Free tool
Affiliate Commission Calculator
Work out what an affiliate programme actually pays you — per sale, per click and per month — once the platform fee and refund clawbacks have taken their cut. Enter any programme's numbers, not just ours.
Set the platform fee to 0 if commission is paid on the full price. Set it to the marketplace's cut if your share is calculated on what's left after that cut — the difference is real money and most programmes don't say which they do until you ask.
- Commission per sale
- $29.99
- After refund clawbacks
- $28.49
- Earnings per click
- $0.28
- Clicks needed per sale
- 100
- Lost to refunds each month
- −$15.00
| To make | Sales | Clicks |
|---|---|---|
| $100.00 | 4 | 400 |
| $500.00 | 18 | 1,800 |
| $1,000 | 36 | 3,600 |
| $5,000 | 176 | 17,600 |
This is arithmetic, not a forecast.
It multiplies numbers you chose. The click count and the conversion rate are your assumptions, not ours — nobody can tell you what your traffic will do, and plenty of affiliates make no sales at all. What you earn depends entirely on whether the people you reach actually buy.
Comparing programmes? The number to compare is earnings per click, not the headline percentage — what trading affiliate programmes actually pay breaks down the ranges by category.
The headline percentage is the least useful number in the offer
Affiliate programmes advertise a rate because it's the one figure that fits in a banner. It also tells you almost nothing on its own. What you are paid is the product of four things: the price, the rate, the share of clicks that convert, and the share of sales that stick after refunds. Change any one of them and the answer moves.
That's why the calculator leads with earnings per click. It compresses all four into a single number you can put side by side against any other programme. A 60% share of a $50 product converting at 1% earns roughly $0.30 a click. A 10% share of a $500 product converting at 0.5% earns $0.25. On the banners those look six times apart. In your account they're nearly identical.
Refunds are not a rounding error
Nearly every platform reverses a commission automatically when the buyer refunds, including after it has already appeared in your balance. Affiliates plan around the gross figure, see the net one, and conclude the platform is shaving them. It isn't — the clawback was in the terms.
The practical consequence is that the refund rate is a property of the offer you should weigh like any other. A product with a long guarantee window and a weak fit to its audience refunds hard. One that does what it says on the sales page doesn't. Two programmes with identical rates can differ by a tenth of your income on this line alone, and it's worth asking the seller directly what theirs is.
Gross or net: the question worth asking before you promote
Some programmes calculate your share on the full price. Others take the platform's processing or marketplace fee off the top first, then pay your percentage on what remains. On a 60% share of a $49.99 product, that's the difference between $29.99 and about $27 per sale — 10% of your income, decided by a sentence that often isn't in the public terms at all.
Set the platform fee field to 0 to model the first arrangement, or to the marketplace's cut to model the second. If you can't find the answer in a programme's documentation, ask. A programme that won't answer plainly has told you something useful either way.
The conversion rate is the input that decides everything, and nobody can give it to you
You'll find articles quoting an average affiliate conversion rate as though it were a property of the universe. It isn't. It's a property of your traffic, and the range between a link dropped in a chat and a link at the end of something that earned the reader's trust is wider than the range between any two programmes you're comparing.
So treat that box as the assumption it is. Run it at half your guess and at double it — if the programme is still worth promoting across that range, it's robust. If it only works at your optimistic number, you don't have a plan, you have a hope. Getting qualified clicks in the first place is the actual job, and how to promote without an audience is the honest version of how that's done.
What this calculator deliberately won't do
It won't tell you what you'll earn. It has no idea, and neither does anyone else selling you an affiliate opportunity. Every figure it produces is arithmetic on a click count and a conversion rate you chose — it multiplies your assumptions, it doesn't validate them. Plenty of affiliates send traffic and make no sales at all.
What it's good for is comparison and planning: which of two programmes pays more for the same traffic, how much a refund rate is really costing you, and how many clicks a given monthly figure would actually require. That last one is usually the most useful, because seeing the traffic requirement written down is what turns a vague plan into a real one.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate affiliate commission?
Multiply the commissionable amount by your commission rate. The commissionable amount is usually the full product price, but some programmes deduct the platform's own fee first — so a 50% share of a $100 product can pay $50 or $45 depending on which the programme does. Then subtract refunds, because almost every programme claws the commission back when a buyer refunds.
What is earnings per click (EPC)?
Your total commission divided by the clicks that produced it. It's the only number that makes two programmes comparable, because it folds the price, the commission rate and the conversion rate into one figure. A 60% share of a $50 product that converts at 1% pays about $0.30 a click. A 10% share of a $500 product converting at 0.5% pays $0.25. The headline percentages suggest a six-fold gap; the reality is a rounding error.
Does a refund take back my affiliate commission?
On most platforms, yes, and automatically. If a buyer refunds inside the guarantee window, the commission is reversed out of your balance — including after it has been credited. It's the single most commonly ignored line in affiliate maths, and on a product with a generous refund window it can move your real income by a tenth or more.
What is a realistic affiliate conversion rate?
There isn't a number we can honestly give you, because it depends almost entirely on how qualified the traffic is. The same offer converts wildly differently for a link dropped in a chat and a link at the end of a post that earned the reader's trust. Rather than guess, use your own historical numbers if you have them, and if you don't, run the calculator at several rates to see how much the answer moves.
Is a high commission percentage always better?
No. The percentage is one of four things that decide what you're paid — price, rate, conversion and refunds are the others, and a high rate on something nobody buys pays nothing. That said, between two otherwise similar offers the rate is real money: the difference between a 30% and a 60% share on the same product is exactly double.
Is the affiliate commission calculator free?
Yes — completely free, no signup, no limits.
More free tools
Run the numbers on ours: 60% of $49.99
Double Whop's 30% platform default, a 30-day attribution window, and every term stated before you sign up. See the full breakdown on the programme page.
See the CRTLAB affiliate programme →