How does Simple Affiliate work?

Simple Affiliate adds an affiliate program to your Shopify store. It provides an affiliate page on your storefront, connects affiliates through your Shopify customer accounts, tracks referred orders, calculates commissions, and supports automatic or manual payouts. This gives you a consistent process for managing partners and lets you tell customers exactly how referrals are attributed and when commissions are paid.

What Simple Affiliate does

After you install Simple Affiliate from the Shopify App Store, you configure the rules for your affiliate program and invite customers or partners to participate. Affiliates then sign in, access their affiliate dashboard, and share the referral links or discount codes you provide.

When Shopify records an order that matches an enabled attribution method, Simple Affiliate can:

• Record the referral: Connect the order to the affiliate who generated it.
• Calculate the commission: Apply your global commission rule and any eligible product, variant, or collection overrides.
• Show results to the affiliate: Display referral and commission information in the affiliate dashboard.
• Process the payout: Use Autopay or hold the commission for your approval and manual payout, depending on your setup and plan.

How referral tracking works

You can use one or more supported attribution methods based on how you want customers to purchase.

• Referral links: Simple Affiliate generates affiliate links with a tracking code such as sacode. Links can also include optional UTM parameters for additional marketing analysis.
• Discount codes: Affiliates share unique discount codes, and eligible orders using those codes can be attributed to the correct affiliate.
• Connected customers: When the Pro feature is enabled, Simple Affiliate can permanently connect a customer to an affiliate after the customer makes a first referred purchase. Later purchases can use that connection for attribution.

Set customer expectations around these rules. A customer should use the affiliate's referral link, discount code, or connected customer account as required by your configuration. Simple Affiliate does not infer an affiliate relationship when an order does not contain a supported attribution signal.

How to set up your affiliate program

1. Install Simple Affiliate from the Shopify App Store.
2. Open Simple Affiliate in Shopify Admin.
3. Configure the affiliate page where partners can register and access their dashboard.
4. Set a global commission rule for your program.
5. Add product, variant, or collection-specific commission rules when your plan and program design support those overrides.
6. Choose whether affiliates will use referral links, discount codes, or both.
7. Invite customers or partners to join your affiliate program.
8. Review the referral and payout settings before sharing affiliate links or codes.

Affiliates sign in with your store's Shopify customer accounts. Stores using new customer accounts direct affiliates to the Shopify customer-account area. Stores using classic customer accounts use a branded dashboard page on the theme, such as /pages/simple-affiliate.

Plan features that affect the workflow

Your plan controls the scale and referral features available to your program.

• Starter plan: Supports up to 10 affiliates, one group, and one standard link per affiliate. It includes Autopay and live chat support.
• Basic plan: Removes the Starter limits for affiliates, groups, and links and adds Klaviyo.
• Pro plan: Adds custom referral links, discount codes, product-specific commissions, and permanent customer connection.
• Premium plan: Adds product attribution, group automation, lower Autopay fees, and manual payouts.

How commissions and payouts work

Simple Affiliate calculates a commission only after the order is attributed according to your configured rules. The affiliate receives the full commission amount. If you use Autopay, you pay the applicable processing fee in addition to the commission; the fee is not deducted from the affiliate's commission. PayPal and store credit payouts have no Simple Affiliate processing fee on every plan. Manual payouts on the Premium plan have no Simple Affiliate processing fee.

You remain responsible for reviewing your commission rules, checking attributed orders, and deciding whether your merchant process requires approval before payment. Do not promise affiliates a specific payout date unless you have defined that timing in your own program terms.

What happens next

After setup, test each referral method before inviting affiliates broadly. Open a referral link, apply a discount code where applicable, and confirm that the resulting order appears with the expected affiliate and commission. Then share the affiliate dashboard instructions, the approved promotion rules, and your payout expectations with each affiliate. This gives affiliates a clear way to participate and gives your support team a defined process for investigating missing referrals or commission questions.