage after a set number of sales in a month. Useful if you send steady volume. Read whether the higher rate applies to all sales that month or only to the sales above the threshold, because that changes the maths a lot.

Two-tier commissions

You earn on the sales of affiliates you recruit to the program, as well as on your own. It is a legitimate model on some networks and software programs. It is also the structure most often stretched into schemes that pay mainly for recruitment rather than for selling a product. If a program's earnings come mostly from signing up other people, treat that as a warning.

How to compare commission types

Compare by what a click is likely to earn, not by the headline rate. A rough version is:

earnings per click = conversion rate × commission per conversion

where the commission per conversion is the rate times the average order value, or the fixed amount, or for recurring commissions the monthly share times the number of months a customer typically stays.

An illustration with made-up numbers: program A pays 40% on a $10 one-off product, so $4 per sale. Program B pays 20% of a $15 monthly plan for 12 months, so up to $36 per customer, but only if customers stay the whole year. If half of B's customers leave after three months, the average drops to about $22. Either way, B beats A per sale. Whether it beats A per click depends on how many readers actually buy.

You rarely know the conversion rate before you start, but you can know the commission, the cookie window and the payout terms before you apply. Compare those first.

Is a recurring commission always better than a one-time one?

Not always. A recurring commission pays as long as the customer keeps paying, so its value depends on how long customers stay. A one-time commission on a product with high churn can pay more up front than a small recurring share ever adds up to. Compare both over the period the customer is likely to stay.

Finding programs by commission type

Every program listing here shows the commission we read from the company's own terms page, with a link to it, and whether it is a percentage, a fixed amount or recurring where the page says so. Browse by category to compare programs that sell to the same readers. To see these comparisons applied to one niche, read our guide to the highest paying education affiliate programs, where refunds and course discounts change the maths. For the full picture of how a commission gets from a click to your bank account, see how affiliate programs work. If you run a program and are deciding what to pay, read how to set an affiliate commission rate.