How Supaffi works

Supaffi sits between your site and Stripe. A script on your site remembers which affiliate sent each visitor, Stripe tells Supaffi about every payment, and Supaffi turns each referred payment into a commission you pay when it is safe to.

The referral flow

1. An affiliate shares their link, such as yourapp.com/?via=sarah.
2. A visitor opens it. The tracking script on your page records the click.
3. The script stores a referral token in a first-party cookie, __supaffi_referral, for 90 days.
4. The visitor buys. Your Checkout Session carries the token in its supaffi_referral metadata. Payment Links, buy buttons and pricing tables carry it with no code.
5. Stripe sends the payment to Supaffi's webhook, on the first payment and on every renewal.
6. Supaffi records a commission for the affiliate, as Pending.
7. The commission waits out the program's holding period, 30 days by default.
8. Once the hold is over, it becomes Payable and shows on the Payouts page.
9. You pay the affiliate your own way and press Mark paid. It is now Paid.

Setting this up takes the script, one line in your checkout and a Stripe key. See Tracking script and links and Checkout Sessions.

Attribution

• Last click wins. The most recent affiliate link a visitor used gets the credit.
• A window to buy. The checkout must complete within the program's Time to buy, 60 days from the click by default. The cookie lasts 90 days, so a longer window has no effect.
• Renewals follow the referral. Once a subscription starts through a referred checkout, its renewals earn for as long as the program says, whatever the window.
• Same site only. The cookie is first-party, so the script and the checkout must run on the same site.

Subscriptions created in the Stripe Dashboard or through the API, without a referred checkout, never earn. More in What earns a commission.

Commission calculation

A commission is the rate times what the customer actually paid, after discounts and before tax and shipping, rounded to the cent. Tax is taken out of tax-inclusive prices.

• The rate is the affiliate's custom rate if you set one, otherwise their program's.
• The program decides how long a referral earns: the first payment only, a set number of months, or for as long as the customer pays.
• Commissions stay in the sale's currency. Supaffi never converts or adds up currencies.

Rates and durations are set in Programs and rates.

From sale to payout

Every commission has one status. The holding period gives refunds and chargebacks time to arrive before you pay.

The Payouts page lists what you owe, one row per affiliate and currency, with the payout details they gave. Send the money by PayPal, Wise, bank transfer or however you agreed, then press Mark paid.

Details in Commission lifecycle, Refunds, disputes and cancellations, Self-referral detection and Paying affiliates.

What Supaffi does not do

• Send money. You pay affiliates yourself.
• Send email. You share signup and password links yourself.
• Track payments outside Stripe Checkout, such as invoices sent by hand.
• Split credit between affiliates or credit the first click.

The full list is in What Supaffi does not handle.