If you run a SaaS business with subscription pricing, offering recurring commissions is the most effective way to attract high-quality affiliates. It incentivizes them to refer users who stick around, rather than just optimizing for quick, low-quality signups.
How Recurring Tracking Works
When you enable recurring commissions, Discover Mac Apps works seamlessly with your payment provider:
- An affiliate refers a customer.
- The customer buys a monthly or annual subscription. Your checkout session passes the affiliate
refas metadata. - We log the initial purchase commission based on the webhook from your provider.
- Because payment providers like Stripe, Dodo, and Paddle automatically attach that original
refmetadata to all future recurring invoices, the affiliate tracking is permanently tethered to the subscription. - Next month (or year), your payment provider fires a renewal webhook. Our system reads the
refmetadata from the webhook payload and automatically generates a new recurring commission!
Enabling Recurring Commissions
You can toggle recurring commissions on or off in your program Settings:
- Off (First Payment Only): The affiliate only earns a commission on the initial sign-up transaction. Any future renewals by that customer generate exactly zero commission for the affiliate.
- On (Lifetime Recurring): The affiliate receives a commission for the initial sign-up and every single renewal, forever, for as long as the customer stays subscribed to your product.
[!IMPORTANT] If a customer upgrades their plan (e.g., from $10/mo to $50/mo), the affiliate's percentage commission will automatically scale up based on the new invoice amount!