Pick a platform. Recruit affiliates. Pay only on conversions. Live in 2 weeks.
You'd think this needs a partnerships hire and a $400/mo SaaS — Astra has it earning revenue in 14 days using Rewardful or PartnerStack at <$200/mo.
Astra sets up an affiliate program in 14 days. Day 1-3: she picks the platform (Rewardful for SaaS at $99/mo, PartnerStack for higher tiers, or LinkMink for low volume), drafts the affiliate agreement reviewed against industry standards, sets commission tiers (typically 20-30% recurring for 12 months in SaaS), and writes the program landing page on Webflow. Day 4-7: she identifies 100 high-fit affiliate candidates by mining your existing customers (most loyal users), Twitter accounts in your niche with 5K-50K followers via Apollo + Twitter API, and SaaS review site contributors. Day 8-14: outreach via Lemlist personalized email (target: 50% open, 15% reply, 50 signed affiliates). She builds the affiliate asset kit — banners, swipe copy, demo video, comparison sheet — in Notion. After launch: monthly payout calculation in Stripe Connect, performance leaderboard, and a Lark report on top 10 affiliates with revenue attribution.
Rewardful ($99/mo) for SaaS under $50K MRR, PartnerStack for higher volume. Commission: 20-30% recurring 12mo standard. Cookie window 60d. She'll customize based on your margins.
Affiliate terms (FTC-compliant, IP protection, payout terms) + Webflow landing page with commission breakdown, FAQ, signup form, and proof points.
Mine: top 20 NPS-promoter customers + 50 niche Twitter accounts (5K-50K followers in your category) via Apollo + Twitter API + 30 review-site contributors (G2, Product Hunt, Capterra).
Personalized Lemlist sequence (3 touches over 8 days). Target metrics: 50% open, 15% reply, 50 signed affiliates. Each gets a welcome packet via Notion.
Banner ads, swipe email copy, 90-second demo video, side-by-side comparison vs competitors. Monthly: Stripe Connect payouts, top-10 leaderboard, Lark report on revenue attribution.
Live affiliate program on Rewardful with 50+ signed affiliates, full asset kit in Notion, monthly Stripe Connect payouts, and Lark performance report.
14-day setup, then monthly ops (payouts, leaderboard, recruiting top-up).
We'll spin up your workspace, hand the prompt to Astra, and you see the answer in 60 seconds. Free.
Try this with AstraClear answers about wallet credit, usage, subscriptions, and how Tycoon charges for work.
Affiliate = third parties (creators, reviewers, agencies) promote you for cash commission. Referral = your existing customers refer friends for credit/discount. They're complementary. If you have to pick one first, run referral if you have <500 customers, affiliate if you have <10K customers and need top-of-funnel reach.
She'll model alternatives: lower % with longer cookie window, flat-fee per signup, or 2-tier (high % for first 3 months only). For products with <40% gross margin, she'll usually recommend a flat fee ($50-150 per paid signup) over recurring %. She'll show you the unit economics before you commit.
Rewardful flags self-referrals, multi-account fraud, and bot traffic automatically. Astra adds a manual review for any affiliate over $500/mo in commissions and a clawback clause if customers refund within 90 days. Real fraud is <2% of payouts when set up properly.
Common — most signed affiliates are dormant. The 80/20 holds: top 5 affiliates drive 80% of revenue. Astra runs a monthly re-engagement campaign to dormant ones (new asset kit, fresh promo angle), and aggressively recruits more top-of-funnel candidates to find the next high-performer. Activation rate of 20-30% is normal.