How affiliate programs work, from click to payout

Every affiliate program runs the same machine. A two-person software company and a retailer on five networks both track a click, decide whether a sale belongs to you, hold the money for a while, then pay it out. What differs is the terms, and the terms are where most of your income is won or lost.

This guide walks through the machine one step at a time, then shows which terms matter at each step.

The five steps

1. You join. You apply to the program, either on the company's own site or through an affiliate network. Most programs review applications. They want to know where you will promote them, because a coupon site, a review blog and a paid-search buyer bring very different customers.

2. A reader clicks your link. Once approved, you get a tracking link with your affiliate ID in it. When someone clicks it, they land on the company's site and the program records the click.

3. The program remembers the click. Usually with a cookie in the reader's browser, sometimes with a server-to-server record that does not depend on the browser at all. How long that memory lasts is the cookie window.

4. The reader converts, and the sale is attributed. If the reader buys (or signs up, or books a demo, depending on what the program pays for) inside the window, the program credits the sale to whoever it decides referred it. The usual rule is last click: the most recent affiliate link the reader clicked gets the credit.

5. The commission is approved, then paid. The commission sits as pending until any refund period has passed, then it is approved, then it is paid on the program's schedule once you clear its minimum. Those rules are the payout terms.

That is the whole machine. Everything else is detail on one of those five steps.

In-house programs and affiliate networks

A company can run its program itself, with its own tracking software and its own payouts, or it can join an affiliate network that does the tracking, reporting and paying for it. Plenty of companies do both, sometimes with different terms on each.

For you, the difference shows up in three places:

• Where you apply. An in-house program has its own sign-up page. A network program means joining the network first, then applying to the company inside it.
• Who pays you. A network pays you for every program you run through it in one payment, which helps you clear minimums faster. An in-house program pays you on its own.
• Whose terms apply. The commission is set by the company, but the payment schedule and minimum often belong to the network.

That last point is why the same company can show different terms in different places. Our network pages list which companies run on which network, and a company listing shows each network's terms side by side.

The terms that decide what you earn

Three sets of terms do most of the work:

• The commission. A percentage of the sale, a fixed amount per sale or lead, or a recurring share of a subscription. These behave very differently over time, and a lower headline rate can pay more. Commission types covers how to compare them.
• The cookie window. How long after the click a purchase still counts. A short window on a product people think about for weeks quietly costs you most of the sales you influenced.
• The payout terms. When approved commissions are paid, how, and above what minimum. A high rate with a high minimum and slow payments can leave your money with the company for months.

What can go wrong between the click and the payout

Most lost commissions are not fraud or bad faith. They come from the rules working as written:

• Another affiliate gets the last click. Under last-click attribution, a reader who clicks your review and then a coupon site's link before buying credits the coupon site.
• The cookie never gets set or does not survive. Ad blockers, private browsing, and browser tracking protections in Safari and Firefox can stop a cookie from being set or shorten how long it lasts. Programs with server-to-server tracking lose fewer sales this way.
• The reader switches device. A click on a phone followed by a purchase on a laptop is invisible to cookie tracking unless the reader is logged in.
• The sale is reversed. Refunds, cancelled orders, chargebacks and orders that break the program's rules (self-referrals, trademark bidding, coupon misuse) are deducted before approval.
• The program changes or closes. Commission rates and windows change, and programs shut down. A link to a closed program earns nothing while still sending readers away.

How to compare programs before you join

Before applying, check five things on the program's own terms page, not on a list that copied them:

1. What exactly is paid for: a sale, a first payment, a lead, a trial?
2. The commission, and whether it recurs.
3. The cookie window, and whether it is first click or last click.
4. The payout schedule, methods and minimum.
5. What gets a commission reversed, and what promotion is forbidden.

That is the reason this directory exists. Every program listing here shows the commission, cookie window and payout terms we could read from the company's own page, with a link to the exact page each figure came from, and you can browse them by category. Where a company has claimed its listing and corrected it, its own figures win.

Do you need a website to join an affiliate program?

Not always. Many programs accept newsletters, YouTube channels, podcasts or social accounts, but most ask where you will promote them and review that before approving you. A few only accept websites, and some exclude coupon or cashback sites outright, so read the program's terms before applying.

Who pays the affiliate, the company or the network?

Whoever runs the program. An in-house program pays you directly. A program on a network is paid by the network, which collects from the company and pays you across every program you run with it in one transfer.

Where to go next

Start with the term that most often surprises people, the cookie window. Then read up on commission types and payout terms before you compare your first shortlist.