Why use commission caps?
When you run an affiliate program with recurring commissions, you may not always want to pay an affiliate indefinitely for a single customer. To help you maintain a healthy profit margin and control your long-term costs, our platform allows you to place a cap on these earnings.
A cap is a predefined limit on the number of conversions or the timeframe in which an affiliate can earn from a specific customer. Once this limit is reached, the system automatically stops attributing further commissions for that customer, even if they remain a subscriber or make future purchases.
Setting caps provides greater control over your affiliate program's long-term costs and incentive structure.
Budget Control: It prevents indefinite payouts, allowing you to accurately forecast the maximum cost of acquisition for any single customer.
Dynamic Incentives: You can encourage affiliates to focus on acquiring new customers rather than relying solely on passive income from old referrals.
Flexibility: You can choose between two different types of limits based on your business model:
Recurring frequency cap: Limits the total number of successful conversions/payments an affiliate can earn from.
Recurring time cap: Limits the number of days an affiliate remains eligible for commissions from a specific customer.
Example of Usage
Consider a subscription service where you want to reward affiliates for the initial sign-up and the first few months of retention, but not indefinitely.
The Setup: You set a Recurring frequency cap of 3 conversions.
The Scenario: An affiliate, John, refers a new customer named Linda.
The Result: * Linda makes her 1st, 2nd, and 3rd successful payments. John earns a commission on each of these.
After the 3rd payment, Linda is marked as "capped" in the system.
When Linda makes her 4th payment, John is no longer issued a commission.
How to Setup
To configure your commission limits, follow these steps:
Navigate to Programs and select the specific program you wish to edit.
Go to the Commission Structure tab.
Locate the Program commission settings section.
Toggle the Enable lifetime/recurring commissions button to ON.
Set your limits:
Recurring frequency cap: Enter the maximum number of times an affiliate should earn from one customer.
Recurring time cap: Enter the maximum number of days (from the first purchase) an affiliate is eligible for commissions.
Click Save.
Note: Changes to these caps will not retroactively affect customers who have already reached a previous cap limit.
FAQ
❓If I change the cap from 5 to 3 conversions, will it affect existing customers?
No. Changes to caps are not retroactive. If a customer is already at 4 conversions, they will remain "capped" under the old rule or continue until they hit the new one, but the system will not "undo" commissions already paid.
❓Can I set both a Frequency Cap and a Time Cap at the same time?
Yes. If you set both, the system will stop commissions as soon as either limit is reached. For example, if you set a cap of 12 months OR 10 payments, the affiliate will stop earning as soon as the customer hits their 10th payment, even if it’s only month 8.
❓Does the "Time Cap" start from the click or the first purchase?
The recurring time cap begins from the date of the first successful conversion (purchase) attributed to that customer.
❓What happens if a customer cancels and resubscribes later?
Usually, if the customer is already "capped" in the system, they remain capped regardless of a break in their subscription. If they haven't reached the cap yet, the count will simply resume from where it left off upon their return.
❓ What happens if I add a cap after my program has already been running for some time?
All previously created conversions that have already exceeded the cap will be capped on the next attempt to create a conversion, meaning no new conversions will be created for them.
For newly created conversions (those created after the cap is added), recurring conversions will continue to be created until the cap is reached.
❓ What happens if I delete a cap after my program has already been running for some time?
All conversions that were previously capped will remain capped. Any uncapped conversions, as well as conversions created after the cap is deleted, will no longer be capped.
Still need help?
If you have any questions or if something in this guide is unclear, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@tapfiliate.com-we're happy to assist!
Next Steps
Once you’ve mastered your commission structure, the next step is providing your affiliates with high-converting assets.
What is it? An XML Feed is a real-time data file that contains your entire product catalog (titles, prices, images, and stock levels).
What is it? A tool that transforms long, messy tracking URLs (e.g., yoursite.com/products/item1?ref=123&utm_source=affiliate) into clean, branded links (e.g., yoursite.com/go/summer-sale).