Free tool

What's the ROI of launching an affiliate program?

Compare your current paid acquisition costs against a performance-based affiliate channel. See exactly how much you could save per customer — and how much net profit you'd gain.

Your ROI

Affiliate program ROI vs. paid acquisition

1,150%

ROI

$15,640/mo net profit

Breakdown

Current CAC (paid ads)$45
Affiliate CAC$7
CAC savings84.9% cheaper
Monthly affiliate revenue$17,000
Monthly affiliate cost$1,360
Net monthly profit$15,640

Ready to launch your affiliate program?

Get the weekly agent-commerce brief — new docs, product updates, and what's landing in the ecosystem.

Your numbers

$10,000

Total monthly budget across paid channels (Google, Meta, etc.)

$1,000$100,000
$45

How much you currently pay to acquire one customer through paid ads

$5$200
$85

Average transaction amount per customer order

$20$500
8%

Percentage of each sale you pay to affiliates — you only pay when they convert

1%25%
200

How many orders per month you expect affiliates to drive

105,000

Why affiliate beats paid acquisition for AI-native brands

Paid acquisition charges you for clicks and impressions — regardless of whether they convert. Affiliate programs flip the model: you pay only for results. Every dollar of affiliate spend is a dollar tied to a real customer.

For brands operating in AI-driven commerce, this matters even more. AI agents recommend products across millions of sessions. With Syndicate Links, every agent-driven recommendation carries a cryptographic attribution token — so when a purchase happens, the right affiliate gets paid and you have a full audit trail, no cookies required.

Traditional affiliate networks weren't built for machine-to-machine commerce. Syndicate Links is: attribution that works with AI agents, multi-rail payouts (Stripe, Bitcoin Lightning, USDC), and publisher dashboards built for the next generation of traffic sources.

Get started with Syndicate Links