10 questions to ask before joining a recurring SaaS affiliate program

10 questions to ask before joining a recurring SaaS affiliate program

Recurring commission is not automatically valuable. Ask these questions before you promote:

1. Is the commission lifetime or limited to a fixed term?
2. Is it based on gross revenue, net revenue, or collected payments after refunds?
3. What attribution window, cookie rules, and cross-device tracking apply?
4. Are coupon codes, sub-IDs, and assisted conversions supported?

5. How is a trial counted: signup, activation, or paid conversion?
6. Can churn, refunds, chargebacks, or failed payments reduce past commissions?
7. Do annual plans, upgrades, downgrades, and plan changes generate recurring credit?

8. Which traffic sources, geographies, and promotional methods are allowed?
9. What are the payout threshold, schedule, currency, and payment method?
10. Can you export conversion and churn data, and how are term changes communicated?

Do not judge a program by its headline rate. Join only when attribution, retention, payout mechanics, and traffic rules are clear enough to model conservatively.