4 builders who never spoke to each other

Pay affiliates more, and pay them for life

A referral costs nothing until it converts, so the commission is the one number where being the most generous in your category is cheap. A recurring cut for as long as the customer stays beats a one off bounty and turns advocates into people earning more than their own subscription, and restricting the programme to paying customers keeps the recommendations honest.

The method

1. 01

   Pay affiliates well above the going rate, because a referral costs you nothing until it converts.

2. 02

   Pay affiliates a recurring cut for the lifetime of the customer rather than a one-off bounty, and make the rate the most generous in your category.

3. 03

   Pay referrers a recurring cut for as long as the customer stays, and restrict the program to people already paying you.

4. 04

   Hand your best affiliates half of the sale price so a buyer can pay a creator they already admire at the same time as buying from you.

5. 05

   Affiliates do not beat ads on speed or scale, they beat them on risk: the cost only appears after the revenue, and you borrow trust instead of building it.

What it returned

• 35%

  Welsh pays 35% where he says 20% to 25% is typical.

• 25%

  Fathom pays 25% for life, so a referral on the $14/month plan keeps paying out, and some affiliates now earn more than their own subscription costs.

• 90%

  The Fathom Partners program pays a quarter of every monthly payment for the life of the account, only to customers with a live subscription, and sits on a trial-to-paid rate of 90% with churn of 2%.

• 143

  143 sales and $3,228 revenue on a $20 price, of which $1,614 went to top affiliates.

Sources

• 4 Lessons From $1.228M in Online Course SalesJustin Welsh · justinwelsh.me · Lesson 4: Increase Affiliate Sales by Removing Promotional Friction · 2022-07-30
• Black Friday 2021 LPHT Experiment Results - Rob HopeRob Hope · robhope.com · BF 2021 Deal Context · 2021-11-30
• Best practices for promoting your affiliate links - Fathom AnalyticsPaul Jarvis · usefathom.com · Best practices for promoting your affiliate links · 2022-08-09
• SaaS lessons shared on the Framework podcast - Fathom AnalyticsPaul Jarvis · usefathom.com · Fathom’s marketing strategy is a constant not a finite point · 2020-07-20
• Strangers made me $30,000 last monthTibo Louis-Lucas · tmaker.io · What a good fit looks like · 2026-07-23