What affiliate marketing actually costs to run
Affiliate marketing is sold as paying only for results. The commission is indeed a result, but it is not the only line on the bill, and the others behave differently as the programme grows.
The commission
What you agreed to pay, on sales you would like to have. This is the cost that is supposed to scale, and it does.
The platform
A subscription, or a subscription plus a percentage of the sales your affiliates bring in. The difference matters more than the headline rate: a percentage means a programme that doubles costs you twice as much to run, on top of twice the commission. Affiliatant meters attributed conversions and takes no percentage of anything.
The payout
Several platforms move the money for you and charge a processing fee on top. Paying from your own bank, PayPal or Wise account avoids it entirely. Affiliatant never holds your money, so there is no payout fee to pay.
The time
The cost nobody budgets. Working out what each affiliate is owed, raising the paperwork, answering an affiliate who thinks they were not credited. The attribution record is what makes the last one a two-minute answer instead of an argument: it stores the model used, the window as it stood that day, the clicks that lost, and a reason code.
What to work out before you choose
Take the programme you expect in a year, not the one you have now, and put it through each vendor's current pricing. The shape of the charge is the part that rarely changes, and it is the part that decides what success costs you.
Start free
Twenty attributed conversions a month, every feature, no card. Above that, from GBP 15.00 a month.