Affiliate commission on credits and usage
How a percentage commission should work when your AI app sells a plan, credit packs, top-ups and metered usage to the same customer, and what happens when part of it is refunded.
Take a program that pays 30% for 12 months, the Referralmeter default. Maya clicks an affiliate's link, signs up, and over the next year buys everything an AI app sells. Here is every payment and what the affiliate earns from it.
| Date | Payment | Kind | Paid | Commission | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Jan | Starter plan | subscription | $20.00 | +$6.00 | |||
| 18 Jan | 1,000-credit pack | credits | $10.00 | +$3.00 | |||
| 3 Feb | Starter plan | subscription | $20.00 | +$6.00 | |||
| 28 Feb | Metered usage, February | usage | $37.40 | +$11.22 | |||
| 2 Mar | Refund: half the credit pack | refund | −$5.00 | −$1.50 | |||
| 5 Jan, year 2 | Starter plan, month 13 | subscription | $20.00 | $0.00 | |||
| Affiliate earned | Affiliate earned | $24.72 | |||||
What each row teaches
Credit packs earn like any other payment
The $10 pack pays $3.00, 30% of what Maya actually paid. If you sell many small top-ups and only want to reward the first one, turn off “pay on repeat one-time purchases”: the first purchase still earns, the repeats don't.
Usage pays on the invoice, not on the meter
Commission is calculated on the amount your billing provider actually collected for the period ($37.40), not on usage events. Free credits, failed charges and trials therefore never earn anything. You can switch usage commissions off per program.
Partial refunds claw back in proportion
Refunding half the credit pack reverses half its commission (−$1.50), never more than the commission had left. A full chargeback reverses the rest.
The window counts from the first payment
“12 months” means 12 months from Maya's first payment, across every kind of purchase. Month 13 earns nothing. Choose “lifetime” if you want to keep paying, or “first payment only” for a bounty-style program.
Nothing is payable until the hold ends
Each commission waits out a hold period (30 days by default) so refunds inside your refund window reverse it before anyone is paid. Then it becomes payable, and goes into your next PayPal or Wise batch once the affiliate passes the minimum payout ($50 by default).
Setting this up in Referralmeter
All of it lives in your program settings: percentage or flat amount, the window (first payment, N months or lifetime), whether one-time purchases and usage earn, the hold period and the minimum payout. Commissions work the same on Stripe, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Creem and Dodo. More on why this matters for AI apps in an affiliate program for AI apps.
Paste one prompt. Get a certificate. Then go find your sellers.
Free until your affiliates bring in $1,000 a month. Then $49, flat, however much they sell.