Affiliate Tier Up
A template for affiliate programs where commission improves as volume grows. It suits partners who promote continuously to an audience, and it differs from a customer referral program in one important way: affiliates are marketers, so disclosure obligations apply to every placement they make.
- Referrer reward
- Tiered commission on referred revenue, rising with monthly volume
- Referred reward
- Standard first-order discount, identical across all tiers
- Trigger
- Affiliate dashboard, with tier progress shown against the next threshold
- Qualifying event
- Referred order completed and past the refund window
- Eligibility
- Approved affiliates only, after application review
- Payout
- Monthly in arrears, at the tier reached in that month
Why this template is shaped this way
Tiers work here and not in most customer programs, because affiliates refer continuously and can actually reach a second threshold. A customer who refers twice a year never will.
Keeping the referred-side discount identical across tiers stops top affiliates competing on customer price, which would turn the program into a discount war between your own partners.
Monthly reset keeps the incentive live; a lifetime cumulative tier stops motivating once it is reached.
Where this template goes wrong
Through undisclosed promotion, thresholds picked from round numbers instead of your actual volume distribution, and the classic affiliate dispute — brand-bidding on paid search — left out of the agreement until it happens.
- Affiliates promoting for commission must disclose the relationship — put the required wording in the partner brief
- Set tier thresholds from your actual volume distribution, not from round numbers nobody reaches
- Brand-bidding on paid search is the most common affiliate dispute; address it explicitly in the terms
Should affiliate tiers reset?
Monthly reset keeps the incentive active. Lifetime cumulative tiers stop motivating once the top tier is reached, at which point the structure adds complexity without changing behaviour.
Do affiliates have to disclose that they are paid?
Yes. Once a recommendation is compensated it is an endorsement, and the connection must be disclosed clearly. That obligation sits with the affiliate, but it is the brand's problem to brief and monitor.
- US Federal Trade Commission — Disclosure duties for endorsements and paid recommendations
- UK Advertising Standards Authority / CAP — CAP Code section 8, Promotional marketing — how a promotion's terms must be stated
Last reviewed 9 August 2026.
Launch this template
ReferralFlo handles the tracking, reward rules and payout timing this specification describes — without engineering time.