About
I built AffiliateRail, and my name is on every page of this site. I have run affiliate programs from both sides of the link. As the affiliate collecting the commission, and as the founder approving partners and paying them.
The short version
I'm Jimi Barkway, the founder of AffiliateRail: affiliate program software for SaaS founders. I spent years on the other side of it. As an affiliate, an email marketer and a paid-ads operator. The one decision I made before writing anything else: AffiliateRail would never hold your money. You connect your own PayPal or Wise account. The payout goes from you to your affiliate. AffiliateRail is built in the UK, and support@affiliaterail.com reaches me.
01 Both sides
I earned from other people's programs before I ran one. Mostly through email and paid ads. That side teaches you specific things. Waiting on a payout with no idea when it will land. A dashboard that shows a number going up and never why. A link you published two years ago that quietly stops crediting you. The merchant changed software.
02 What it taught me
Every one of those is a decision inside AffiliateRail now. Payout dates an affiliate can see. A commission trace that says what happened and when. And a tracking script that reads the referral parameters other affiliate tools use. Old links keep working after a switch.
Three decisions
Because waiting with no date is the hardest part.
What happened, and when, on every line.
The script reads the referral parameters other tools use.
03 The other problem
Then I ran a program from the merchant's side and met the other problem. The software took a percentage of commissions it had nothing to do with earning. It held the money on its way past. I got tired of paying that cut to software that never earned it. I could not find a tool that took none.
The merchant's side
A percentage of every commission, for software.
Your affiliates' money, in someone else's account.
So I built one.
04 The decision
AffiliateRail never touches the money. You connect your own PayPal or Wise account. It works out who is owed what, and it tells your PayPal or Wise account to pay, with your credentials. The payout leaves your account and arrives in your affiliate's. There is no cut to take, so none is taken. And it cannot lose your payout money, because it never has it.
The name comes from there. A payment rail is the trade's word for the track money runs along. This product is the rail your affiliate payouts run on. Everywhere else on this site I say payout method, the plain word.
05 The product
Affiliate program software for SaaS founders. It tracks referrals through Stripe or Paddle. It works out every commission with the rule that made it. It pays your affiliates from your own PayPal or Wise account on a schedule. It takes 0% of every payout, because the money never passes through it.
Unlimited affiliates on every plan. A portal on your domain in thirteen languages. An API and an MCP server. New accounts arrive with sample data. The dashboard teaches itself before your first affiliate joins.
06 The pages
I do. The comparison pages, the nine modules of the manual, and this one.
Where a page states a number about another product, that number was read off the other company's own published page. The date it was checked is printed next to it. Prices change. When they do, our page is wrong until someone fixes it. So corrections go to support@affiliaterail.com, get made, and move the date.
You do not have to take my word for it. AffiliateRail on Toolradar is an independent directory listing. It carries their own summary of the price and who the product suits.
The rules every page follows
A number about another product comes from that company's published page.
Next to the number. Corrections move it.
A comparison that cannot say so is an advert with a table in it.
07 Not an adviser
An accountant or a lawyer. The manual says so out loud wherever tax or law comes up. It tells you whose job that call is.
This matters more here than at most software companies. Non-custodial means you are the payer of record for your affiliates. Module 3 explains the shape of it and names the thresholds with their dates. It stops exactly where an adviser should start. A vendor who answers that question for you is a vendor guessing with your tax return.
Where the manual stops
A real obligation, with real forms attached.
Module 3 names them and the day each was checked.
Exactly where an adviser should start.
08 Reach me
support@affiliaterail.com. Put "for the founder" in the subject and it comes to me.
Hard questions are the welcome kind, including the ones about what AffiliateRail does not do yet. I would rather answer one of those now than have you find out three weeks into a trial.
Two things to know
And it comes to me.
Especially about what AffiliateRail does not do yet.
Questions
Jimi Barkway, a former affiliate and email marketer. He has run affiliate programs from both sides of the link. AffiliateRail is built in the UK, and he answers support@affiliaterail.com himself.
No. AffiliateRail is non-custodial. The merchant connects their own PayPal or Wise account. The money moves from that account to the affiliate's. AffiliateRail takes 0% of it.
Jimi Barkway writes them and his name is on each one. Every claim about another product comes from that company's own published pages. The date it was checked is printed beside it.
Email support@affiliaterail.com with the page and the figure you think is wrong. Corrections get made and the checked-on date moves. Every figure on this site carries the date it was last verified.
Where the actual work is
Nine modules, open and ungated. The one about when to stop paying attention to your program is module 8. The trial is 14 days, no card. You have 30 days to ask for your first payment back.