Affiliate program

Published: 2026-09-12 · Last reviewed: 2026-09-12 · Reading edit: 2026-09-12

A relevant publisher wants to recommend your product and earn a commission. Before agreeing a percentage, work out which purchase qualifies, what happens after a refund, and how the reader will understand the relationship. Clear terms make a small affiliate program easier to run fairly.

Define what earns payment

Choose a clear event such as an eligible paid purchase after a validation period. Do not begin with a commission percentage before defining refunds, duplicate referrals, existing opportunities, self-referrals, and prohibited promotion methods.

Build the controls

1. Work out what each sale leaves after direct costs. Include revenue actually collected, variable service cost, commission, refunds, payment fees, and program support. Subscription revenue should not be treated as lifetime cash already received.
2. Specify eligibility and attribution. Define approved affiliates, qualifying customers, attribution window, conflict resolution, and payout timing. Explain where tracking can fail and how disputes are reviewed.
3. Set promotion rules. Cover truthful claims, brand use, paid search restrictions if any, disclosure, privacy, and prohibited spam or impersonation. Make examples understandable to a publisher.
4. Provide usable materials. Offer accurate product explanations, current pricing links, disclosure guidance, and supported use cases. Affiliates need limitations as well as benefits.
5. Validate transactions before payout. Check duplicates, cancellations, fraud indicators, and applicable withholding or payment requirements with the responsible team. Apply published terms consistently.
6. Review affiliate quality. Assess retained customer value, complaints, misleading content, and support burden alongside attributed revenue. Remove or remediate partners who repeatedly violate the agreement.

Worked example

A hypothetical product receives $1,000 from an eligible purchase. Variable delivery cost is $200 and the agreed commission is $150. The remaining $650 is contribution before payment fees, program overhead, taxes, and other excluded costs; it is not net profit.

If the purchase is refunded within the agreed validation period, the payout follows the published reversal rule. The operator does not improvise new terms after seeing the transaction.

Program terms worksheet

Term	Decision
Eligible affiliate and customer
Commission event and validation period
Attribution/conflict rules
Refunds, fraud, and payout process
Required disclosures and prohibited methods
Review owner and appeal route

Launch narrowly

Start with a few relevant publishers and manually inspect their content and transactions. Clear material-connection disclosure is important in US endorsement guidance; local requirements and platform policies also apply. A tracking link alone does not explain the commercial relationship to a reader.

Try it with your own work

Calculate the money left from one eligible purchase after delivery cost and the proposed commission. Write the payout event and refund rule beside the calculation.

Sources and scope

• FTC: endorsement questions and answers covers US endorsement and affiliate-disclosure guidance; the economics are illustrative.

The example is fictional; any numbers illustrate the method rather than a benchmark. Adapt the worksheet to your own situation.

What to read next

Partner marketing · Referral program

Chapter guide · All playbooks

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