How much does an affiliate program cost? The four lines, priced

By Jimi Barkway · Published 7 September 2026 · Part of the blog

How much does an affiliate program cost?

In shortFour lines. The software, from $0 to $500 a month, with thirteen of twenty platforms at $49 or less. The commission, which the market sets at about a quarter of each sale for a year. The payout fees, from 0% to 10% of what you pay out on most platforms and 20% past an allowance on one, plus what PayPal or Wise charge. And your hours, most of the applications you read being from partners who never refer anyone. The commission is nine tenths of the bill, and it is the one line you only pay when the program works.

The research method was straightforward. I collected the software prices from the calculator on this site. The commission rates are the reward printed on 358 public program pages. For the payout fees I consulted each platform's page, plus PayPal's and Wise's own fee pages. The hours come from the largest activation dataset in the category. I discovered that founders disagree about the wrong line. The software costs a few dollars a day on the entry plans. The commission is where the money goes, and it arrives there only after a sale.

Three words first. A commission is what you pay a partner when someone they sent you buys. A payout fee is a slice a platform takes out of the money on its way to the partner, on top of the plan. And activation is the share of approved partners who ever send you anyone. Those three are the lines a pricing page never adds up for you.

Line one: what does the software cost?

In shortFrom $0 to $500 a month. At $2,000 a month of affiliate revenue, thirteen of the twenty platforms on the calculator cost $49 or less. refVenue is $25. AffiliateRail founding, Partli and Refgrow are $29. PromoteKit, Ambassly and Endorsely are $39, and Rewardful, FirstPromoter, Komissio and LeadDyno are $49. Trackdesk is $399 and Impact.com $500.

The price increases with the program on the revenue-banded plans. Rewardful is $49 to $7,500 a month of affiliate revenue, then $99. FirstPromoter is $49 to $5,000, then $99. Tolt is $69 to $10,000, then $99. AffiliateRail is $29 to $10,000, then $59. So at $10,000 the same founder pays $29, $69, $99 or $99, depending on the platform. The flat plans have not changed.

A year of a $29 plan is $348. A year of $49 is $588. A year of $99 is $1,188. A year of $500 is $6,000. Those are the numbers founders compare, and they are the smallest line on the bill once the program is working. The cheapest software page ranks all twenty, and the pricing comparison shows where each price increases.

Line two: what does the commission cost?

In shortAbout a quarter of each sale the program generates, for a year. Across 358 public program pages the median commission is 25% and the most common rate is 20%. 203 of the 299 percentage programs pay between 20% and 30%. 164 of 343 pay for 12 months, 76 for the customer's lifetime, 63 once. Rewardful's report on 250 of its programs identified the same centre among its programs above $1 million a year.

Let's say you sell a $50-a-month plan. At 25% a partner receives $12.50 a month per customer they deliver. Over a 12-month reward that is $150. Over a lifetime reward for a customer who remains three years, $450. At 20% the figures are $10 and $120. At 30%, $15 and $180. The article on what programs pay has the entire dataset.

The thing to remember is that this line is a percentage of additional revenue. At 25% and $10,000 a month of affiliate revenue, the commission is $2,500. You did not have the $10,000 before the program existed. The commission is the only line on this page you pay after the money arrives, and it is also the largest. The commission module of the manual sets the rate against your margin.

Line three: what do the payout fees cost?

In shortTwo fees, one from the platform and one from PayPal or Wise. Platform cuts on $2,500 of monthly payouts: Tolt $58 by bank, Reditus $50, Rewardful $75, Dub $125, PartnerStack $250. Twelve of the twenty platforms publish no cut. PayPal charges 2% capped at $1 per US payment the standard way, or a flat $0.25 via its API. Wise charges from 0.24%.

The platform cut first. A platform that charges 3% retains $75 of the $2,500 you pay your partners monthly. One that charges 10% retains $250. One that charges 0% retains nothing. Twelve of the twenty publish no cut, thirteen including Tapfiliate. The flat-fee page lists every published cut beside the plan it sits on.

Then PayPal or Wise. PayPal's own page: "2% of total transaction amount (not to exceed the maximum fee cap below)". The cap is 1.00 USD for a US recipient and 20.00 USD for an international one, or a flat 0.25 USD per US payment via the Payouts API. So thirty US partners paid $83 each cost $30 the standard way or $7.50 via the API. Thirty partners abroad cost approximately $50, because 2% of $83 is $1.66 and the $20 cap never applies. Wise's page: "Sending money. Fee varies by currency. From 0.24%", which is $6 on $2,500. The PayPal payouts article describes every route.

Line four: what do the hours cost?

In shortMostly time devoted to partners who never refer anyone. In the median program, 15 of 100 approved partners ever refer a single person, and 6.4% deliver a paying customer. So approving a hundred partners means reviewing a hundred applications to discover six buyers' worth of partners. Half of the partners who ever refer do it within seven days of joining, three quarters by day 49.

No dataset on this site measures merchant hours. So this line has a method rather than a figure. Count three things monthly. Applications reviewed, because the activation data indicates the majority will never refer anyone. Payout runs made, because a file you upload is an hour and a scheduled run is none. And questions answered, because a partner with no dashboard asks you instead. Dub's payouts page claims its one-click route is "saving you upwards of 40+ hours a month". That is a vendor's estimate of its own feature, quoted as that.

The activation data determines the shape of the work. The middle half of programs sit between 6% and 28% activation. So the hours are concentrated in the first week after a partner joins. That is when half of the partners who ever refer will have started, and three quarters have by day 49. The activation article has the entire dataset, and module 3 of the manual converts it into a first-month plan.

What does the whole bill look like?

In shortConsider a program generating $10,000 a month at 25% with 30 US partners. It pays $49 of software and $2,500 of commission, then $75 or $0 of platform fee and $30 or $7.50 of PayPal fee. That is $2,654 a month on a 3% platform paying the standard way, or $2,556.50 on a 0% platform paying via the API. The commission is 94% of the first and 98% of the second.

So the argument about software is really an argument about the final 6%. Between the two columns the software and fees are $154 or $56.50 a month, and a year of that difference is $1,170. That is genuine money to a bootstrapped founder. It is also about 4% of what the program pays partners in the same year, and the partners are the ones who delivered the $120,000.

For example, imagine you are deciding between a $49 platform that charges 3% and a $29 platform that charges nothing. At $10,000 a month the difference is $97.50 a month on fees and $20 on the plan. Now imagine the program doubles. The commission doubles with it, to $5,000, and so does the 3%, to $150. The $29 does not change until $10,000, and the $49 became $99 at $7,500. Now imagine it stalls at $2,000. Every line shrinks except the software. That is why the entry price matters most to a program that has not started.

A word on this site's own product, with its trade-offs. AffiliateRail is $29 a month founding to $10,000 of monthly affiliate revenue, and charges 0% of every payout. From the $59 plan it pays partners from your own PayPal or Wise on a schedule, so PayPal's or Wise's fee is the only fee. Its day-one commission flow is 20% with a 14-day hold, below the dataset's 25% and 30 days. It has no marketplace to recruit partners from, so the hours line is yours either way.

Every figure on this page was read off the linked sources on the dates beside them. Prices, rates and fees change. Run the calculator with your own numbers before you decide.

Common questions