Rémi KokabiNovember 27, 202512 min readLast update: Oct 7, 2026
What Is Affiliate Marketing? 10 Payment Models Explained (2026 Guide)
Almost every recommendation you see online has a commission attached to it. Post Affiliate Pro’s 2026 industry report points to data from Rakuten Advertising, citing Forrester Consulting, showing that 81% of advertisers now actively use affiliate marketing, while 84% of publishers run affiliate programs to monetize their traffic and content. So the “honest review” you read last night was probably also a revenue line. And the money keeps climbing: Demandsage reports the affiliate marketing industry is currently valued at $20.07 billion, with the market size projected to reach $27.78 billion by 2027.
I work on the merchant side of this. We run an affiliate program at lemlist, which means I see the applications, the payouts, and the content that actually converts. In this guide, I’ll explain how affiliate marketing works end to end, the 10 payment models programs use to pay you, the three types of affiliates and which one earns most, and the exact terms of a real B2B SaaS program. You’ll also get a step-by-step start plan you can run this month. If you want the wider view first, start with our affiliate marketing hub.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing method that rewards individuals with commissions for promoting a company’s products or services through unique tracking links that generate sales, leads, or clicks.
It’s performance-based and revenue-sharing at the same time. The merchant only pays when something measurable happens. The affiliate only earns when their audience acts.
That single mechanic is why the model scales so well in B2B SaaS. A software company can have 500 people recommending it without hiring a single rep, and the cost stays tied to revenue instead of headcount. Pay a sales team and you pay whether or not deals close. Pay affiliates and you pay after the deal closes.
Both sides get something out of it. The merchant (the company running the program) buys distribution it didn’t have. The affiliate marketer builds an income stream on top of content they were already creating. Our breakdown of the main affiliate marketing benefits covers what to expect before you commit.
What is an Affiliate?
An affiliate is an individual who promotes a company’s products or services in exchange for a commission on sales or actions generated through their unique affiliate links.
In practice, that’s a YouTuber, a newsletter writer, a consultant, a niche blogger, or anyone with an audience that trusts their judgment. The channel matters less than the trust. I’ve seen a 900-subscriber newsletter out-convert an account with 80,000 followers, because the newsletter readers had a buying problem and the followers were there for entertainment.
Which brings up the part most “make money online” content skips. Affiliate income is a business, with the admin and the dry months that come with any business.
Pros and cons of being an affiliate
Pros
You earn from products you didn’t have to build, support, or ship.
Upfront investment is close to zero beyond your time and your content.
You choose the products, so you can only promote what you’d recommend for free.
You can run it from anywhere, on your own schedule.
Cons
Income fluctuates with seasonality, market demand, and competition on the same keywords.
You depend on the merchant to convert your traffic, track it correctly, and pay on time.
Some sectors (finance, health, gambling) come with strict compliance and regulatory requirements.
Authority takes years. Most people quit before the compounding starts.
The affiliates who last pick a plan and stick to it. That means consistent publishing, a clear point of view, and an audience that comes back. Our guide to affiliate marketing strategies covers the plays worth building around.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Apply, promote, track, earn. That’s the whole loop, and three players make it turn: affiliates, merchants, and customers. Sometimes a fourth one, an affiliate network, sits in the middle to handle tracking and payouts for both sides.
Here’s the full sequence:
You apply to a program. Most merchants review your content links and your audience before approving you. Ours reviews applications weekly.
You get your unique tracking links. Each link carries an identifier that ties any resulting action back to you.
You promote inside your content. Blog posts, videos, a newsletter, a course module, a comparison page. Wherever your audience already asks buying questions.
A reader clicks and the cookie starts. The cookie window (often 30 days) defines how long you stay credited for that visitor. Buy on day 29, you still get paid. Buy on day 31, you don’t.
The merchant verifies and pays. Once the sale clears refunds and chargebacks, the commission is validated and paid out on the program’s schedule.
The tracking is the part worth paying attention to. Before you promote anything seriously, check the cookie window, whether the commission is one-time or recurring, and what counts as a qualifying purchase. Those three details decide your real earnings far more than the headline percentage.
3 Main Types of Affiliate Marketing
There are three main affiliate marketing types: unattached affiliate marketing, involved affiliate marketing, and related affiliate marketing. Here’s how they work:
1. Unattached affiliate marketing
Unattached affiliate marketing is a type of affiliate marketing where the affiliate promotes products or services without any direct involvement or personal relationship with the product or audience.
This affiliate is a general advertiser. No niche authority, no personal brand, no loyal audience to protect.
The model runs on paid traffic instead. The primary strategy involves placing ads (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or other PPC campaigns) that drive traffic straight to the company’s site or a landing page carrying affiliate links. Margins are thin and ad costs can eat the commission, so this one lives or dies on media buying skill.
2. Related affiliate marketing
Related affiliate marketing involves promoting products or services that are connected to the affiliate’s established niche or area of expertise.
The affiliate usually has a blog, website, or social media presence (LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, X, and so on) where they share content related to the products they promote.
This approach is based on the affiliate’s existing audience, who trusts their recommendations because they are relevant to their interests. The affiliate integrates affiliate links naturally within their content, such as blog posts, videos, or social media updates.
Essentially, the related affiliate method balances advertising with valuable content, which lifts credibility and conversion rates together.
3. Involved affiliate marketing
Involved affiliate marketing is when an affiliate has a deep connection and personal experience with the product or service they promote.
The affiliate uses the product themselves and can provide genuine reviews and testimonials based on firsthand experience. That creates a high level of trust, because the recommendation reads as reliable and authentic.
They publish detailed insights, tutorials, teardowns, and real-life applications of the product. Then they distribute that across their blog, their social accounts, their newsletter, and video. This kind of personal endorsement converts at the highest rate of the three types.
Many involved affiliates end up with a reputation for trustworthy recommendations, and that reputation is the asset. It’s what turns affiliate income from a one-off spike into a sustainable business.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing
If you’re starting from zero, here’s the order I’d follow.
Pick a niche you can defend. Choose an industry that genuinely interests you or where you already have expertise. Size matters less than depth. There’s an audience for almost everything, and you can’t fake enthusiasm for 100 pieces of content.
Build the content asset first. Programs approve you based on your content links and your audience, so you need something to show. Start publishing before you start applying.
Compare the terms, not the percentages. A 50% one-time payout can earn less than a 25% recurring commission over 12 months. Check the cookie window, which plans qualify, and the refund clawback period.
Place links where buying intent lives, and disclose them. Comparison posts, “best tool for X” pages, and tutorials outperform random mentions. Say clearly that you earn a commission.
Track what converts and cut what doesn’t. Most affiliates discover that two or three pieces of content generate the majority of their revenue. Find those, then rebuild around them.
Step 3 is where most beginners lose money. A 1% commission on a $20 impulse buy and a 25% recurring commission on a $99/month SaaS subscription are not the same job, even though both say “affiliate marketing” on the tin.
The Examples of Affiliate Marketing
B2C affiliate marketing example: Amazon Associates
Amazon’s affiliate marketing program, known as Amazon Associates, is one of the world’s largest affiliate marketing programs.
Amazon associates earn commission by creating unique product links, promoting those links on their website or social media, and driving referral traffic back to Amazon.
Here’s how it works:
Join the Amazon Associates Program by applying online and getting approved to become an affiliate.
Generate unique affiliate links for the products you want to promote using Amazon’s dashboard tools.
Share these affiliate links through your website, blog, social media, email newsletters, or any other marketing channels.
When users click your affiliate links and make a purchase on Amazon, the transaction is tracked.
Receive commissions based on the sales generated through your affiliate links, paid out according to Amazon’s payment schedule.
Amazon commissions range from 1% to 20%, depending on the product category. The highest rate of 20% applies to Amazon games, and the second highest goes to luxury beauty and Amazon Explore at 10%. Volume is the whole game here, since the average order value is low.
Other popular B2C programs worth a look: Shopify’s Affiliate Program, the eBay Partner Network, Rakuten Advertising, and CJ Affiliate.
B2B SaaS Affiliate Marketing Example: lemlist affiliate program
Here’s where I can give you real numbers instead of estimates, because this is the program I work on.
lemlist is the AI outbound platform. You find verified leads, enrich them, run multichannel sequences across email, LinkedIn, calls, and WhatsApp, and keep your emails landing in the inbox, all from one place. Sales teams, agencies, and founders use it to build pipeline without stitching six tools together.
The lemlist affiliate program rewards you for sending us paying customers. You get a unique link, an affiliate dashboard, and a media kit to build content with.
Here’s how it works:
Apply through the form on the affiliates page. We review applicants weekly and look at your content links and your audience.
Share your unique link with your audience.
Earn 25% commission for 12 months on each lemlist license purchased through your link.
Qualifying plans are Email Pro, Multichannel Expert, and Outreach Scale, purchased within 30 days of the click.
If a referred team adds seats within the first year, each new transaction generates an additional reward.
Payments are verified 30 days after the purchase and paid out the month after, through PayPal, Stripe, or direct deposit via PartnerStack depending on your country. Two things to know before you plan your income around it: the 12-month window closes even if the customer stays, and a downgrade or refund inside the first two months can claw the commission back.
The honest pitch: a recurring 25% on a B2B subscription compounds in a way that a one-time consumer commission never will, and seat expansion in outbound teams happens more often than you’d think. The program fits B2B content creators, agencies, outbound consultants, and software reviewers. If your audience is running cold outreach, you’re the person they’ll ask which tool to buy anyway. You may as well get paid for the answer.
Other software programs worth comparing: Semrush, NordVPN, Webflow, and Wix.
How Do You Get Paid for Doing Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a legitimate business model for earning money, promoting products you rate, and building a personal brand on top of both. The payout mechanics vary more than most people expect.
The most common ways you get paid as an affiliate are:
Pay-per-sale (PPS) is a payment model in which affiliates earn a commission each time a sale is made through their unique affiliate link. When a customer clicks on the affiliate’s link, makes a purchase on the merchant’s website, and the sale is verified, the affiliate receives a percentage of the sale amount or a fixed fee. This model pushes affiliates to drive actual sales rather than just traffic or leads.
Pay-per-lead is a commission model where affiliates earn money each time they successfully generate a qualified lead for the merchant. A “lead” typically involves the referred customer taking a specific action, such as filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, registering for a free trial, or providing contact information. The affiliate is compensated based on these completed actions rather than direct sales. It suits businesses building a customer base, and it pays affiliates even when no immediate purchase happens.
Pay-per-click can be a CPA (cost-per-acquisition) model in which an affiliate gets paid each time the seller or retailer acquires a lead, which is when an affiliate link takes the customer to the merchant’s online store and they take an action, like filling in a form. It can also be an EPC (earnings-per-click) model, which means an affiliate earns an average from the agreed amount of clicks for the participating affiliates.
Pay-per-install (PPI) is a model where affiliates earn money each time they successfully get a user to install a software application or mobile app. When a customer clicks the affiliate’s unique link and completes the installation, the affiliate earns a predetermined fee. Software companies and app developers use it to grow their user base, and it works especially well for mobile games and productivity tools. It gives affiliates a straightforward metric: installations generated.
Pay-per-signup is a model close to pay-per-lead, tied specifically to users registering for a service, a newsletter, a webinar, or a similar engagement. The payout triggers on the completed registration, so what matters is capturing the user’s details rather than closing a sale. Free trials and freemium products lean on this one heavily.
Pay-per-impression (PPM) or Cost Per Mille (CPM) is a model where advertisers pay a fee for every 1,000 ad impressions, regardless of user clicks.
Pay-per-download (PPD) is a model where affiliates earn a commission each time a user downloads a specific file or digital product, such as an eBook, software, or a digital document. This model is common with free trial software and digital content providers.
Lifetime commissions are a model in which affiliates are paid not only for the initial sale but also for any subsequent purchases made by that customer for the lifetime of their relationship with the merchant. It rewards affiliates for bringing in loyal customers and can turn into ongoing passive income.
Two-tier commissions is when affiliates earn commissions from their own sales and from the sales made by other affiliates they refer to the program. Building a network of sub-affiliates creates a second income layer on top of the first.
Revenue sharing commission is a model close to lifetime commissions. Businesses pay affiliates a portion of the revenue generated from customers they refer, which can include a percentage of ongoing subscription fees or other recurring payments.
Some affiliate programs combine multiple commission models into a hybrid approach. An affiliate might earn a small commission for clicks or leads (PPC or PPL) and a larger one for completed sales (PPS). That rewards generating initial interest while keeping the focus on conversions.
Affiliate Marketing vs. Referral Marketing
Referral marketing asks existing customers to recommend a company’s products to their personal network, usually in exchange for discounts, credits, or bonuses when the referral converts.
Affiliate marketing partners with individuals or organizations who promote the company’s offerings to a broader audience, typically for a commission on resulting sales or leads.
The practical difference is the relationship and the scale. Referral marketing runs on personal trust inside smaller circles, and the referrer is almost always a customer first. Affiliate marketing is structured, contractual, and built to scale across channels and audiences the merchant has no direct access to.
We run both at lemlist, and they attract different people. Referrals come from customers who already love the product and happen to know someone with the same problem. Affiliates come from creators and consultants who treat the 25% recurring commission as a revenue line in their business. Same link mechanics, completely different motivation.
Over to you
Affiliate marketing rewards patience and specificity. Pick a niche you can speak about for two years without getting bored, compare program terms instead of headline percentages, and put your links where people are already deciding what to buy.
If your audience runs outbound, cold email, or any kind of sales prospecting, our program is the obvious place to start: 25% commission for 12 months on every qualifying license purchased through your link.
Want to see what you’d be recommending before you apply? Start a 14-day free trial. No credit card required, full access to all features.
Turn prospects into pipeline
Launch outbound campaigns with verified leads, AI sequences, and multichannel outreach.