Recurring vs. One-Time Affiliate Commissions: Which Actually Pays More?

A 50% commission sounds like it beats a 30% one. That instinct assumes both numbers are a cut of the same thing, and in affiliate marketing, they almost never are. The percentage on its own tells you very little. What it's a percentage of, and how long it keeps paying, tell you almost everything.

Three different shapes of commission

One-time bounty. You get paid a fixed amount, or a percentage of a single sale, once. beehiiv's Boosts programme works this way: a flat $1 to $3 per verified newsletter signup, paid once, no ongoing relationship. Simple to understand, easy to add to a newsletter, and it stops the moment the action happens.

Capped recurring commission. You earn a percentage of what the referred person pays, repeated for a fixed window, usually 12 months, and then it stops permanently even if they keep paying the platform for years afterward. This is how Teachable's Partner Program and Podia's affiliate programme both work.

Uncapped lifetime revenue share. You earn a percentage for as long as the referred person's account stays active, with no fixed end date. Lesso's affiliate programme works this way, as does the recurring tail of Kit's Creator Program, though Kit's requires you to maintain a minimum referral volume to keep it.

The shape matters more than the headline rate, because duration compounds and a capped percentage eventually stops compounding no matter how generous it looked on day one.

A worked comparison

Here's where the "percentage of what" question actually changes the answer. Teachable's Partner Program pays 30% of the subscription fee a referred creator pays Teachable to use the platform, for 12 months. Lesso's programme pays 50% of Lesso's net cut of what a referred creator's own course actually sells, for as long as their account stays active.

Say you refer one creator to each platform.

Referred to Teachable, they sign up for an $89/month plan. You earn 30% of that: $26.70/month, for 12 months, then $0/month forever after, even though they might keep paying Teachable for years. Total lifetime payout: $320.40, permanently capped.

Referred to Lesso, their course reaches 50 paying subscribers at $29/month, the same steady-state example used on Lesso's own affiliates page. Lesso's net after its platform cut and Stripe's processing fee works out to roughly $1.53 per subscriber per month. At 50 subscribers, that's $76.60/month, and it doesn't stop at month 12. It continues for as long as the creator's account stays active.

These numbers assume both referred accounts stay steady the whole time, no growth, no churn, which real accounts rarely do. Treat it as an illustration of how the two shapes behave, not a forecast of what any specific referral will earn. Programmes can also change their commission terms; Lesso's affiliate agreement, for one, commits to 30 days' written notice before any rate change takes effect.

Why the percentage of "what" matters more than the percentage

Teachable's 30% and Kit's 50% both sound larger than Lesso's 50%-of-net figure, but they're cuts of a subscription fee for using a tool, a cost that exists whether or not the referred creator's own course, newsletter, or product is actually working. Lesso's 50% is a cut of the creator's actual sales, which has no artificial ceiling. A creator doing well can generate far more in course revenue than they'd ever pay in a flat monthly tool subscription, and your commission scales with them.

The honest trade-off: a subscription-fee-based programme pays out a small, steady amount as long as the referred person keeps their subscription, sale or no sale. A sales-share programme like Lesso's pays nothing if the creator never sells anything, but has no cap if they do. Neither shape is strictly better. They're better for different referrals, which is exactly why joining more than one type of programme, rather than betting everything on the highest headline percentage, is the more reliable approach.

A quick way to evaluate any programme

Before you promote a link, work out the actual answer to three questions: What is this a percentage of, a subscription fee, gross sales, or net revenue after costs? How long does it pay, one sale, a capped window, or the life of the account? And what happens in the worst case, where the referral does the bare minimum rather than the best case the programme's marketing page shows you? A programme that answers all three clearly, the way Lesso's affiliate agreement sets out in full, is worth more than one with a bigger number and no detail behind it.

If you're deciding which programmes to actually join, start with the best affiliate programmes for newsletter writers and digital product reviewers, or see how to build a review and comparison practice that earns from them. To join the uncapped programme used in the example above, Lesso's affiliate page has the full breakdown and a free referral link.