To automatically reward affiliates when they drive a sale, Discover Mac Apps needs to know exactly when a successful payment occurs and which affiliate referred it.
We integrate directly with your billing provider (e.g., Stripe, Paddle, Dodo Payments) using secure Webhooks. There are no complicated OAuth flows or API keys required.
The 3-Step Integration Process
To integrate your payment provider, navigate to the Settings tab of your Affiliate Program in the Discover Mac Apps dashboard.
The dashboard provides a customized "Integration Guide" based on the provider you select, walking you through the following three steps:
1. Track Clicks
When a user visits your site via an affiliate link (e.g., ?ref=CODE), you must extract that code and store it in their browser.
- Easy Method: Drop our pre-built
<script>tag into your website. It handles everything automatically. - Advanced Method: Extract the parameter on your backend and ping our Tracking API securely, ensuring 100% accuracy against ad-blockers.
2. Pass the Affiliate ID to Checkout
This is the most critical step. When the user decides to purchase, you must pass the stored Affiliate ID to your payment provider when initializing the checkout session.
Depending on your provider, this is usually done via metadata or customData:
- Stripe / Dodo Payments: Pass it in
metadata: { ref: affiliateId } - Whop / Polar: Pass it as a custom query parameter or field.
- Paddle: Pass it in
customData.
By attaching the affiliate ID directly to the checkout, the payment provider will include it when they send us the webhook in the final step.
3. Configure the Webhook
Once the payment is successful, your payment provider needs to tell us about it.
- Copy the unique Webhook URL provided in your Discover Mac Apps dashboard.
- Go to your payment provider's dashboard (e.g., Stripe Developer Settings) and add a new webhook using our URL.
- Subscribe to the successful payment event (e.g.,
checkout.session.completedorpayment.succeeded). - Generate a Webhook Secret in your provider's dashboard and save it in Discover Mac Apps so we can cryptographically verify that the events are legitimate.
Supported Providers
Discover Mac Apps has native, pre-built webhook integrations for:
- Dodo Payments (Merchant of record, great for digital products)
- Stripe (Ideal for custom SaaS setups)
- Paddle (Merchant of record for SaaS)
- Whop (Ideal for communities and software licenses)
- Polar (Built for developers and open-source creators)
[!TIP] If your payment provider is not on this list, you can select the Custom API (Backend) provider. This gives you a secure endpoint that your own server can ping with the affiliate ID and transaction amount whenever a sale occurs.