One product can't carry the same commission as another
Why a single flat rate breaks the moment your catalogue has range, and how a per-product override keeps a thin-margin item out of trouble.
A flat commission is a lovely idea for exactly as long as you sell one thing. Add a second product with a different cost structure and the single number starts doing damage at one end or the other — either it's so low that nobody promotes your best item, or it's so high that your most expensive one becomes work you're doing for free.
The two failure modes
The first is the coaching call. You set 30% because it works for your downloads, and then somebody refers a $150 session. You now owe $45 for an hour you still have to show up for, prepare for and follow up on. Do that four times in a month and the program has bought you a busy diary and very little money.
The second is quieter. You set 10% because you were nervous about the calls, and now nobody promotes the $19 guide either, because a dollar ninety isn't worth a post. Your cheapest, most shareable, most obviously promotable product is sitting there earning nobody anything.
| Product | Flat 25% | Sensible per-product rate |
|---|---|---|
| $19 guide | $4.75 — fine | 30% → $5.70 |
| $59 course | $14.75 — fine | 30% → $17.70 |
| $150 coaching call | $37.50 — painful | 12% → $18.00 |
| $400 cohort | $100 — no | excluded |
How the override behaves
Set a rate on a product and it becomes that product's rate for everybody. This is the one place where a per-affiliate deal loses: if you've promised a star affiliate 40% across the board and a particular product pays 12%, that product pays them 12%.
It reads harsh written down, but the alternative is worse. The other ordering would let a personal arrangement quietly sell a thin-margin item at a loss, and neither side would notice until the month closed.
Taking something out entirely
Sometimes the right rate is none. A product you co-own with someone else, a physical item where postage eats the margin, a service you only have four slots of — these belong outside the program. Switching a product off means referred buyers can still buy it, they just don't generate a commission, and no affiliate has to wonder why their number looked odd.
- 1List your products with their real marginal cost beside them.
- 2Set the default rate for the group with the most room.
- 3Override the two or three that can't carry it.
- 4Switch off anything that shouldn't be promoted at all.
- 5Re-read the program page as an affiliate would.
On the same page as the rest of the program — each product has its own rate field and an in-program switch, so you can see the whole catalogue at once instead of opening each product.
No. The rate that applied when the buyer paid is frozen onto that order, so history never changes underneath either side.
Yes, and it's the most under-used lever here. A temporary higher rate on one product concentrates promotion where you want it far more effectively than raising everything.
Set a rate per product and see what each one pays before anyone promotes it.
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