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How to Install and Use the Tiered Affiliate Rates Add-on for AffiliateWP
With the Tiered Affiliate Rates add-on you can reward your affiliates with higher commission rates, the more they earn. You can set tiers based on the number of paid referrals or total paid affiliate earnings. This add-on provides a great way to incentivize your affiliates to work harder to convert more sales and in turn, earn more referrals! It’s been proven that providing your affiliates incentives, like higher commission rates, dramatically increases the affiliate’s likelihood to actively promote your products and services.
In this article, we’ll show you how to install and set up the Tiered Affiliate Rates add-on for AffiliateWP.
- Installing the Tiered Affiliate Rates Add-on
- Setting up Tiered Affiliate Rates
- Tiered Rate Expiration
- Examples of Tiered Rates
- Tiered Rates for Recurring Payments
Requirements: You will need a Professional license level or higher to access the Tiered Affiliate Rates add-on.
1. Installing the Tiered Affiliate Rates Add-on
Before we get started, be sure to install and activate AffiliateWP on your WordPress site.
Once you’ve got AffiliateWP installed and your license is verified you’ll be able to quickly install and activate the Tiered Affiliate Rates add-on.
After installing the Tiered Affiliate Rates add-on, the next step is to configure your settings.
2. Setting up Tiered Affiliate Rates
To configure the Tiered Affiliate Rates settings navigate to AffiliateWP » Settings and then click on the Tiered Rates tab.

You can add as many or as few tiers as you wish. The referral rate type (percentage or flat rate) will be based on your global setting in AffiliatesWP » Settings » General
Tiers consist of four options:
- Type: what kind of tier is it, referral earnings based or referral count based
- Threshold: the number of referrals or the total referral earnings an affiliate must reach reach to get the tiered rate
- Rate: the rate the affiliate is given automatically when they reach the threshold
- Disabled: whether the tier is disabled
Follow these steps to set up your tiered rates:
- Under Type, choose between Number of Referrals generated or Total Earnings (this is the total paid referral earnings the affiliate has earned, not the total the affiliate has generated in sales earnings.)
- In the Threshold field, enter the number of referrals or the total commission earnings you would like your affiliates to reach before they can move up to earn a higher commission rate
- In the Rate field enter the referral rate you would like your affiliates to earn on any new referrals for that particular tier
- Click Save Changes to save your Tiered Affiliate Rates settings.
Note: The affiliate will only be bumped up to the next tier once they have met the specific threshold based on referrals with a Paid status. When the threshold has been met, the new referral rate will apply to the next referral commission earned, it is not retroactive to previous referral entries, which would already have been paid out.
3. Tiered Rate Expiration
You can enable the Tiered Rate Expiration option to reset tiered affiliate rates on the 1st of every month.

4. With Tiered Affiliate Rates, you can easily set up a commission rate tier like this:
- 0 – 10 referrals = 20% (or $20) commission rate
Note: The above is shown as an example of where to start, however, it is best represented through the initial global referral rate = 20% in this example as a starting point set in AffiliateWP » Settings » General. Given that, the first tier entry should be the next tier below. The same applies to both types.
- 11 – 20 referrals = 25% (or $25) commission rate
- 21 – 50 referrals = 30% (or $30) commission rate
- 51 – 100 referrals = 35% (or $35) commission rate
Or even one like this:
- $0 – $100 in earnings = 20% (or $20) commission rate
- $101 – $200 in earnings = 25% (or $25) commission rate
- $201 – $500 in earnings = 30% (or $30) commission rate
- $500+ in earnings = 35% (or $35) commission rate
5. Tiered Rates for Recurring Payments
If you are using our Recurring Referrals add-on to create referrals from subscription or membership recurring payments, you have the option to apply tiered rates to override. To enable this, simply check the box in AffiliateWP » Settings » Recurring Referrals:
