Q: Auto-approve affiliates or manually review every application?

Q: Auto-approve affiliates or manually review every application?

Decide by your fraud exposure per conversion, not by volume anxiety.

— Manual approval fits high-payout, regulated, or CPA-upfront programs where one bad partner costs real money. You read the site, check traffic source, ask how they'll promote.
— Auto-approve fits low-risk revshare or content programs where a junk affiliate simply earns nothing. Friction here just loses good partners to a competitor with a faster door.

The scalable middle: auto-approve into a sandboxed tier — lower payout, manual payment hold on first conversion, no bonus eligibility. Promote them after they prove clean volume. You get speed without writing blank checks.

This 'soft approval' beats both extremes for most growing programs. New partners start earning immediately; you still gate the money.

Caveat: a sandbox only works if you actually review the queue weekly. An ignored hold is just a delayed payout and an angry partner.

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