The right affiliate commission is not a magic percentage. It’s a model: what you can afford, how you handle refunds, and how you keep the program reversible early on.
Your commission should fit inside what you’d rationally pay for acquisition (CAC). If your best paid channel can acquire a customer for $X, your affiliate commission should usually be ≤ $X for the same customer.
Example A
$49/mo plan → 20% on first payment → $9.80 commission.
Easy to budget. Easy to explain. Great for early-stage.
Example B
$99/mo plan → 20% for 6 months → up to $118.80.
Higher incentive, but make sure refunds/churn rules are clear.
TinyAffiliate is built for SaaS on Stripe: last-click attribution, subscription revenue attribution, and manual payouts with a clean CSV export.
For many SaaS products, 15–25% on the first payment (or a capped number of months) is a common starting point. The right number depends on margins and LTV.
Recurring can work, but it increases long-term obligations. A safer early version is time-bound recurrence (e.g., first 3–6 months) or a cap per customer.
Use caps, define refund rules, and start with manual payout review. Clarity beats “lifetime” promises.
Last-click attribution is easiest to explain and operate early on.