Affiliates

An affiliate is someone you pay to send you new customers. A blogger. A local club. A shop you work with. Each one gets a code of their own. When a new customer buys with that code, the affiliate earns a commission. A commission is the cut you agreed to pay them.

Your website keeps the count. You pay the affiliate yourself, your own way. Then you mark it paid here.

This is not the same as referrals. A referral is one of your customers telling a friend. Every customer gets a referral code on their own. An affiliate is someone you pick and add by hand. Referrals are on Customers, credits and referrals.

Where it lives

Go to Plugins, then Commerce. Click the Settings tab, then Referrals & affiliates.

The page has three parts, top to bottom:

1. A card headed Referrals and affiliates. It holds the settings.
2. The list of your affiliates, with a New affiliate button.
3. The Payout report.

Set the hold first

A commission is not owed the moment someone buys. It waits a set number of days first, in case the order is refunded. That wait is the hold.

1. Find Affiliate commissions: hold (days) in the top card.
2. Type the number of days. It starts at 30.
3. Click Save under the card.

“Unsaved changes” shows beside the buttons until you save. Cancel puts back what was there.

Type 0 and a commission is owed as soon as the order is paid.

Adding an affiliate

1. Click New affiliate.
2. Type their Name.
3. Type their Email. This links them to their own account page on your website.
4. Type a Code, such as MAPLE10.
5. Pick a Commission: Percent of the goods or Flat amount per order.
6. Type the Percent, or the Amount per order.
7. Pick a Buyer’s discount, or leave it on None.
8. Leave Status on Active.
9. Write a Payout note, such as PayPal: name@example.com.
10. Click Save.

A message names the affiliate and says they are saved. Their commissions show under the form from now on.

← Back to affiliates takes you back to the list.

The code

A code is 4 to 20 letters and numbers. Spaces and dashes are left out.

Each code must be its own. It cannot match one of your discount codes, a customer’s referral code, or another affiliate’s code. The form tells you if it does.

Each email address can have one affiliate code.

The commission

Percent of the goods pays a share of what the buyer paid for the things they bought. It counts after any discount. It leaves out tax and shipping.

Say an affiliate gets 10%. A new customer buys $60 of candles, plus $8 shipping and $4 tax. The affiliate earns $6.

Flat amount per order pays the same each time, such as $5.

An order that paid for no goods at all earns nothing. That can happen when a code takes 100% off, and the buyer pays only for shipping.

The buyer’s discount

The affiliate’s code can also save the buyer money. Pick a code from Buyer’s discount. The list holds the codes you made on the Discounts tab. See Commerce settings.

That discount code keeps its own rules: its dates, its minimum spend and its use limit.

With None, the buyer can still type the code. Checkout says “Code recorded: it has no discount, so the price is unchanged.” The affiliate still gets the credit.

The payout note

A line to remind you how you pay this person. “PayPal: name@example.com” or “Check, mailed each month”.

Never type a bank or card number here. The form turns away a long run of digits.

Sharing the code

Send the affiliate their code and their share link. The share link is your web address, then /shop?ref_code=, then the code.

They can also copy the link from their own account page. See What the affiliate sees.

A buyer can use the code in two ways.

• They type it at checkout, in the box for a discount or referral code.
• They open the share link. Their browser can remember the code for 30 days, and fills it in at checkout. A newer link replaces an older one.

Checkout turns the code away in two cases.

Checkout says	Why
“This code is no longer available.”	The affiliate is paused.
“That’s your own affiliate code. Share it with somebody else.”	The buyer is the affiliate. Their email matches.

Which orders earn a commission

Only a new customer’s first paid order earns one.

• A customer who has paid you before earns the affiliate nothing. They still get the buyer’s discount.
• A $0 order never counts. If the first order starts a free trial, the commission comes from the plan’s first paid bill.
• Later orders, and plan renewals, earn nothing more.

When an order carried the code but earned nothing, the reason is written on that order’s Timeline. See Orders.

How a commission moves

Each commission has a status.

Status	What it means
Pending	In the hold. You do not owe it yet.
Payable	The hold is over. You owe it.
Paid	You marked it paid.
Void	Canceled. Nothing is owed.

These things can happen during the hold:

• A full refund makes it Void.
• A canceled plan makes it Void.
• A part refund lowers a percent commission to match the goods that are left. A flat commission stays the same, as long as some goods are left.

Once a commission is Payable, a refund no longer changes it. That is why the hold matters.

Paying an affiliate

Pay first. Then record it here.

1. Pay the affiliate your own way. PayPal, a check, a bank transfer.
2. On Referrals & affiliates, click the affiliate’s row.
3. Scroll to Commissions. Three tiles show Pending, Payable and Paid.
4. Check the box beside each commission you paid. Or click Check all payable.
5. Set Paid on to the day you paid. It starts as today.
6. Type a reference in the box beside it, such as the PayPal transaction ID.

7. Click the Mark paid button. It counts what you checked, such as Mark 2 paid.

A message says how many were marked paid. Each one now reads Paid, with your date and reference in the Detail column.

Only a Payable commission has a box. A pending or void one cannot be marked paid. A paid one can never be paid twice.

The payout report

The Payout report sits at the bottom of Referrals & affiliates. Pick a year in the box beside its heading.

Column	What it shows
Affiliate	Their name.
Code	Their code.
Month	The month.
Became payable	What finished its hold that month.
Paid	What you marked paid that month.

After each affiliate’s months comes a total row for the year, in bold.

Paid goes by the date you typed in Paid on, not the day you clicked.

The year’s paid total is the figure to use for a tax form. Ask your accountant which forms you need to send.

Download CSV saves the report as a file. Open it in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.

Pausing an affiliate

There is no delete. Their commissions name them, so the record stays.

1. Click the affiliate’s row.
2. Set Status to Paused.
3. Click Save.

Checkout turns their code away from then on. What they already earned goes on as normal. Pending ones finish their hold, and you still owe what is payable.

To start again, set Status back to Active and save.

Changing an affiliate

Open them, change what you need, and click Save.

New terms count for new commissions only. A commission keeps the terms it was earned under.

What the affiliate sees

The affiliate signs in to your website at /account, with the email you typed for them. On the Account info tab, they see a card headed Your affiliate code.

The card shows:

• what they earn, and how long each commission waits
• their code, and the share link with a Copy link button
• three totals: Pending, Ready to pay and Paid
• their latest commissions, each with a Date, an Amount and a Status

Two words differ from yours. A payable commission reads Ready to pay on their card. A void one reads Canceled.

They never see who bought, or what. Only dates and amounts.

The card shows only while the affiliate is Active. It also waits until they have proved their email by signing in with an emailed link. If they have no account yet, they make one at /account. See What your customers see.