For the last several months we have been teasing the launch of a new service built to make paying your affiliates significantly easier. Today we are thrilled to announce that it is officially here alongside the release of AffiliateWP version 2.4!
Since 2014, one of our goals with AffiliateWP has been to make setting up and running your affiliate program quick and easy. Even though we’ve succeeded at this goal very well, there’s always been one major challenge site operators face with their affiliate programs: paying their affiliates.
The reality is that it has simply been way too difficult to pay affiliates their earnings, in AffiliateWP and all other self-hosted affiliate platforms.
A little over a year ago we set out to solve this problem so that yet another part of running affiliate programs could be made fast and easy for site owners. Today we have released AffiliateWP version 2.4 and with it a new Payouts Service.
AffiliateWP now includes a simple, affordable, and complete payouts service that allows you to pay affiliates directly to their bank accounts or debit cards in more than 30 countries.
How it works
The payout process is simple:
- Connect your site to the Payouts Service from inside AffiliateWP
- Your affiliates register to be paid from inside their Affiliate Area
- You or a site admin initiates a payout from inside AffiliateWP
- An invoice is sent from Sandhills Development, LLC, for the total payout amount + processing fees
- The invoice is paid by credit/debit card or an ACH transfer
- Funds are automatically dispersed to affiliate accounts in 3-14 days
See our documentation for a complete guide on connecting to and using our Payouts Service.
Referrals page 
Pay affiliates page 
Preview payouts service payout request 
Payouts service payout submitted
Pricing and introductory discount
Processing payouts to the 30+ countries we support is a complex process and incurs a number of fees along the way, but we’ve made this pretty simple, and we’re including a special introductory discount.
We charge a 3% fee and Stripe, our processor, charges a processing fee based on the country funds are paid to.
Your total cost: ${payout total} + 3% + {processing fee}.
You can see estimates and more detailed pricing details here.
Throughout the end of 2019, however, we’re making this even better: zero fees. Until January 1, 2020, there are zero fees for sending payouts through our Payouts Service.
Benefits of the service
International support
With the payouts service now built into AffiliateWP, you can pay affiliates directly to their bank accounts with direct deposit, supported currently in 31 countries and 130+ currencies. See the complete list of supported countries here.
Fast processing
Payout processing varies based on the country the funds are being sent to. For affiliates in the U.S.A, funds are deposited in 2-3 days. Affiliates in other countries will receive their funds in 7-14 days.
Affordable pricing
Large affiliate networks often charge upwards of 20% for payout processing. We charge a low 3% fee along with Stripe’s processing fee. The total cost to pay your affiliates is ~6% of the payout total. See our detailed pricing.
1099 delivery
For U.S. based affiliate programs, we take care of the delivery of all 1099 forms required by the IRS for affiliates paid through the service.
Effortless payouts
Forget about using PayPal and never again spend hours going through tedious CSV earnings reports. With this service you can calculate affiliate earnings and send the payouts in three minutes or less, directly from inside AffiliateWP and your WordPress admin area.
If you have any questions or comments about how the service can be used to pay your affiliates, do not hesitate to ask! See our documentation for a step-by-step guide on connecting your site to the service and issuing payouts.
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What is the difference in paypal payouts and this? I haven’t installed yet but have purchased the pro package for the paypal payout option. From the images on paypal payouts it looks like you can “select all” then “bulk pay”. Is that not correct? I’m not the most technically savvy. My site is still in development and I just had my developers install the plug in for paypal payouts but now I’m not sure which to use. Please advise. Thank you so much.
Hi Allyson! Thank you for the question!
There are a few distinct differences, and also a major similarity.
First, the main similarity is that both PayPal Payouts and this new Payouts Service both ultimately allow you to pay your affiliates from within AffiliateWP. Both solutions provide you will a way to transfer earnings that affiliates accumulate through promoting your product/service into their accounts.
The major differences come in with how the funds are sent.
With PayPal Payouts, the funds are transferred from your (the store owner’s) PayPal account directly to the affiliate’s PayPal account. This means the funds have to start in your PayPal account, so your PayPal account balance must be greater than or equal to the amount you’re paying to your affiliate(s).
With the new Payouts Service, funds are sent to us through either a credit card payment or an ACH (bank-to-bank) transfer and then we transfer the funds to your affiliates through direct deposits into their bank accounts.
A few other small differences:
– PayPal Payouts requires that both the business and all affiliates have a PayPal account
– The Payouts Service takes a little longer to deliver the funds (3-14 days)
– The Payouts Service takes care of all 1099 delivery (for USA businesses and affiliates)
– With the Payouts Service, the business and affiliates only need to have a bank account, no PayPal account is needed
– The Payouts Service has slightly higher costs, but with more perks
I hope that answers your questions! If not, or if you have additional questions, do not hesitate to ask!
Thank you so much for answering me! I truly appreciate the detailed response. This sounds like a great product.
Hello
This sounds awesome.
I am from South Africa. Is this service available for South Africans?
I hate PayPal and really want an affiliate solution like this to cut PayPal out.
Mozie
Mozie, why do you hate paypal? I haven’t implemented it into my site yet. I thought paypal payouts let you instantly pay out affiliates. Does it not? With the pro plugin? I tried commenting on the post but it wasn’t approved? I’m trying to figure out the difference in paypal payouts and this so I can make a choice.
South Africa is, unfortunately, not supported at this time. We very much hope to be able to add support for South Africa in the near future though.
I LOVE this! But…are the affiliates bank account details stored on the website? That could be a major data breach concern.
The bank account details are not stored on the website, nor on our servers. We interface with Stripe, Inc for securely storing payment information. This ensures that all payment details remain secure.