How to create affiliate commission plans

Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin helps you to add, manage affiliates, and track performance from a single place – commissions, sales, payouts, leaderboard, etc. Earn money without hard work. Increase your brand outreach, and get potential customers.

Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin provides a very powerful feature – Commission Plans that help you set up different commission rates for hundreds of scenarios:

• Set up a global or storewide commission rate
• Assign specific commission rates only to influencers
• Set up different commission rates for different products
• Assign commissions based on product categories
• Provide different commissions for subscription parent orders and renewals
• Assign commission only on the first product and not on upsells
• Set up a three-tier commission program

…and many more

It’s like you are creating a sales commission structure on your WooCommerce store to provide different affiliates the appropriate commission they are eligible for.

Let’s understand what a commission plan consists of and how to set it up with some rules. Once you go through it, you’ll be able to set up all the different commission rates mentioned above with ease.

1. Go to WordPress admin > WooCommerce > Affiliates > Plans.
2. Click on the ‘Add a Plan’ button at the top right.
3. Enter a name for the plan inside the box on the top next to ‘Name’.
4. Set up commission rates.
5. Set up commission rules.
6. Set up actions.
7. Select ‘Active’ from the dropdown at the top to activate your plan.
8. Click on the ‘Save’ button at the top right to save any changes.

Note – All the above steps will remain the same. What changes for each commission plan are the commission rates, the rules and the actions.

The commission rate is what an affiliate will earn when they refer a sale to your website.

You can set it up under the ‘Commission’ section.

1. Enter the commission rate.
2. Select the commission type – Percentage (%) or Flat (store currency).

Percentage commission calculation works on the order’s subtotal. It excludes any taxes, shipping costs, and discounts from coupons.

A flat rate commission means to pay a fixed price without depending upon the order value. Affiliates get a fixed rate even if the order value is lesser.

You can set up actions to give a flat rate commission per matched item or for a single matched item.

In the Storewide default commission plan, a flat rate works per order.

If you have a multi-tier affiliate program, you can set up commission rates for multiple tiers under ‘Multi-level commission? How many tiers?‘, by entering the number of tiers, and rates for different tiers.

By default, the number of tiers is set to 1 as the main commission rate works for tier 1, who referred the sale.

Commission rules are the conditions based on which the commission plan validates affiliate commission for any order.

All rules stay inside the rule groups.

A rule group holds different rules that can validate your commission plan, which is present under the ‘Rules‘ section.

You can have as many rule groups as you want, but there will be at least one rule group present in the plan.

Click on the ‘Add another group’ option, which is present at the bottom right of each rule group to add multiple rule groups.

When you have more than one rule group, click on the ‘Remove this group’ option to remove a group if required.

To add a rule within a group, click on the ‘Add a rule’ option.

Similarly, to remove a rule within a rule group having multiple rules, click on the minus sign, which is present next to any rule.

There should also be at least one rule present in each rule group.

To validate rules between multiple rule groups:

• At the top of all rule groups, select ‘When > all > rule groups pass‘ to validate the commission plan only when all rule groups are satisfied. This is essentially an ‘AND’ rule.
• On the other hand, select ‘When > at least one > rule group pass’ to validate the commission plan when at least one of the rule groups is satisfied. This is essentially an ‘OR’ rule.

To validate rules within a rule group:

• Select ‘This group is a pass when > all > of the following rules are true‘ to validate the commission plan only when all rules inside a rule group are satisfied.
• Alternatively, select ‘This group is a pass when > at least one > of the following rules are true‘ to validate the commission plan when at least one rule inside the rule group is satisfied.

This is where you can set up rules using rule groups to validate a commission plan for an order based on affiliates, products, etc.

How to set up rules for affiliates?

This will allow or prevent specific affiliates from earning a commission.

Learn more about creating affiliate specific commission rates.

How to set up rules for affiliate tags/affiliate groups?

This will allow or prevent specific affiliate groups/affiliate tags from earning a commission.

Learn more about creating affiliate tag specific commission rates.

How to set up rules for products and product categories?

This will allow or prevent specific products and product categories from being eligible for a commission.

Learn more about creating product specific commission rates.

How to set up rules based on referral medium (link and coupon)?

This will allow affiliates to earn a commission if the purchase is made through the selected referral mediums.

1. Select ‘Referral Medium’ from the dropdown.
2. Choose ‘any of’ to give a commission for any specific referral medium. Use ‘none of’ to prevent commission on it.
3. Click in the box that says ‘Select a medium’, and choose from the two options Link or Coupon.

How to set up rules based on the user’s first order?

This will allow you to choose whether or not to provide a commission to the affiliate on the user’s first order.

You can set rules based on whether the referral order is the first order of a customer.

1. Select ‘First Order’ from the dropdown.
2. By default, it’s selected ‘Yes’, which means it’s the first order of the customer. You can change it to ‘No’ by clicking and selecting the option which means it’s not the first order from the customer.

How to set up rules based on user roles?

This will allow or prevent affiliates from earning a commission if their user roles match the user roles set up in the commission plan.

1. Select ‘Role’ from the dropdown.
2. Choose ‘any of’ to give a commission for any specific user role. Use ‘none of’ to exclude commission.
3. Click in the box that says ‘Select a user role’, and select the required user roles from the dropdown.

How to set up rules for subscription parent and renewal orders?

The Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin is compatible with the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin.

The affiliates will earn commissions based on what you set for the parent order as well as renewals for the subscription product.

They can earn the same commission for both parent orders and renewals or different commissions for parent orders and renewals (based on duration). You have full flexibility.

Learn more about creating commission rates for subscription products.

The commission plan actions determine how the commission will be calculated on different or multiple products present in a referral order.

You can set them up under the ‘Actions’ section.

When you have a referral order with multiple products, there could be different products that are validated by a commission plan. You can choose to apply commission either on all the products or on the very first product.

• ‘all matching products in the order‘ – select this option to calculate the commission on all the products of the order that are validated by the current commission plan you have created.
• ‘only the first matching product‘ – select this option to calculate commission only for the first product that is validated by the current commission plan you have created.

Note – In the flat rate commission, selecting the first option will calculate the commission on a per-item basis. It will multiply the number of items by the commission rate you’ve set. Alternatively, opting for the second option will calculate the commission on a single item.

This action determines how the commission calculation will work for the products that are not validated by the current commission plan you have created.

For example, If there are four products in an order and the current commission plan matches with one product, then this action will determine how the commission will be calculated for the remaining three unmatched products using the following options:

• ‘continue matching commission plans‘ – this option will continue matching other commission plans and their rules based on which it will calculate the commission.
• ‘use default commission‘ – this option will give storewide default commission value.
• ‘apply zero commission‘ – this option will give zero commission.

By default, a plan named ‘Storewide Default Commission’ will be created to manage the storewide commission rate, and its default value is 0.

This plan is validated when no other commission plan is applicable for an order.

You can click on it to change its value or set a percentage or flat rate commission under ‘Commission’.

If you have a multi-tier affiliate program, set up commission rates for multiple tiers under ‘Multi-level commission? How many tiers?’, by entering the number of tiers, and rates for different tiers.

By default, the number of tiers is set to 1 as the main commission rate works for tier 1, who referred the sale.

Note – Storewide Default Commission plan is a mandatory plan and can’t be deleted. It doesn’t have the option to add rules.

1. Go to WordPress Admin > WooCommerce > Affiliates. Click on Plans at the top. Select any plan to edit it.
2. To pause a plan, use the ‘Draft’ option from the dropdown at the top and click on the Save button.
3. Use the delete icon just left to the ‘Save’ button to delete a plan.

While calculating affiliate commission, plans are validated one after the other, starting from top to bottom, present on the Affiliates dashboard under the Plans.

Consider a case where there are two commission plans applicable – a $50 commission and a 25% commission. Both the plans are arranged one below the other under the Plans section, with the $50 commission plan at the top.

Now, if you want to apply the 20% commission plan first and then apply the $50 commission plan, arrange the plans accordingly by simply moving the plans above/below one another.

Here’s how to sort commission plans:

1. Go to WordPress Admin > WooCommerce > Affiliates. Click on Plans at the top.
2. Use the drag-and-drop functionality to arrange the commission plans as you wish.
3. Click on ‘Save Order’ once done.

Note – The storewide default commission plan will always be at the bottom and won’t be sortable.

Consider we have chosen a Plan like this:

1. Commission – 30%
2. When > all > rule groups pass
3. This group is a ‘pass’ when > all > of the following rules are true.
4. Affiliate – John or Chris
5. Product – Red Hoodie
6. Multi-level commission? How many tiers? – 1
7. Apply to – only the first matching product
8. And then, for remaining products in the order… – apply zero commission

This means when a customer purchases a red-colored hoodie and glares in a single order using John’s affiliate link, John will get a 30% commission on the hoodie but zero commission for the glares.

Consider the same example above with a slight change. We have chosen a Plan like this:

1. Commission – 30%
2. When > all > rule groups pass
3. This group is a ‘pass’ when > all > of the following rules are true.
4. Affiliate – John and Chris
5. Product – Red Hoodie
6. Multi-level commission? How many tiers? – 1
7. Apply to – all matching products in the order
8. And then, for remaining products in the order… – use default commission

This means when a customer purchases a red-colored hoodie and glares in a single order using Chris’ affiliate link, Chris will get a 30% commission on the hoodie and a storewide commission (say you have set it at 20%) for the glares.

Have a feature request or enhancement suggestion for Affiliate For WooCommerce? Submit a request or send it to us from here.