Affiliates

From WHMCS Documentation

Affiliates help generate revenue by referring customers to your business. WHMCS includes a comprehensive affiliate system with support for one-time and recurring commissions, either in percentages or fixed values. It also includes payout delays, minimum withdrawal limits, and live statistics and information for affiliates in the Client Area.

You can access this feature at Clients > Manage Affiliates.

Commissions

Affiliates earn commission for products and services (including configurable options) only. They can't earn commission on:

  • Domain names.
  • Product Addons.
  • Upgrade orders.
    Any recurring commissions will increase with new renewal prices.
  • Manually-created invoices.
  • Usage billing, invoiced in a arrears.

Affiliate System Configuration

Before you can use the affiliate system, you must:

Setting Overrides

You can overide these settings on a per-client basis and set a specific commission rate for an individual affiliate at Clients > Manage Affiliates.

You can override these settings on a per-product basis when you configure a product in the Other tab at Configuration () > System Settings > Products/Services or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Product/Services.

Setting Commission Per-Product

To offer a higher commission on a certain product, edit the product and go to the Other tab at Configuration () > System Settings > Products/Services or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Product/Services.

From here you can choose a percentage or fixed amount commission. Selecting the One Time Payout checkbox will give the commission only once. The default commission setting for WHMCS is recurring.

It is possible to disable commission entirely for an individual product from this page by selecting the No Commission option. This setting takes priority over the default commission. However, if you have set either the client or the product commission to One Time Payout, that setting will override this.

Setting Commission Per-Client

To offer a unique commission, click the "'View Affiliate Details'" link on the "client's Summary tab" and you can set the commission as above. This setting will take priority over all others. However, if you have set either the client or the product commission to One Time Payout, that setting will override this.

Delays and Reversals

WHMCS includes tools to help you prevent losses due to disputes, cancellations, or refunds on transactions for which you pay commissions.

The Affiliate Commission Delay setting at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings helps you avoid this by delaying commission payment for a set number of days after the transaction.

  • This setting applies to commissions for both initial orders and renewals.
  • At the time of payment, the affiliate's Pending Commissions Balance will increase by the amount of commission for the order but their Available to Withdraw Balance will not.
  • WHMCS only awards commission if the product or service is in the Active status when payout would occur according to your settings.
    • This is either at the end of the delay period or, if you did not set a delay period, immediately.
    • If it is in another status, the commission will be removed and can only be awarded manually.

In WHMCS 8.3 and later, you can also perform reversals on commission.

  • WHMCS can reverse commissions when you refund the invoice that incurred the affiliate commission.
    • When you perform a full refund, WHMCS automatically reverses all of the associated commissions.
    • When you perform a partial refund, you can choose whether to also reverse the commission. You cannot, however, choose an amount of the commission to reverse. Reversing the commission must reverse the entire amount.
  • If you choose not to perform a commission reversal, the commission payment will not be affected.

If you paid a commission before upgrading to WHMCS 8.3, WHMCS will not present the option to reverse commissions.

Working with Affiliates

Before a client can receive commissions, they must become an activated affiliate.

  • You can activate affiliates in their client profile's Summary tab. To do this, navigate to the client profile Summary tab and click Activate as Affiliate under Other Actions.
  • After you have enabled the affiliate system as described above, clients can also activate affiliate status for themselves in the Client Area.

Managing Affiliates

To view and manage affiliates and create manual commission payments and withdrawals, go to Clients > Manage Affiliates.

You must also configure the settings in the Affiliate System Configuration section above. Otherwise, affiliate information will not display in the Client Area and the affiliate system will not function.

Assigning an Affiliate to an Existing Order

To assign an affiliate to an existing referral-free order that contains a service:

  1. Go to Orders > List.
  2. Locate the order you want to assign to the affiliate.
  3. Click the Order ID number to open the details for that order.
  4. Click Manual Assign in the Affiliate section.
  5. From the menu that appears, select the affiliate to assign to the order. Alternately, start typing the name of the desired affiliate.
  6. Click Save.

Unassigning an Affiliate from an Order

To unassign an affiliate from an order:

  1. Visit Clients > Manage Affiliates.
  2. Select the order's assigned affiliate.
  3. Select the Referred Signups tab.
  4. Delete the relevant signup using the red button on the right hand side.

You can now assign the order to another affiliate using the Assigning an Affiliate to an Existing Order section above.

Paying Commission for a Paid Order

You may wish to apply an affiliate to an order after it is paid, in which case the affiliate has missed the initial commission for that order.

To correct this:

  1. Use the steps above to assign the affiliate to the order.
  2. Go to Clients > Manage Affiliates.
  3. In the Referrals tab, click Manual Payout for that order.

WHMCS will perform the necessary steps to credit the affiliate.

Affiliate Codes and Links

WHMCS generates a unique code for each affiliate to use on their website. For example: 

https://www.example.com/aff.php?aff=001

Affiliates can obtain their unique link via the Client Area. To view the link, they can log in to the Client Area and click Affiliates in the main menu.

When a visitor follows an affiliate link, the system will redirect them to the URL that you specified for Domain in the General tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings, and will save a cookie in their browser. If the visitor places an order for a product or service with the cookie present, the affiliate will earn a commission. By default, the cookie persists for three months.

Affiliate Linking Code

You can specify Affiliate Link code in the Affiliates tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings. For example: 

 <a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]"><img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0"></a><br>
 <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]")><(img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0")><(/a)><br><br>
 <a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]"><img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/120x60banner.gif" width="120" height="60" border="0"></a><br>
 <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]")><(img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/120x60banner.gif" width="120" height="60" border="0")><(/a)><br><br>

If you enter this code, it will display the image preview of the banner first and then the code below it for the affiliate to use. The <( and )> are parts of a special syntax that you must use to ensure that the code is not executed as HTML. WHMCS modifies this during display to cause it to appear as normal HTML.

You can add advanced link code directly to the affiliates.tpl template file in your active template folder using the {$referrallink} template field wherever you want to include the affiliate's unique referral URL.

For more information about linking to WHMCS, see Linking to WHMCS.

Linking to a Product Group

You can link directly to the order form for a specific product group. To do this, append &gid=x to the end of the [AffiliateLinkCode], where x is the ID of the product group. For example: 

<a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&gid=2"><img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0"></a><br> <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&gid=2")><(img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0")><(/a)>

Linking to a Product

You can link directly to the order form for a specific product. To do this, append &pid=x to the end of the [AffiliateLinkCode], where x is the product ID. For example: 

<a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&pid=2"><img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0"></a><br> <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&pid=2")><(img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0")><(/a)>

Linking to the Cart

You can link directly to the cart. To do this, append &gocart=true to the end of the [AffiliateLinkCode]. For example: 

<a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&gocart=true"><img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0"></a><br> <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&gocart=true")><(img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0")><(/a)>

Linking to the Registration Form

You can link directly to the registration form. To do this, append &register=true to the end of the [AffiliateLinkCode]. For example: 

<a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&register=true"><img src="http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0"></a><br> <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]&register=true")><(img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif" width="468" height="60" border="0")><(/a)>

Affiliate Cookies

The affiliate link cookie lasts for three months on the user's computer by default. You can change the cookie duration by editing the aff.php file.

Line 24 controls the creation of the cookie and how long it lasts: 

Cookie::set('AffiliateID',$aff,'3m');

When editing this line, only alter the final argument (3m).

The final argument defines the lifetime of the cookie using PHP Timestamps. For convenience, we offer a helper when defining months. When you require months, specify the number of months and append m as in the example above.

The following examples are commonly-used lifetimes:

One Day
Cookie::set('AffiliateID', $aff, time() + (24*60*60));
Seven Days
Cookie::set('AffiliateID', $aff, time() + (7*24*60*60));
Fourteen Days
Cookie::set('AffiliateID', $aff, time() + (14*24*60*60));
One Month
Cookie::set('AffiliateID', $aff, '1m');

Affiliate System Commission Logic

The affiliate system uses the following logic when processing commissions:

Setup Fees

If there is a setup fee, the initial commission will include it. Then, the system bases recurring commissions on the product's pricing recurring amount.

Promotions

If a referred client uses a promotional code when signing up and you have configured a percentage commission, the system will reduce the value of the commission. If you have configured a fixed amount commission, they will still receive the full commission.

For example, if someone uses an affiliate's three months free promotional code, the affiliate gets the commission based on the first payment amount. Then, they receive recurring amounts according to the product's settings. In this example, the affiliate would receive a percentage of zero for the first three months.

Product Upgrades and Downgrades

If a referred client upgrades or downgrades their product, the system will adjust the affiliate's future commissions to match the price of the new product.

  • This won't affect commission payments that the affiliate has already earned.
  • There is no commission on the upgrade or downgrade order itself.
  • This does not apply to one-time commissions.

Multi Currency

When you pay percentage commissions, WHMCS will convert the value in the purchaser's currency to the affiliate's currency using the current exchange rate. If you select to pay a fixed amount, it pays the same amount in any currency.

The system converts the Affiliate Bonus Deposit amount and Affiliate Payout Amount into the affiliate's currency.

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