WHMCS comes with a built in affiliates system. Affiliates are often key to a business in order to generate revenue by having others refer customers. So with that in mind, WHMCS has a comprehensive affiliate system featuring support for one time and recurring commissions, both percentage or fixed money values, payout delays, minimum withdrawal limits and live stats/info for affiliates from the client area.
Configuration
To configure the affiliates system, go to Configuration > General Settings and then click the Affiliates tab. From here you can set the initial bonus deposit amount, the minimum withdrawal level, the payout delay and the percentage to payout.
Commission Settings
In the General Config you can set the default commission percentage that applies to all products & services. You can however overide this on a per product basis in the product configuration area setting. You can then overide the commission settings furthur on a per client basis and set a specific commission rate for an individual affiliate, useful for rewarding your best affiliates.
Payout Delays
With the payout delay setting you can set a period of time to delay paying commission to an affiliate. This is an advanced feature and the idea behind this is to reduce losing money paying commissions for fraudulent orders. The way it works is that instead of paying commission instantly when you are paid, it waits for a period of days and then only pays the commission should the product or service still be active after that period of time has passed.
Affiliate Linking Code
You can specify affiliate link code in the config area. Below is an example:
<a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]"><img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif width="468" height="60" border="0"></a><br> <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]")><(img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/468x60banner.gif width="468" height="60" border="0")><(/a)><br><br> <a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]"><img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/120x60banner.gif width="120" height="60" border="0"></a><br> <(a href="[AffiliateLinkCode]")><(img src=http://www.yourcompany.com/banners/120x60banner.gif width="120" height="60" border="0")><(/a)><br><br>
The above code entered in the Affiliates Link section will display the image preview of the banner first and then the code below it for the affiliate to use. The <( and )> is special syntax which you must use so the code is not executed as true HTML. WHMCS modifies this when displaying it to the client so it will appear as normal HTML.
Affiliates Cookie
The affiliate’s cookie by default is set to last for 90 days on the user’s computer. You can change the number of days it lasts for in the aff.php file.
