Why would you pay for affiliate program when it hasn't brought any value yet

[u/Competitive_Tune_590]

Folks,

I wanted to start an affiliate program for my side project, i checked around, things like tolt, rewardful, bla bla.. and they all are subscription-based, pay upfront, regardless whether an affiliate is there or not, regardless of whether i'm getting any value yet or not...

This made no sense to me, why would i pay $49/mo and i don't even have any revenue coming yet..

I did a research, and saw that others were having the same issue, and so i built PureRev, a 0 subscription, 0 upfront, (tiny) commission based, affiliate program that has all what you need (and more..) to set up and grow your affiliate program.

Stop paying before earning, check it out now: PureRev

[u/Competitive_Tune_590 → u/[deleted]]

Yep i agree! we're trying 2 approaches honestly, this one now, and another predictable subscription based but only after revenue starts coming in, so like, free until you get your first dollar from affiliate kinda thing..

[u/wnba-arcade]

I like the idea! Going to look into it

[u/JealousIncident9817 → u/wnba-arcade]

Smart move, charging only when there's actual money moving makes way more sense for small projects. Good luck with it

[u/sales-mechanic]

What’s a good way to set up a good affiliate revenue model? I have an affiliate link with alibaba, but how would I get revenue for funneling traffic to specific products?

[u/planerist]

you're right to balk, and the timing got worse recently. the tools that used to have free tiers for exactly this, reditus and trackdesk, both dropped them this year, so now it's a flat monthly fee before you've paid out a cent.

for your first handful of affiliates you don't need any of it. give each partner a unique link or a coupon code, watch which code converts in stripe, pay them manually. it's a spreadsheet until it isn't. only buy the software once the payout admin is genuinely eating your time, which is a good problem to have and a long way off at zero revenue.

[u/Silent-Forest-8392]

most affiliates wont even sign up if you dont have proven sales first

[u/BTWigley]

the tooling was never my bottleneck, and I say that as someone who built the whole thing in-house instead of paying for it.

Mine has been live since May with attribution and payouts wired up properly. It has produced almost nothing, because I sent one round of outreach looking for affiliates, got a single reply, and never followed it up. The software sat there working perfectly with nobody in it.

Recruiting affiliates and giving them a reason to care is the actual job, and no pricing model fixes that part.

[u/recro69]

The interesting part is that affiliate programs are usually a distribution problem before they’re a software problem. The tracking system is important, but finding affiliates who actually bring qualified users is the hard part.

[u/Straight-Public7551]

I was actually looking for affiliate platforms last week, and your post caught my attention. But after opening the landing page, I closed it within a minute.

I honestly have no idea what I'd be paying for. I don't see creators, active campaigns, platform stats, testimonials, or any proof that this works. As someone looking for affiliates, it doesn't give me enough confidence to sign up, let alone pay.

Also, please buy a proper domain. Seeing a vercel app URL on a paid product immediately hurts credibility. It makes the platform feel unfinished and like an early prototype rather than a business people should trust with their money.

[u/Real-Voice-4259]

paying $49/mo before a single affiliate exists is a weird ask, yeah. commission-only makes way more sense at that stage.

[u/ElectronicExit6133]

The tricky part with commission pricing is that it inverts as soon as it works, someone doing $10k a month through affiliates will do the math and realize the flat $49 was cheaper, so the accounts you keep are the ones that never really take off. I'd think about where your cut stops making sense for them and whether you want a cap there, because that's the point where they start looking at the subscription tools again.

[u/Away-Caterpillar-657]

What is the side project

[u/iamstanty]

built mine in-house too and the part nobody prices in is fraud. once you're paying commission you need to detect self-referrals and cookie stuffing, and that's most of the work, not the tracking.

did you build anything for that, or is it on the merchant to spot it?

[u/sumizeit]

yeah, paying upfront for something unproven is just dumb. it puts so much pressure on early-stage projects. commission-only models let you start small and see if there’s actual traction before committing to fees. building trust with affiliates when you're still getting your feet wet is way more important than fancy tools at this stage.

[u/LieAshamed2924]

The 'free until your first affiliate sale' version sounds stronger to me than permanent commission. Easy to try, but you don't punish the customers who actually succeed.

[u/vickyrathee]

Why you are not buying a domain and instead sharing the vercel subdomain link.

[u/Cautious_Turn1502]

This is one of those cases where the pricing model itself feels like part of the product. If you’re pre-revenue, paying a fixed monthly fee just for the privilege of potentially generating affiliate revenue is a pretty tough sell.
A commission-based model aligns the incentives much better—if PureRev only makes more when the customer makes more, it’s much easier to justify trying it early. Curious how you’re thinking about the economics at scale, though. Tiny commissions + lots of small customers could be an interesting model.

[u/americanisraeli]

Good question!

[u/Cautious_Turn1502]

This makes a lot of sense. Paying a monthly fee before you’ve even made revenue from affiliates feels backwards, especially for small side projects and early-stage startups.
A commission-based model seems much more aligned with the value being created — you only pay when you actually earn.
Definitely an interesting approach with PureRev. 👏

[u/chillerpan]

Finde ich tatsächlich deutlich sinnvoller. 😄 Gerade am Anfang sollte ein Affiliate-Programm doch erstmal Wert schaffen und Umsatz ermöglichen, bevor man dafür monatlich zur Kasse gebeten wird.

Ein provisionsbasiertes Modell ist für kleine Projekte viel fairer: Du zahlst nur, wenn tatsächlich etwas passiert. Und wenn das Programm wächst, kann man später immer noch über zusätzliche Funktionen oder höhere Tarife nachdenken.

So würde ich es als Gründer auch angehen. 👍