What is Autopay?

Autopay pays your affiliates from a card or bank account that you connect through Stripe. The affiliate gets the full commission. You pay the Autopay fees on top.

Autopay pays in two ways. With the monthly schedule, which you turn on in Settings > Payout, Autopay creates one payment after each month ends for the active affiliates who reached your payout threshold. You can also pay one affiliate or many affiliates at any time with Pay now. A balance that reaches the threshold waits for the next monthly payment or for a payment that you send.

By default, you confirm the monthly payment before Autopay charges your payment method. You can turn this off with Require confirmation to send monthly autopay in Settings > Payout.

What you need

Autopay is on every plan. Your store needs a paid Shopify plan, an age of at least 3 days, and a store currency that Autopay supports. Each affiliate connects a bank account in the affiliate dashboard. The set-up steps are in How to Set Up Autopay and Pay Your Affiliates.

Fees and tax forms

The fee is 3.9% for a bank account and 8.9% for a card (credit or debit) on Starter, Basic, and Pro, and 2.9% and 6.9% on Premium. From November 1, 2026, Autopay also adds a low volume fee of 2 USD to each payout under 25 USD, in your store currency. Examples are in Auto-pay Overview and Processing Fees. PayPal and store credit payouts have no Simple Affiliate fee. For eligible U.S. affiliates paid with Autopay, Simple Affiliate can facilitate IRS Form 1099-K and Form 1099-NEC when IRS thresholds require them. See Does Simple Affiliate file 1099 tax forms?.

Turn Autopay off

If you turn Autopay off, Simple Affiliate removes the saved card or bank account, turns off the monthly schedule, and stops 1099 tax tracking. Affiliates who connected a bank account move to your new default payout method.