Free affiliate commission calculator
Model your program before you promise anyone a rate. See what a referral really costs across one-time, capped, and lifetime commissions with churn factored in, how a tiered structure blends into one effective rate, and what your program pays affiliates per click. All three modes compute locally in your browser, with no signup and nothing sent to a server.
The three numbers to know before you set a rate
Commission per referral. Price times rate times expected paying months. This is your affiliate CAC, and it is the number to hold up against what you pay for the same customer from ads. With churn in the picture, a "25% recurring" promise on a $49 plan is not $12.25; it is $12.25 times however many months the customer actually stays inside your commission window.
Share of LTV. The cap is the quiet lever. Capping a recurring commission at 12 months on customers who stay 20 means the true cost is a fraction of the sticker rate, which is why generous headline rates are often cheaper than they look, and why the calculator reports this share explicitly instead of letting the sticker do the talking.
The blend. If you run tiers, the rate you actually pay is the revenue-weighted blend, and a tiered commission calculator worth using shows it to you: five top-tier affiliates doing $2,000 a month each move your blend far more than twenty long-tail partners at $300. Budget on the blend, recruit like the top tier is the whole program.
What programs typically pay
SaaS
Usually capped at 12 months or run for the customer's lifetime. Recurring aligns affiliates with retention: they profit most from sending customers who stay, which is exactly the customer you want.
Ecommerce
Percent of order value, sometimes stepped up for repeat purchases. Thinner because product margins are thinner; the win is volume and the coupon-code channel that captures word of mouth.
Bounty
A fixed amount per qualified referral. The most predictable CAC of the three, and the easiest to advertise. Pair it with a qualification bar (first paid invoice) so you never pay for tire-kickers.
Your EPC is a recruiting asset
Brands obsess over their commission rate; experienced affiliates mostly ignore it. What they compare is earnings per click, because a 40% rate on a page that never converts pays worse than 15% on one that does. The EPC calculator mode gives you that number from your clicks, conversions, and average commission, and if it is strong, it belongs in your program's recruiting page next to the rate.
The same math runs in reverse when your EPC is weak: it tells you whether the problem is conversion (fix the landing page your affiliates send traffic to) or commission size (fix the rate or the attribution window). Guessing between those two is how programs stall.
Once the numbers work on paper, put them in writing: the terms this calculator models (rate, window, tiers) are exactly what your affiliate agreement should pin down before the first partner signs up.
Commission math questions, answered.
Is this affiliate commission calculator free?
Yes. No signup, no email gate. All three modes (program cost, tiered rates, EPC) run entirely in your browser and nothing you enter is sent to a server. You can also embed the calculator on your own site.
How do I calculate what an affiliate referral really costs me?
Multiply your price by the commission rate, then by the expected number of months you will pay it. For recurring commissions that last number is where churn matters: with 5% monthly churn, a customer pays on average about 20 months, but a 12-month commission cap means you only pay commission on roughly 9.2 of them. The program-cost mode does this math live and shows the total as your effective affiliate CAC.
Why does commission as a share of LTV matter more than the sticker rate?
Because the cap quietly discounts the real cost. A 25% recurring commission capped at 12 months, on customers who stay 20 months on average, costs you far less than 25% of their lifetime value. That share-of-LTV number is the honest one to compare against what you pay for paid ads or any other channel.
How should I structure a tiered commission?
A base rate for everyone and a better rate that unlocks at a defined volume threshold. The tiered mode shows the blended effective rate across both groups, which is the number that actually hits your books: top-tier affiliates usually drive most revenue, so the blend sits closer to the top rate than headcount suggests.
What is EPC and why do affiliates care about it?
Earnings per click: total commission earned divided by clicks sent. Experienced affiliates use EPC to compare programs before joining, because it collapses your conversion rate and commission size into one number. If your program's EPC is strong, publish it in your recruiting materials; it is the stat that closes good affiliates.
How do I pick a commission rate I can actually afford?
Work backwards from share of LTV, not forwards from what competitors advertise. Decide what fraction of a customer's lifetime value you are willing to pay any channel for acquisition, then use the program-cost mode to find the rate-and-window combination that lands there. Two programs with the same sticker rate can differ enormously in real cost once caps and churn are in the math.
Run these exact numbers for real.
Rekomi applies the structures you just modelled, percentage, flat, or tiered, with a defined attribution window, tracks every referral, handles refund clawbacks, and pays your affiliates in 165+ countries with tax forms handled. Flat 3% take, from $29/mo, 14-day free trial.