r/Affiliate

Every affiliate program I've audited has the same blind spot: everyone fixates on the top-line revenue figure and nobody checks what's actually behind it.

A program reporting $200K can still be a bad program. Affiliates gaming the tracking, customers who churn within a month, refunds clawing money back after the fact. The revenue number doesn't account for any of that. It just sits there looking good.

Before I trust a program's numbers, I check five things instead:

1. LTV and churn of customers who came through affiliates specifically
2. What percentage of registered affiliates are actually active and sending traffic
3. Revenue per active partner, not spread across everyone who ever joined
4. Lead to paid conversion rate for affiliate traffic
5. Revenue per conversion, since not every converted customer is worth the same

A $50K program with strong retention and clean conversions beats a $200K program full of churn and fraud, every time you actually run the math.

What do people here check beyond revenue? Genuinely curious if this is standard practice or if most programs are still reporting gross revenue and calling it a day.

I manage affiliate programs for 8 SaaS companies and I'm always looking for partners who can back their pitch with something real.

Not after "I have 10k subscribers" cold messages. What I want to see is actual proof of performance: traffic screenshots, past conversion data, a ranking comparison article, a newsletter open rate, a YouTube video with affiliate clicks, a Skool community where your audience asks you what tools to use. Anything concrete.

The programs I work with span email marketing, cold outreach, AI writing, CRM tools, web scraping and data extraction, and marketing automation. If you're already creating content in that space and your audience buys software, there's a good chance something fits.

What I'm actually looking for:

* Bloggers and comparison sites with rankings and real traffic
* Newsletter writers with engaged subscriber bases (size matters less than engagement)
* YouTubers or podcasters covering SaaS, productivity, or marketing tools
* LinkedIn creators in the sales, marketing, outreach, or growth ops space whose followers are operators actively buying software
* X/Twitter builders doing "my exact stack" or build-in-public content
* No-code and automation educators teaching tools like Make, Zapier, or n8n, since your audience already buys what they see you use
* Course creators and educators whose students need software to execute what they're learning
* Skool community owners whose members are actively building or growing something
* Solo consultants and freelancers in marketing ops, RevOps, or cold email who recommend tools to clients and have no formal affiliate setup yet
* Agencies that want to add an affiliate or referral offer to their existing client stack, whether as extra revenue or as a value-add

A few things worth knowing:

* Some programs have budget for a hybrid setup (flat fee + commission), some are commission-only. I'll tell you upfront which is which.
* Because I manage the programs directly, I have more flexibility on commission rates for partners who can demonstrate they'll convert. You're not going through a cold application portal.
* I'm not chasing volume. Five performing affiliates beats fifty dormant ones.

Drop a comment or DM with what you've got and who your audience is.

Do 2-tier affiliate programs still exist? And if so, what's a good way to find the best ones available today?

Thanks!

I am planning to build a site like camelcamelcamel & pcpartpicker

What you think how much affiliate commission can i earn i am a website developer so costing is 0 for me

And i have team who do SEO so i am planning 100% organic so basically starting cost is 0 for me

Estimated revenue if i make website and promote it to 2-3 countries?