Trust
Most affiliate tools move your payout money through their own account first. AffiliateRail never touches it. Here is who holds the money on each platform, with a source for every number.
In plain English
On most platforms, your money stops at the platform on its way to your affiliates. That stop is where the fees live, and the delays. AffiliateRail sends payouts from your own PayPal or Wise account, using your own login. Your money never passes through us. We take 0% of every payout, and that is not a price. It is how the software is built.
01 The question
Your affiliates earn commissions. Someone has to move that money from your account to theirs. Every platform offers to help. Almost none of them say who holds the money in between.
It matters. Whoever holds the money can take a cut of it. They decide when it arrives. And when something goes wrong, your affiliates depend on them.
02 Custodial
Custodial means the platform holds your money on the way. It adds up what you owe, sends you an invoice, takes your payment, then pays your affiliates from its own side. For the days in between, it is holding their earnings. You have paid. They have not been paid.
Moving other people's money is regulated work, so platforms charge for it. It also puts a second company between you and the people you owe.
The other option most vendors give you is a file. Export a CSV, upload it to PayPal yourself, and the platform's job ends at the spreadsheet.
What the category does
Checked on 8 September 2026 against each platform's own pages. Every claim links to its source.
| Platform | Who holds the money | What the transit costs |
|---|---|---|
| Tolt | Tolt, on auto payouts. You pay a Tolt invoice, then Tolt pays your partners (help centre). | 2% on auto payouts (pricing page), plus $8 per invoice by bank transfer or 4% by card (help centre). |
| Rewardful | Rewardful, on Managed Payouts. You pay Rewardful once; affiliates withdraw from their Rewardful dashboard (help centre). | A flat 3% on each payout, paid by you. Affiliates may pay withdrawal fees on top (same source). |
| Affonso | Affonso, on Managed Payouts (Growth and Elite). You pay a monthly invoice on NET 7; payouts start after it clears (help centre). | $25 per invoice (waived on Elite), $0.50 per affiliate over 25, plus 3.25% via Stripe or 2.8% via Revolut (same source). |
| Partnero | Partnero, on Managed payouts. You pay one consolidated invoice, then Partnero pays your partners (pricing page). | 7% of every payout, the highest rate here. The figure is in one FAQ answer on the pricing page and nowhere in the product (same source). |
| Tapfiliate | Nobody. You settle balances, get a payout file, and run it through PayPal yourself, or through a separate Trolley account (help centre). | No platform cut. Its job ends at the file. |
| AffiliateRail Nobody in the middle | Nobody, and it still runs itself. Payouts go from your own PayPal, Wise or Payoneer account, on your schedule. | 0% of every payout. PayPal's or Wise's own transfer fees still apply. They are their fees, not ours. |
Send $8,000 to 40 partners in a month. Here is what each platform charges to move it, from their own published terms:
Partnero
$560
7% of $8,000.
Affonso
$292.50
$25 fee, $7.50 for the 15 affiliates over 25, and $260 of Stripe surcharge.
Rewardful
$240
3% of $8,000.
AffiliateRail
$0
This month and every month.
Tolt is the cheapest of the four that hold it, at $168: 2% of the $8,000 plus its $8 invoice fee by bank transfer.
So the category splits in two. One side holds your money and charges for it. The other hands you a file. AffiliateRail is the third thing: payouts that run on a schedule, with nobody in the middle.
03 How it works here
You connect your own PayPal Business or Wise Business account. It stays yours, and the details are encrypted per program. We work out who is owed what, wait out your holding period, and batch what is due on your NET terms. Then we tell your account to pay.
The money never touches an AffiliateRail account. There isn't one. So there is nothing to take a cut of, nothing to delay, and nothing to lose. It is how the software is built, and no pricing page can change it.
Three consequences
Three things follow, and you can check each one.
Built in
0% is structural
A platform that holds money can raise the number. One that never touches it cannot charge a cut, on any plan, ever.
Payer of record
Your affiliates are paid by you
From an account with your name on it. That is what their bank statement and tax records show. No middleman account, no identity check with us.
Nothing in custody
No pot of other people’s money
Nothing to freeze, lose or mismanage. Most of the harm an affiliate platform can do is to money it holds. We hold none. The security page has the detail.
04 Agents
More of this work is done by AI agents now. You connect one to the MCP server by signing in and pressing Allow, with no key to paste. An agent is only as safe as the most harmful thing its access allows. A connected agent cannot move money, because we hold none. There is no balance to drain and no transfer for a confused agent to trigger.
Payouts run only through your own PayPal or Wise details, which stay encrypted and are never given to a model. The MCP docs list what an agent can and cannot do, tool by tool. If you use Claude, the AffiliateRail skill teaches it the program side.
05 Webhooks
Every webhook we send is signed and timestamped, in the Rail-Signature header. You can check it came from us and is not a replay. Old deliveries fail the check. Secrets rotate with a grace window, so rotating one never causes an outage. The check is one line in most languages, in the docs.
06 The other side
Honesty cuts both ways. Non-custodial does not mean free. PayPal and Wise charge their own transfer fees, and those are yours, the same as paying by hand. You are still the payer of record, so tax forms and payout records are built around you. And your account needs money in it before a run starts.
What goes away: the middleman, their cut, and the days your affiliates wait on a company they never chose. On Tolt, FirstPromoter or Affonso today? The switch guides cover what carries over.
Still yours
PayPal’s and Wise’s own charges, same as paying by hand.
The forms and records are built around you.
Money in your account before a run starts.
07 The regulators
Three regulators draw the same line. It runs between software that holds money and software that does not.
The UK's FCA handbook leaves out a payment made “through a commercial agent” acting for the payer or the payee. The EU's payment services directive excludes an agent “only if they do not, at any time enter into possession or control of client funds”. In the US, FinCEN ruled in 2003 that passing a merchant's payment instructions to a bank “more closely resembles payment processing/settlement than money transmission”.
So the test is one question: does the money ever sit with the software? Ours never does. General information, not legal advice. Checked 6 September 2026.
Three documents
The commercial agent exclusion, UK.
Excluded only if never in possession of client funds, EU.
Payment processing is not money transmission, US.
Questions
No. You connect your own PayPal or Wise account. We work out who is owed what and tell your account to pay. The money goes from you to your affiliate. There is no AffiliateRail account for it to touch.
Our share of every payout is nothing, and no pricing page can change that. A platform that holds money can raise the number. One that never touches it cannot charge a cut.
Yes. PayPal and Wise charge their own fees, the same as if you paid by hand. What goes away is the middleman and the middleman's cut.
You are. Your affiliates are paid from an account with your name on it. Their bank statement and their tax records say so, and our tax forms are built around you as the payer.
The regulators' own tests say the line is possession. The FCA excludes a commercial agent acting for one side; the EU directive excludes an agent only if it never holds client funds; FinCEN treats passing a merchant's payment instructions to a bank as processing, not money transmission. We never hold the money. That is general information, not legal advice.
No. You connect an agent by signing in and pressing Allow. It can read your program and make the changes you approve. It cannot pay anyone, because we hold no money. Payouts run only through your own PayPal or Wise details, which are never given to a model.
Product names and logos belong to their owners. Facts checked 8 September 2026. If a source has changed since, email support@affiliaterail.com and we will fix it.
At your volume
Every platform’s published fees, on the revenue you type in. The trial is 14 days, no card, and your first payment is refundable for 30 days.