How to Set Up Your Affiliate Program
A step-by-step guide for program owners: create your program, connect Stripe or Paddle, and start tracking affiliate conversions.
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RRefWaffle TeamRelated reading
How to Sign Up for an Affiliate Program
A guide for affiliates: sign up, get your coupon code, share it with your audience, and earn commissions on every sale.
Overview
Setting up an affiliate program with RefWaffle takes three steps. You create a program, connect your payment processor, and share your signup link. RefWaffle uses coupon codes instead of tracking cookies, so there's nothing to install on your site and no cookie consent banners to worry about.
Step 1: Create your program
After signing in, click "New Program" from your dashboard. Pick a name for your program and choose your payment processor (
or 
). Your program gets a unique slug that becomes the signup link for your affiliates (e.g. refwaffle.com/affiliate/yourprogram).
Step 2: Connect payments
Go to your program settings and enter your or API key. RefWaffle creates coupon codes for each affiliate and listens for webhook events. When a customer uses an affiliate's coupon code at checkout, the conversion is tracked automatically.
Step 3: Watch it grow
Share your affiliate program signup link, then track revenue and conversions from your dashboard.
Total Revenue (30d)
$487.50
Total Conversions
34
Total Affiliates
8
Setting up a campaign
Each program has one or more campaigns. A campaign defines the commission percentage affiliates earn and the coupon discount customers receive. For example, you might offer affiliates a 30% commission on each sale while giving their audience a 10% discount.
Inviting affiliates
You can invite affiliates directly from the Affiliates tab on your program dashboard. Enter their email address and optionally pre-set a coupon code and 
email. When they sign up, those values will be pre-filled for them. You can also share your program signup link publicly — anyone can apply to become an affiliate.
Adding the referral link snippet
Optionally, you can add a small code snippet to your website to enable link sharing for your affiliates. When a visitor arrives via an affiliate's referral link, a modal automatically appears asking permission to apply the discount.
🎟️ You've been referred!
Apply code PEWDIEPIE for 10% off your purchase?
This boosts sales by surfacing a discount to visitors who might not have known about it. Because the visitor explicitly clicks "Apply Discount" to opt in, no additional cookie consent banner is needed — the click itself is their permission. If they dismiss the modal, nothing is stored.
Managing payouts
When affiliates earn commissions, you review them in your dashboard and send payouts via . You set the minimum payout threshold for your program, and affiliates see their earnings in real time from their own dashboard.
