Why is my commission still pending?

A commission stays pending until the merchant approves it, and merchants approve on their own schedule. Pending is not an error and not a delay on our side. It means the sale was tracked correctly and is now sitting in the merchant's Commissions page waiting for review.

What pending actually means

Almost every tracked sale is recorded as pending the moment it happens, whichever payment provider the merchant uses. Your commission figure is already calculated and stored. What has not happened yet is the merchant's review.

1. A customer buys through your tracking link or registered coupon code, and the sale is recorded as pending.
2. The merchant reviews it and approves it, which moves it to approved.
3. The approved commission is paid, which moves it to paid.

Nothing approves commissions automatically

LinkJolt has no setting and no timer that approves commissions on a merchant's behalf. Approval is always a deliberate action, taken by the merchant or by a team member they have given payout permission to.

This trips people up because merchants do have an auto approve setting, but it governs affiliate applications, not commissions. A campaign with auto approve on accepts you onto the program instantly and still leaves every commission pending until someone reviews it.

Merchants commonly batch approvals, and many wait until their own refund window has passed. Check your program terms for the schedule.

A free trial is a different status

A free trial signup is not pending at all. It shows as Trial Period at a zero sale amount, because no money has changed hands yet. When the customer pays their first real invoice, that record is updated with the actual amount and your real commission, and only then does it move into pending. If the customer never pays, it never becomes a payable commission. There is a separate answer on how free-trial signups are tracked.

A full refund reverses the commission and marks it refunded, and that is final: a refunded commission cannot be approved or paid afterwards. A partial refund reduces the commission and leaves the remainder payable. A pending commission is not guaranteed money until it is approved and paid.

Other statuses you might see

• Approved: accepted by the merchant and waiting to be paid.
• Paid: the payout has been sent or recorded against the commission.
• Rejected: the merchant declined it, or LinkJolt's rule-based fraud checks flagged the sale as a self-referral.
• Refunded: the sale was refunded and the commission reversed.
• Held: the sale went past the merchant's monthly tracked-sales limit for that billing period, so it is not payable until they move to a plan that covers it.

The Pending Earnings figure on your Earnings page adds pending and trial period together, so it can be higher than the amount actually sitting with the merchant for review.

What you can do

1. Open Settings in the affiliate portal and check the Payment tab. Automated payouts run through Stripe Connect and need your account connected first. Merchants who pay outside that rail export approved commissions to CSV and pay you by hand through PayPal, Wise or their bank, so if your programs pay that way, save your PayPal or Wise payout email on the same tab. Your details matter either way.
2. Give the merchant the approval window their terms describe.
3. If a commission is pending well past that, contact the merchant. Approval timing is theirs to control, and LinkJolt cannot approve on their behalf.

Once approved, if the merchant has automatic payouts on, the commission is queued with roughly a 24 hour delay and picked up by the daily payout run. For the full picture, see the answer on when and how affiliates actually get paid.