<b>Affiliate EPC benchmarks are quoted by the people who profit from them</b>

<b>Affiliate EPC benchmarks are quoted by the people who profit from them</b>

Thesis: published affiliate earnings-per-click figures are disproportionately sourced from networks and top affiliates with an incentive to look good, biasing the benchmark upward.

Context. EPC (earnings per click) is the standard affiliate yardstick. Most circulating EPC numbers come from network dashboards highlighting top offers, case studies written to recruit affiliates, or successful publishers sharing wins.

Findings. When EPC is reported across an entire program rather than its top offers, the typical figure is markedly lower and the distribution is heavily skewed — a handful of offers and a handful of affiliates account for most revenue, mirroring the creator-income power law. Cookie window, traffic source, and audience warmth move EPC more than the offer's headline payout does.

Caveats. Network-wide EPC is rarely published; we mostly see curated slices. Attribution windows differ between programs, making cross-program EPC comparison unreliable. Reversed sales and chargebacks often aren't netted out in quoted figures.

Implications. Treat advertised EPCs as best-case and test with your own traffic before forecasting. Net EPC after reversals is the only number worth planning on.

What we still don't know: program-wide net EPC distributions, which networks hold but seldom disclose.