This page is for merchants who review affiliate commissions before payout. Attribution and Stripe payment events drive each commission from creation to payout. Use the commission review screens to see what is payable, what is still waiting, and what needs fraud or refund review before payout.
Commission states
Every commission has one of five states, shown on the commission’s detail view:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
pending | Commission exists but is still inside the configured commission delay or review window |
due | Commission is eligible to be included in a payout run |
processing | Commission is attached to a payout that is being processed or exported |
paid | Commission has been paid or marked paid through payout reconciliation |
voided | Commission was invalidated by refund, dispute, duplicate payment, or manual review |
Fraud signals
When self-referral detection is enabled, AffiliateBase can flag suspicious conversions for review before they are paid. A fraud flag is a prompt to review, not proof on its own.
Detection covers payments recorded from Stripe as well as tracked conversions:
- AffiliateBase compares the buyer’s email with the email the affiliate signs in with. Gmail dots and
+aliases count as the same address. - For Stripe payments, AffiliateBase also checks whether the payment came from the affiliate’s own Stripe customer.
- Payout (PayPal and Wise) emails are not compared, because agencies and resellers often receive payouts at a business address their clients also buy from.
A match holds the commission for your review instead of letting it become due.
Useful inputs when you review:
- affiliate email and customer email
- referral IP and user-agent context
- Stripe sale details
- campaign and link ownership
- refund, dispute, or duplicate payment history
Affiliate under review
While an affiliate is marked suspicious, every commission from their referred customers, including renewals, is held for review with the reason Affiliate under review. Held commissions are not paid and do not become due on their own.
- Approving the affiliate (changing their state directly from Suspicious to Active) releases these held commissions. Each one then becomes due after your campaign’s commission delay, counted from the payment date.
- Rejecting or disabling the affiliate, or moving them through another state before Active, leaves the commissions on hold. Review each one here: Looks good releases the commission; Deactivate referral voids it and also deactivates the referral.
- Banning the affiliate voids the held commissions.
Approving the affiliate does not release a commission flagged for self-referral, or one you marked suspicious yourself. Review those individually.
Merchant review actions
Open a flagged commission from Commissions. Its Fraud review section shows the status, reason, and signals, and offers these actions:
- Looks good: clear the review flag; the commission returns to
pendingorduebased on its due date. - Looks suspicious: keep the commission on hold and move a pending or active affiliate to Suspicious. This button is hidden once the commission is already marked suspicious.
- Deactivate referral: void the commission, deactivate the referral, and move a pending or active affiliate to Suspicious.
A flagged commission you leave untouched stays out of payouts until you decide.
Outcome guidance
- Use Looks good when the affiliate/customer relationship looks legitimate.
- Void only for a concrete reason, such as confirmed self-referral, duplicate Stripe payment, refund, dispute, or known invalid attribution.
- Do not pay commissions in
pending,processing, orvoidedstate. - Keep notes or payment references when a finance or support decision depends on outside evidence.
- When the whole relationship is abusive, not just one commission, ban the affiliate. A ban voids all of their unpaid commissions at once and leaves payouts already exported or sent to Stripe unchanged.
Refunds and disputes
Refund and dispute events can adjust or void a commission, depending on the commission’s timing and state. Review the sale and commission details before including the affiliate in the next payout run.
Stripe can deliver a refund or dispute before the payment it belongs to. AffiliateBase holds the event and applies it as soon as the payment is recorded, so the commission still reflects the refund.
Before and after payout
- Not yet paid: a partial refund reduces the commission proportionally, and a full refund or lost dispute voids it. If the commission was on a payout that has not been exported or sent to Stripe, it is removed from that payout. A payout that Stripe definitely rejected and returned to due also counts as not paid.
- Already paid, exported, or sent to Stripe: the original commission and payout stay unchanged, so your records match what was paid. AffiliateBase creates a negative adjustment (clawback) for the refunded share instead.
Clawbacks
- A clawback is deducted from the affiliate’s future payouts in the same currency, across all of their campaigns.
- Campaign minimum payouts are checked against the affiliate’s earnings before the clawback is deducted.
- A payout is never negative. If the clawback is larger than the affiliate’s next eligible earnings, those earnings are held and the balance carries forward.
Dispute outcomes and manual voids
- If you win a dispute, a commission that the dispute voided is restored.
- A commission you voided yourself (for example, after confirming self-referral) stays voided. Later refunds or dispute outcomes on that sale do not bring it back.