Affiliate Program — FAQ

Anyone with an audience, a relevant newsletter, a podcast, a YouTube channel, an active blog, or a relevant social presence. We do not require a minimum follower count, but we reserve the right to reject applications that look spammy or off-brand.

No. A useful audience anywhere — newsletter, podcast, social — is fine. Many affiliates promote via plain-text email recommendations to their own list with no website at all.

Sign-up is instant. You can grab share links and start promoting right away. Your email is what unlocks payout — verify it via the link we email you after signup, and your account moves from "pending" to fully active.

Two reasons: it confirms we can actually reach you when there are payout questions, and it stops bots from creating throwaway affiliate accounts. You can use the dashboard before verifying, but we hold all commission as unpaid until you click the verify link. The dashboard has a "Resend verification email" button if the original got buried.

On the Links & Coupons tab of your dashboard. Every active site has a personalized URL of the form https://www.<site>.com/?ref=YOURCODE. Click "Copy" next to any of them to copy the link.

When someone first converts via your link or coupon, you get tagged to that customer for the next 12 months. During that window, any purchase that customer makes on any Archieboy site credits you — even with no fresh click and no coupon. After 12 months the window expires and a new attribution is needed for new purchases. Subscription renewals on the original subscription continue paying you for life regardless of the 12-month window.

Last-click wins. If a customer clicks Jane's link, then a week later clicks Bob's link, then signs up — Bob gets the credit, and Bob owns the customer for the next 12 months. This protects active promotion: the affiliate who actually drove the conversion gets paid, not whoever happened to share the link first six months ago.

On subscription products only. Stripe makes it cheap to sign up for a sub, get one month of value, and cancel — and we don't want to pay commission on customers who immediately churn. So for subs, the first charge marks attribution but pays $0; the second and every subsequent renewal pays 20%. For one-time products (like a book cover or trailer purchase), commission pays on the first charge.

Yes. The Share Assets tab on the dashboard has pre-drafted social posts, email subject lines, email bodies, and one-click share buttons for X / Facebook / LinkedIn / mailto for every Archieboy site. The copy is deliberately bland — edit before you send so it sounds like you, not us.

20% on every Archieboy purchase attributed to you. For subscriptions, that's 20% on the second and every subsequent billing cycle, for as long as the customer keeps paying. For one-time products, 20% on the purchase.

Monthly, on the 15th, covering the prior calendar month. PayPal (default) goes to the email on your account. Bank transfer (Wise) goes to the bank details you set in Settings.

$25 USD. Balances under $25 carry over to the next month — they don't expire.

Each conversion sits in pending status for 60 days before becoming payable. This covers the bulk of refund and dispute windows — if a customer refunds within those 60 days, the commission is reversed before we ever pay it out. Once the 60 days clears, the conversion graduates to "Available" and is included in the next monthly payout.

The commission is reversed. If the reversal happens during the 60-day pending window, you simply don't get paid for that conversion. If it happens after we already paid out, the reversal is deducted from your next payout (your balance can briefly go negative, which carries forward). If your 90-day chargeback rate exceeds 5% — or you accumulate 3 disputes in 90 days — payouts auto-freeze pending review.

Some Archieboy sites point users at third-party services (editors, cover designers, ISBN registries, etc.) we don't actually sell. Those are pure recommendations — the customer pays the third party, we don't collect anything, and we can't pay you commission on a sale we never see. Commission only applies when the customer pays Archieboy directly. Your dashboard's Links & Coupons page is the canonical list of commissionable domains.

Click "Request a coupon" on the Links & Coupons tab, pick a site, and propose a code (e.g. JANE10). After admin approval, customers can enter that code at checkout for 10% off — and you get the same 20% commission you'd get from a link click. Coupons are best for podcasts, newsletters, and offline channels where someone can't click a URL.

To keep the program simple, all affiliate coupons are 10%. Same on every Archieboy site, no negotiation. This way customers know what to expect from any affiliate code, and you never have to argue rates with us.

A bit. Your commission is calculated on the post-discount price. Example: 10% coupon on a $29 product → customer pays $26.10 → you earn 20% × $26.10 = $5.22 (vs. $5.80 with no coupon). The discount cost is shared with us — we eat about 80%, you eat about 20%. In practice, coupons usually lift conversion enough to be worth the small haircut.

No — each coupon code is one use per customer per site. If a customer has already redeemed your code on, say, BookBud, they'll see "code already used" if they try the same code there a second time. They could still use a different one of your codes on a different site (or any other Archieboy site) — the limit is per (code × customer × site).

Not as a self-serve thing. If you have a podcast partnership or campaign that needs a different rate, email bo@archieboy.com and we'll work something out case by case.

PayPal, in almost every case. All you give us is your PayPal email; PayPal handles tax reporting (1099-K) downstream so we don't need any forms from you. Bank transfer (Wise) is offered for affiliates whose country isn't served by PayPal or who specifically prefer direct deposit, but it requires more paperwork.

When we pay via PayPal, PayPal is the payer of record for tax purposes — they issue the 1099-K and the IRS treats the transaction as a third-party network payment. When we pay you via bank transfer, we are the payer of record — so we owe the IRS a W-9 from US persons (and we issue 1099-NEC) or a W-8BEN from non-US persons (and we issue 1042-S, applying any treaty withholding). It's the same money to you either way; it's just paperwork that PayPal handles for us.

If you choose PayPal, none of the US tax forms above apply to us — your relationship is with PayPal directly. If you choose bank transfer, you'll need to upload a signed W-8BEN. For affiliates from countries with a US tax treaty, the form unlocks a reduced withholding rate (often 0%, sometimes 5–15%). Without a W-8BEN, we have to withhold the IRS default of 30%. We'll auto-fill the right rate based on your country at review time.

No. Wise is our account — we use it to deliver funds to your bank. You just give us your bank account holder name, country, and account/IBAN/routing details. Wise routes the money; you receive it like any other incoming bank transfer.

Yes, anytime, in Settings. Just save the new method and we'll use it from the next cycle on.

No. Self-referrals are blocked: if the customer email or IP matches your own, the conversion is recorded but pays no commission. This is industry standard and keeps the program fair.

Not without prior written approval. Bidding on our brands in paid search effectively buys traffic we'd already get organically and inflates our ad costs. Reach out if you have a specific paid-search plan in mind — we may approve case by case.

If your 90-day chargeback rate exceeds 5%, or you accumulate 3 disputes in 90 days (whichever hits first), payouts freeze automatically pending review. We email you when this happens; the cause is almost always low-quality traffic. Once the issue is resolved, payouts resume.

Email bo@archieboy.com. Earned, unreversed commission above the $25 threshold is paid out on the next regular cycle. We keep audit records of past activity (per US tax-reporting requirements) but stop sending new emails to you.