How much is the standard affiliate commission in 2025?
Affiliate marketers and program managers alike are asking this question as they plan their affiliate marketing strategies. Striking the right balance between a competitive affiliate commission and sustainable margins is crucial, especially for new or scaling affiliate programs.
To help, we analyzed data from over 2,600 affiliate programs across SaaS industries to identify benchmark commission rates for 2025.
Whether you're launching your first affiliate program or optimizing an existing one, this guide reveals the average commission rates affiliates expect—and what top-performing programs offer today.
How Much Commission Should You Pay Affiliates?
After analyzing over 2,600 SaaS affiliate programs, we've identified that the typical affiliate commission rate hovers around 30%.
Most top-performing partnership campaigns from our database succeeded with this rate, striking a great balance between enticing affiliates and maintaining healthy profit margins.
The average SaaS startup or digital business enjoys a gross margin of 75-80%, so a 30% commission on their SaaS affiliate program still allows them to make money while acquiring new customers cost-effectively and without upfront payment.
Why Setting the Right Affiliate Payout Rate Drives Program Success
The right affiliate commission rate selection can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your affiliate marketing program and result in higher conversions. But there’s more to it.
It's easy to get fixated on the "costs" of affiliate marketing—specifically, how much you're paying your affiliates. Yet, the concern of sacrificing large chunks of your margin to incentivize affiliates to sell your products shouldn't be a primary worry. In fact, our research revealed that the most successful campaigns weren't necessarily those with the highest commission payouts.
There’s one easy way to explain that: companies should focus more on having a great product that's easy to pitch. Your affiliates won't generate more sales if the commission is higher. They'll generate more the easier your product is to sell.
Affiliate Commission Benchmarks by Industry
While there is no universal truth when it comes to affiliate commission rates, having a benchmark helps you price your program fairly and competitively. We've gathered our own insights from real affiliate programs across SaaS and digital industries, along with public benchmarks from well-known affiliate platforms, to give you a full picture.
You can use this info to check your affiliate compensation model against what's typical in your industry. However, you don't need to follow these affiliate rates. If your affiliate program or product is truly different, a unique commission approach might be best for you.
SaaS and AI Tools: Benchmark Commission Rates
According to Rewardful's own revenue data report, most SaaS affiliate programs work with commission percentages between 20% and 30% of revenue, with some going up to 40% for top-tier affiliates.
Here's a quick overview:
- Typical commission range: 20–30% of revenue share
- Recurring commissions? Yes, standard practice
- Bonus incentives? Often used at milestones (e.g., affiliates get a $200 bonus after the first 50 signed customers)
Need some inspiration? See how these AI affiliate programs structure their affiliate payout system and rates.
Health and Wellness: Average Affiliate Commission
From health supplement subscriptions and workout programs to one-time sport gear purchases or coaching programs, this space is diverse in its business models, and that is reflected in its affiliate commission structures.
- Typical commission range: 10–20% referral fee percentage for fitness brands, 10–30% for beauty and health products and services
- Recurring commissions? Often for health supplements and coaching subscriptions
- One-time products? Typically, a flat fee per sale or conversion
Boost your affiliate strategy! Explore examples of eight health and wellness affiliate programs with attractive commissions.
Finance and Fintech: Standard Commission Rates for Affiliates
In finance, regulatory complexity and high customer value mean leads and conversions are closely vetted. Affiliates are usually rewarded with flat CPA (Cost per Acquisition) rates per verified signup or customer, not just clicks or traffic. Some programs also opt for a smaller upfront payout plus a performance-based product if it fits the product.
- Typical commission range: $50–$200 CPA
- Recurring commissions? Rare, flat payouts are easier to manage for regulated industries
- Lead-focused models? CPL (Click per Lead) is common (e.g., $20–$40 per qualified lead)
Top Affiliate Commission Models and How They Compare
Affiliate commission isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Beyond just setting the rate, there are several commission models to choose from, each designed to drive specific outcomes.
By aligning your commission structure with your affiliate marketing goals, you can guide affiliates toward the actions that matter most to your business. It’s not just about rewarding performance and affiliate conversions, but it’s also a strategic decision that shapes how your program operates.
Below, we’ll break down the most common commission structures, what behaviors they incentivize, and which industries typically use them.
1. Flat Commission Model: Fixed Payouts Per Sale
A flat commission structure is simple and straightforward: affiliates earn a fixed amount per sale or conversion, regardless of the sale value. This is ideal when your products or services have a similar price, or when you specifically want to avoid giving away a larger slice of high-ticket sales. It keeps affiliates engaged, as everyone is rewarded at the same rate.
You'll often see this structure in brands offering online courses, for example. Say courses sell for around $99 a piece, and affiliates get $20 for each course sold. Payouts will be fair and consistent, no matter which course is purchased.
Pros:
- Simple to set up and easy to explain
- Ensures consistent payouts regardless of sale value
Cons:
- Doesn’t reward high-ticket sales
- Not ideal for businesses with varied pricing
2. Tiered Commission Model: Rewarding High-Performing Affiliates
The tiered affiliate commission model is ideal for businesses that want to strongly reward performance. In this structure, commission rates increase as affiliates hit higher sales thresholds, meaning the more they sell, the more they earn per sale.
It’s especially effective for building long-term, high-value partnerships with affiliates. This model is commonly used in enterprise SaaS and B2B services, where both customer acquisition and sustained growth are crucial.
Pros
- Motivates affiliates to sell more
- Rewards long-term performance and loyalty
Cons
- More complex to manage
- May discourage low-volume affiliates
3. Percentage-Based Commissions: Sharing Revenue with Affiliates
In SaaS, percentage-based revenue share is most often used. This model involves paying affiliates a percentage of the revenue from their generated sales.
It’s popularity in SaaS and digital product sectors, comes from the fact that it provides a strong incentive for affiliates to promote high-value products and services and focus on big customers. It also excludes the easiest forms of affiliate fraud.
Pros
- Scales with sale value, encouraging big-ticket sales
- Popular and expected in SaaS and digital markets
Cons
- Payouts can be unpredictable
- Requires accurate tracking of revenue
4. Recurring Affiliate Commission Model: Ideal for Subscriptions and SaaS
A recurring commission structure is often the best choice if your business relies on subscriptions or repeat purchases (such as SaaS, membership platforms, or subscription boxes). It rewards affiliates not just for the initial sale but for the ongoing revenue their referrals generate. This helps build trust and long-term motivation, as affiliates may feel it’s unfair to earn only from the first sale when they know future purchases will follow.
However, you should clearly communicate how long recurring commissions will last and how changes to a customer’s subscription (upgrades or downgrades) will affect affiliate payouts.
Pros
- Incentivizes long-term referrals
- Ideal for subscription-based businesses
Cons
- Needs clear rules on duration and conditions
- Can be costly if not managed properly
5. One-Time Commission Model: Best for Single-Purchase Products
If you sell a single product at a fixed price, a one-time commission structure is likely the most straightforward option. It offers complete clarity and fairness—every affiliate earns the same fixed amount per sale, with no need to manage tiers or variations.
This model is easy to communicate and manage, making it ideal when the primary goal is customer acquisition rather than retention. It’s especially common in ecommerce, where repeat purchases aren’t guaranteed.
Pros
- Simple and predictable for all parties
- Good fit for one-time purchases or short cycles
Cons
- No ongoing incentive for affiliates
- Doesn’t support long-term engagement
6. Hybrid Commission Model: Combining Multiple Affiliate Payout Structures
Hybrid commission structures combine elements from multiple models to align with your business strategy and product offerings. For example, you might offer a fixed payout for each new customer and then a percentage-based commission on their recurring purchases.
This approach allows you to incentivize different stages of the customer journey—acquisition, retention, and long-term value—making it a versatile option for businesses with complex sales cycles.
Pros
- Customizable to different products or goals
- Can reward both acquisition and retention
Cons
- Harder to communicate and manage
- Requires more setup and tracking
Other Commission Models to Consider
While the models we've covered are among the most common, there are other affiliate commission structures worth knowing. Understanding their pros and cons can help you choose a model that aligns with your business goals and appeals to the affiliates you want to attract.
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Affiliates earn a fixed fee for each successful conversion they drive. This model is performance-focused and ensures you only pay for actual results.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): Affiliates are paid for each click they generate, regardless of whether it leads to a sale. While it’s great for boosting brand awareness and traffic, it may not drive meaningful conversions.
- Cost Per Lead (CPL): Affiliates earn a commission for each qualified lead, such as a form submission or free trial signup. CPL is ideal for businesses with longer or more complex sales cycles, where capturing interest is the first step.
While we didn’t include these models in our latest benchmark data, they’re important to keep in mind. The key is ensuring your payout model supports your business objectives and offers clear value to your affiliates.
Related: Keep your affiliate program in check. Learn the key affiliate marketing metrics you absolutely need to track.
How to Choose the Best Affiliate Commission Model for Your Business
After knowing the various affiliate payout structures, you may have one or two structures that best fit your affiliate marketing strategy. Let’s dig deeper into their similarities and differences by comparing other commission models.
Lifetime vs. Time-Limited Affiliate Commissions: Which Is Better?
Do you want to offer your affiliates lifetime commissions or limit the payouts to a specific timeframe?
To affiliates, lifetime commissions seem more attractive. For emerging companies, that sounds like great news, too, because it makes it easier to attract affiliates. However, it's important to remember the costs for customers acquired through this channel. As time goes by, can you still afford to reward your partners for months or even years?
Restricted commissions make costs more predictable and avoid paying out for customers acquired years ago. Yet, affiliates might feel this is unfair, especially for some products or services that people will likely keep buying for a long time.
Let us alleviate your anxiety about this: our data shows no clear correlation between payout restrictions and campaign performance. The top 20 performing campaigns mostly did not impose a limit on commission payouts, with the only two exceptions restricting payouts to 4 and 1 month, respectively.
This means that the decision between lifetime and restricted commissions may depend more on your business model and industry than on perceived best practices. So, think carefully and in the right context about the lifespan of commission payouts.
Lifetime Commissions: Pros, Cons, and Best Use Cases
Best use cases:
- SaaS products with low churn
- High-margin digital products (e.g., software, memberships)
- Businesses aiming to build long-term affiliate relationships
Restricted Commissions (e.g., 3–6 Months): Pros, Cons, and Best Use Cases
Best use cases:
- Fintech, health & wellness, or ecommerce with shorter customer lifespans
- Brands with low margins or high acquisition costs
- Programs looking for performance-based trial periods
Flat-Rate vs. Tiered Affiliate Commissions: Which Model Converts Better?
Another affiliate marketing decision to make: keep things flat and simple or tiered and more performance-driven? Again, there are no wrong answers. Both models have their merits; it's just about applying them well and thoughtfully.
The flat-rate commissions offer predictability and clarity for you and your affiliates. Every affiliate gets the same amount per conversion, regardless of whether it's their first sale or their fiftieth. This allows you to get started quickly, manage costs, and keep things easy to understand.
Tiered commissions emphasize rewarding top performers. Those who sell more or higher-value products receive higher commission rates. This motivates and incentivizes consistent effort and helps you identify which affiliate partners to invest in most.
The choice depends on the stage of your affiliate program, the variation in affiliate performance, and the complexity you’re willing and able to manage.
Flat-Rate Commissions: Pros, Cons, and Best Use Cases
Best use cases:
- Startups launching a new program
- Ecommerce brands with consistent product pricing
- Teams with limited resources to manage affiliate tiers
- One-off digital products or short sales cycles
Tiered Commissions: Pros, Cons, and Best Use Cases
Best use cases:
- SaaS or subscription services with high LTV
- Mature affiliate programs with clear performance gaps
- Brands that rely on a few top affiliates for the majority of revenue
- Programs with room for scaling and optimization
Key Factors to Consider When Setting Affiliate Commission Rates
To guide you through the decision process, here's a checklist that covers every relevant element:
Your Business Model
- Do you sell a subscription or a one-time product?
- What’s your average customer lifetime value (LTV)?
- Are margins high enough to support percentage-based or recurring commissions?
- Do you have a long sales cycle that makes CPL or CPA more appropriate?
Cost Structure and Profit Margins
- What’s your break-even point on a new customer?
- Can you live with the unpredictable cost from long-term commissions, or do you need cost predictability?
- Do different products require different commission models?
Affiliate Program Goals
- Is the goal to drive volume, acquire high-quality users, or build long-term partnerships?
- Are you trying to scale quickly or optimize over time?
- Will your structure motivate affiliates to grow, or simply reward conversions?
Affiliate Expectations
- What’s typical in your industry? (See the affiliate rate benchmarks section.)
- Are you trying to attract top-tier marketers or just open to anyone?
- Would bonuses, tiers, or lifetime commissions make your program more competitive?
Business Operational Considerations
- Do you have the tools to track complex commission logic (e.g., tiers, recurring)?
- Can you clearly communicate your structure to affiliates?
- Is your team equipped to adjust rates or rules later without chaos?
Time Limits and Flexibility
- Should commissions run for a lifetime or for a limited period?
- How long do affiliates typically stay engaged after a referral?
- Do you need room to revise the model as your company grows?
Again, there is usually not one right option but a couple. These questions help you create a shortlist of what really matter for your affiliate marketing program. After that, pick whatever matches your priorities and current capabilities best.
Remember that you're not stuck with your choice. As your affiliate program or business grows, it's okay to change, as long as you clearly communicate any changes to your affiliates.
Affiliate Commission Structure Pro Tips (With Scenarios)
Copy-pasting a strategy rarely works, but some hyper relevant inspiration won't hurt. Based on our platform data and first-hand experience, here are two structures that we've seen succeed. Both are designed to balance growth with long-term profitability, but take slightly different routes.
Scenario 1: Offer High Early Commissions to Jumpstart Growth
If your average customer sticks around for more than 12 months, this approach front-loads the reward to the affiliate, making your program more attractive, while capping long-term liability. It’s particularly effective for early-stage SaaS or subscription businesses that want to scale quickly without locking into indefinite payouts. For instance:
- Commission: 20%–40% of revenue for the first 3 months
- Then: 0% after month 3 to protect future profit margins
Scenario 2: Use Tiered Rates to Motivate Top Performers
Want to encourage long-term loyalty and growth? Use a tiered structure where commissions increase based on performance milestones. This keeps affiliates engaged by rewarding volume and consistency. It’s a smart strategy for mature SaaS, digital product businesses, or finance brands with room to scale and partners worth investing in. For example:
- Base commission: 15%–20%
- After $10,000 in referred sales: 3% increase
- After another $10,000: 5% increase (total: 23%–28%)
How Many Affiliates Do You Need to Break Even?
We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: it’s about quality, not quantity.
Affiliate marketing isn't just a numbers game, and that becomes evidently clear when looking at the exceptions that defy the 30% rule – and win big.
Because there are some affiliate programs with fewer than ten affiliates, but higher commission rates, and they have seen tremendous success.
The more affiliates you sign, doesn't guarantee more sales and commission payouts, even when incentivizing affiliates for conversions. What does "guarantee" sales is very active affiliates with engaged audiences.
A small pool of those will always perform better than a large number of mediocre ones.
Affiliate Success Story: How Cometly Scaled with Super Affiliates
The ROI of affiliate marketing can be massive, especially when you focus on quality over quantity.
The perfect example of this is Cometly, a SaaS business that leveraged a super affiliate to go from $0 to $54k MRR in just one week. Yes, by using just one influencer.
Using Rewardful as their affiliate tracking software, Cometly joined forces with a top-tier affiliate whose audience significantly overlapped with their niche.
The partnership kicked off with a co-marketing webinar, introducing the platform and a special "founding user" discount to attendees, which was available for one week only (hello, urgency!). This strategy led to $148k on launch day and $104k over the remainder of the week.
Cometly replicated this success by attracting top affiliates a couple more times, generating over $251k in cash flow, and acquiring many long-term clients. You can read the Cometly case study here.
It perfectly illustrates the power of carefully chosen, high-quality affiliates. So, before you start reaching out to hundreds of possible affiliates, do your research and find ten that really match what you’re looking for. It might also be worthwhile to offer these super partners higher affiliate commission rates.
Start Building Your Affiliate Program Today!
Your affiliate commission structure is just a small part of your program’s success.
In the end, the most successful campaigns weren't the ones with the highest average commission payouts. They were the ones with a great product that fit the needs of their market. After all, affiliates can only do so much.
That’s also why regular affiliate program performance analysis is critical to identifying the most successful affiliates, fine-tuning commission structures, and optimizing the program for maximum ROI.
Another crucial part of your affiliate program is the tools you use.
If you want to join Cometly and other successful businesses like Podia and beehiiv in scaling affiliate marketing for SaaS, sign up for Rewardful and try our affiliate management software tool for free.
