If other people already talk to your ideal buyers, an affiliate program lets them recommend your digital products in exchange for a cut of each sale. Payhip includes a built-in affiliate feature, so you don’t need a separate tool to get started. Here’s how it works and what to decide before you invite anyone.
How Payhip’s affiliate feature works
According to Payhip’s help center, everything lives under Marketing > Affiliates in your dashboard. The basic flow looks like this:
- You share your store’s unique affiliate signup link with people you’d like to work with.
- After signing up, affiliates add the PayPal email address they want to be paid at in their settings.
- New sign-ups show as pending. You approve them, then choose which products each affiliate can promote, or let them promote everything in your store.
- For each product, you set the percentage of the sale the affiliate earns. You can review and edit those rates later.
Payhip says its affiliate cookie lasts 30 days and that commissions go to the last touchpoint before a sale. In plain terms: if two affiliates send the same buyer, the most recent referral gets credit.
Paying affiliates is your job
This is the part that surprises some sellers. Payhip states that it can’t pay affiliates for you. Instead, you download a monthly Affiliate Sales Report (the previous month’s report becomes available at the start of the next month) that lists each affiliate’s PayPal email and what they’re owed. You then pay them yourself through PayPal, one at a time or in bulk.
Put a simple routine on your calendar, such as paying on the 5th of each month, and tell affiliates that schedule up front. Reliable payouts do more for an affiliate program than a slightly higher percentage.
Decisions to make before you launch
- Your commission rate. Work backward from your price and margins. A product built from PLR still has costs: the license, your editing time, design and support.
- Who gets approved. Since you approve each affiliate, look at where they plan to promote you. A small, relevant newsletter is often worth more than a big, unrelated audience.
- Which products to open up. You don’t have to include everything. Start with one or two proven sellers.
- Your license terms. Affiliates promote and link to your product; they don’t get a copy to resell. Make sure your own product page states what buyers can and can’t do with it.
Don’t skip disclosure
The FTC’s endorsement guidance says affiliates should clearly and conspicuously disclose that they earn a commission, close to the recommendation itself, and that vague wording like “affiliate link” alone may not be enough. The FTC also says advertisers should make a reasonable effort to train and monitor the people promoting them. A short affiliate welcome note that explains disclosure, with an example sentence, covers a lot of ground. (This is general information, not legal advice.)
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