Affiliate Program
Budget Planner

The main costs are your affiliate platform fee and commissions. With LinkJolt, plans start at $19.99/month with 0% transaction fees. Commissions are only paid when affiliates generate actual sales, so your biggest cost scales directly with revenue. Most businesses can launch for under $50/month.

A good rule of thumb is to budget 20-30% of affiliate-generated revenue for commissions, plus your platform cost. For a business targeting $10,000/month in affiliate revenue with 25% commissions, budget approximately $2,500/month for commissions plus $20-80/month for the platform.

Most affiliate programs become profitable within 1-3 months since you only pay commissions on actual sales. The platform fee is typically covered after just a few affiliate-driven conversions. Programs with subscription products see even faster ROI due to recurring revenue.

Well-run affiliate programs typically see 5-10x ROI (for every $1 spent on commissions and platform fees, you generate $5-10 in revenue). This is because you only pay for results — unlike paid ads where you pay regardless of conversions.

Annual billing saves you 30% on LinkJolt platform fees. If you are committed to running an affiliate program (which takes 3-6 months to mature), annual billing is the better value. Monthly billing is good for testing before committing long-term.

With LinkJolt, there are no transaction fees, no per-affiliate charges, and no hidden costs. Your costs are: platform subscription fee + affiliate commissions (which you set). Payment processing fees from Stripe are standard (2.9% + $0.30 per payout).