Set Up Affiliate Payouts

This page is for account owners and admins who pay affiliates from AffiliateBase. It covers choosing a payout method, what affiliates must provide, and the order of steps from a due commission to a paid payout. You create payouts from commissions in due status and manage them in Payouts in your dashboard. Only owners and admins can open Payouts.

Payout overview

An affiliate earns a commission.
The commission moves from pending to due after your campaign’s Days until commissions are due setting.
You create payouts with New Payouts -> Create payouts.
For PayPal or Wise, you export the payouts from Payouts -> Export, send the money in PayPal or Wise, and mark the payouts paid with Settle payouts on the export.
For Stripe payouts, AffiliateBase sends a Stripe transfer from your Stripe balance, and the payout is marked paid when Stripe accepts it.

Choose your payout method

Set Payout method in Settings -> General, or in Setup -> Portal and payout defaults (shown as Affiliate payout method). The options are:

PayPal: export-assisted. AffiliateBase prepares a PayPal file and you send the transfers in PayPal.
Wise: export-assisted. AffiliateBase prepares a Wise batch file and you send the transfers in Wise.
Stripe Connect: AffiliateBase pays affiliates by Stripe transfer from your Stripe balance. You can’t pick it here. Turn it on in Settings -> Stripe Payouts after its setup steps are done. Once it’s on, Payout method shows Stripe Connect.

New accounts default to PayPal. Whichever payout method you choose, Stripe is still required for payment tracking, webhook attribution, and commission calculation.

Stripe payouts

To pay affiliates from your Stripe balance, you need your own Stripe Connect platform with an approved platform profile. Then open Settings -> Stripe Payouts and:

Set up Stripe Connect in the Stripe Dashboard: register for Connect, get your platform profile approved (including the loss-liability acknowledgement), and set onboarding branding.
Create a restricted key just for AffiliateBase and paste it in, with Connect Accounts (write), Account Links (write), Transfers (write), and Balance (read).
Saving the key runs the checks. Confirm your platform profile and branding in the setup steps, and use Re-check with Stripe after any change in Stripe. Turn on Stripe payouts appears once the first four steps are done, and you choose it to switch payouts on.

Affiliates then connect their own Stripe account from the affiliate portal. Stripe bills the Connect fees to your Stripe account, with no AffiliateBase markup. The full guide, including costs, countries, retries, and reversals, is in Pay affiliates through Stripe.

PayPal and Wise payouts

PayPal and Wise payouts are export-assisted. AffiliateBase does not send PayPal or Wise transfers.

Set Payout method to PayPal or Wise.
Confirm affiliates have saved the matching email in the affiliate portal.
Create payouts with New Payouts.
Create a PayPal or Wise export from Payouts -> Export and pay it in PayPal or Wise.
Select Settle payouts on the export after the provider confirms payment.

The full procedure, including provider-side steps and partial-failure handling, is in bulk PayPal and Wise payouts.

Affiliate requirements

Affiliates keep their payout details current in the affiliate portal under Settings:

PayPal email (if you pay through PayPal)
Wise email (if you pay through Wise)
A connected Stripe account under Stripe payouts (if you pay through Stripe), or a PayPal or Wise fallback when Stripe can’t pay them

New Payouts lists every eligible affiliate, but only affiliates with details for your current payout method can be selected. For PayPal or Wise, the others show “Missing payout details”. For Stripe payouts, each affiliate shows how they’ll be paid or why they can’t be selected yet.

Export formats

Payouts -> Export -> Export format offers:

Auto: uses your current payout method
Generic CSV
PayPal
Wise

Use these exports to pay affiliates outside AffiliateBase and to reconcile afterward. You complete the payments in PayPal or Wise, then mark them paid in AffiliateBase.

Best practices

Run payouts on a predictable cadence (for example weekly or monthly).
Reconcile every run so payout state stays accurate.
Require affiliates to complete payout details before creating large runs.
Keep payment references for audits and support requests.

Troubleshooting

No affiliates are eligible for payout

Open Commissions and check the Status and Due columns. The waiting period applies to each commission, not the date the affiliate joined. A pending commission with a future due date is still waiting; On hold means it has no due date, so open its details to check for a review hold. Waiting longer does not release a review hold.

When New Payouts has no eligible affiliates, it explains the recorded blockers and shows the next commission due date when one is scheduled. That date is not a promised payment date: minimum payouts, affiliate status, and refund or dispute adjustments still apply. Use View commissions or View campaigns to inspect the records.

To check the waiting period, open Campaigns, select your campaign, and look for Commission waiting period. To change it, edit Days until commissions are due. The default is 30 days. Changes apply to newly created commissions; existing commissions retain their saved due dates. Review holds follow their separate approval process.

Check:

Commissions are in due state.
The affiliate has the required payout details for your current payout method.
The affiliate’s status is active. Commissions for affiliates marked suspicious are held until you approve the affiliate or review each commission.
The campaign’s Minimum payout is met.
Clawbacks from refunds or disputes after an earlier payout are deducted from the affiliate’s earnings in the same currency across campaigns. A clawback larger than those earnings holds them.

Export creation fails