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Affiliate program ROI calculator
How much commission can your SaaS afford? Enter your price, margin and churn to find your maximum sustainable affiliate commission — and the ROI of the offer you have in mind.
Affiliate program ROI calculator
Enter your SaaS unit economics to see how much commission you can afford — and what your program returns at the rate you have in mind.
Your SaaS
Revenue minus hosting, support and payment fees. 75–85% is typical for SaaS.
3:1 is the classic SaaS benchmark. Lower = more aggressive growth.
Your affiliate offer
Commission duration
Max sustainable commission
68.3%
recurring for 12 months, while keeping a 3:1 LTV:CAC.
- Customer lifetime
- 24.8 mo
- Gross-profit LTV
- $972.69
- Cost per referred customer
- $142.33
- LTV:CAC via affiliates
- 6.8:1
- Return on commission
- 583.4%
- Min. payout threshold
- $30.00
How this calculator works
An affiliate commission is a customer acquisition cost — one you only pay after the customer pays you. So the question "how much commission should I pay?" has the same answer as "how much can I spend to acquire a customer?". The calculator works it out in four steps:
- Customer lifetime = 1 ÷ monthly churn (capped at 10 years). At 4% churn, an average customer stays about 25 months.
- Gross-profit LTV = monthly revenue × lifetime × gross margin.
- Max acquisition cost = gross-profit LTV ÷ target LTV:CAC ratio.
- Max commission rate = max acquisition cost ÷ revenue paid during the commission duration (taking churn into account).
Example: a $49/month SaaS with 80% margin and 4% churn has a gross-profit LTV of about $972. At a 3:1 target, you can spend up to $324 per customer — that's up to 68% recurring for 12 months. A 30% offer costs about $142 per customer and returns almost 7× in gross profit.
Why affiliate programs usually beat paid ads on CAC
- Pay on results only — no spend on clicks that never convert.
- Cost scales with revenue — a recurring commission is paid only while the customer keeps paying, so churned customers stop costing you.
- Trust transfers — referred customers come from creators their audience already follows, which tends to mean better retention.
Choosing duration, cookie window and payout threshold
Duration has a bigger impact on cost than the headline rate. A 12-month cap is the safe default; lifetime commissions attract more motivated affiliates but tie up margin for longer. For cookie duration, 30–60 days is standard for SaaS with a free trial; go to 90 days if your buying cycle is long. Keep the minimum payout threshold close to two months of commission so new affiliates get their first payout quickly.
Want to see what affiliates earn from your offer? Plug the same numbers into the affiliate commission calculator. If you take payments with Stripe, see how Refindie's Stripe affiliate tracking records recurring commissions automatically.
Launch your affiliate program in minutes
Got your numbers? Set the same commission rate, duration, cookie window and payout threshold in Refindie, connect Stripe, and invite your first affiliates today.
FAQ
- How much commission should I pay affiliates for my SaaS?
- Most SaaS companies pay 20–30% recurring for 12 months or for the customer's lifetime. The right number for you depends on your margins and churn: your total commission per customer should stay below your gross-profit LTV divided by your target LTV:CAC ratio (usually 3).
- How do you calculate the ROI of an affiliate program?
- Affiliate ROI = (gross profit from referred customers − commissions paid) ÷ commissions paid. Per customer, that's (gross-profit LTV − commission per customer) ÷ commission per customer. Add your platform cost and affiliate management time for a full picture.
- How do you calculate customer lifetime value (LTV)?
- LTV = average monthly revenue per customer × average customer lifetime in months, where lifetime ≈ 1 ÷ monthly churn. Multiply by your gross margin to get gross-profit LTV, which is what you should compare acquisition costs against.
- What is a good LTV:CAC ratio?
- 3:1 is the common benchmark for healthy SaaS growth. Below 1:1 you lose money on each customer; well above 5:1 you may be under-investing in growth. Affiliate programs often beat paid ads here because you only pay when a referred customer actually pays you.
- What minimum payout threshold should my affiliate program use?
- Set it high enough that payment fees don't eat the payout, and low enough that new affiliates get paid within a couple of months. A practical rule is about two months of commission from one referred customer, with a floor around $20–$50.