> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pocketsflow.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Affiliates

> Recruit affiliates to promote your products with referral links, track their clicks and sales, and pay commissions automatically.

Affiliates let other people — clippers, content creators, anyone with an
audience — promote your products with a personal referral link and earn a
commission on every sale they bring in.

There are two sides to the feature:

* **Affiliates** (seller view) — where you, the seller, invite and manage the
  people promoting your products.
* **My Affiliate Dashboard** — where someone who *is* an affiliate sees the
  products they promote, their referral links, sales, earnings, and payouts.

Both pages live at the bottom of the dashboard sidebar.

<Note>
  Affiliates promote a **specific seller's products to buyers**. That's
  different from the [Partner program](/operations/partner-program), where
  partners bring **new sellers** to Pocketsflow and earn on the platform fee.
</Note>

## Inviting an affiliate

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open Affiliates → New Affiliate">
    In the dashboard, go to **Affiliates** and click **New Affiliate**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Enter the affiliate's email">
    They must already have a Pocketsflow account with a **connected payout
    account**, so commissions can actually be paid.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set the commission rate">
    A percentage of each sale the affiliate earns (for example, `10` means 10%).
    It must be between 0 and 100.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose products">
    Pick which of your products the affiliate can promote. Scope each affiliate
    to what they actually promote rather than your whole catalog.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save (leave Active on)">
    The affiliate is now live and can start sharing links.
  </Step>
</Steps>

You can edit the commission rate, product list, or active status at any time.
**Deactivating** an affiliate stops new clicks and sales from being attributed
to them, without deleting their history — so changing the rate later only
affects **new** sales, never past ones.

## Referral links

Every affiliate gets a personal link per product:

```text theme={null}
https://app.pocketsflow.com/prod/{productId}?a={affiliateId}
```

Use the **Copy URL** button on either affiliate page to copy a ready-made link —
don't build them by hand.

When a visitor opens a referral link:

* The **click is recorded** for the affiliate's stats. Repeat clicks from the
  same visitor on the same link are **deduplicated over a 24-hour window**, so
  counts aren't inflated by refreshes.
* If the visitor **buys**, the sale is attributed to the affiliate and their
  commission is calculated from the sale amount at the configured rate, then
  stamped onto the order.

## The affiliate's view

Affiliates see everything about their participation under **My Affiliate
Dashboard**:

* **Your affiliated products** — every seller and product they promote, the
  commission rate, and a **Copy** button for each referral link.
* **Sales per product** — orders, sales volume, and commission earned for each
  promoted product.

The underlying API also exposes aggregated stats (lifetime earnings, total
orders, active products, average commission rate), earnings grouped by day /
week / month, per-link click and conversion stats, and payout history — see the
[API reference](/api-reference/introduction) under the **Affiliated Products**
tag.

<Note>
  All amounts in the affiliate API are in **cents**, consistent with order
  amounts elsewhere in the API.
</Note>

## How commissions are funded and paid

The commission comes out of the **sale itself**: it's collected from the
seller's share at charge time and forwarded to the affiliate. So as a seller you
receive the sale amount **minus** the platform fee **minus** the affiliate's
commission (see [Pricing & fees](/payments/fees)).

Payouts are then batched and moved to the affiliate's connected payout account:

| Rule            | Detail                                                                                                    |
| --------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Hold window** | Commissions are only eligible after a hold period (**14 days** by default) to cover refunds and disputes. |
| **Minimum**     | A payout run skips affiliates below a minimum threshold (**\$1** by default) until it accumulates.        |
| **Grouping**    | Commissions are grouped **per affiliate, per currency** — each transfer is single-currency.               |
| **Exclusions**  | **Refunded**, **disputed**, and **test-mode** sales are excluded.                                         |
| **Destination** | The affiliate's connected payout account. PayPal cannot be used for affiliate payouts.                    |
| **Status**      | Each payout is `pending`, `completed`, or `failed`.                                                       |

Each order's commission can only ever be paid **once** — a sale is claim-stamped
before its transfer, so it can't land in two payouts. Affiliates review their
payout history in the affiliate dashboard.

## Best practices

* **Agree the rate up front** — changing it later only affects new sales.
* **Scope narrowly** — attach each affiliate only to the products they promote.
* **Watch conversion per link** — lots of clicks with few sales usually means
  the audience and product don't match.
* **Confirm payouts are connected** — an affiliate without a connected payout
  account can earn commissions but won't be paid until they connect one.

## Related topics

* [Partner program](/operations/partner-program)
* [Orders & customers](/operations/orders-and-customers)
* [Payouts](/payments/payouts)
* [Pricing & fees](/payments/fees)
* [API reference](/api-reference/introduction)