If you've decided to offer your affiliates more than a single flat rate, the next question is always the same: what should the numbers actually look like for an app like mine?
There isn't one answer, because a subscription meditation app, a free-to-play mobile game, and a one-time-purchase utility app all make money in completely different ways — so their affiliate payouts should look different too. Below are three worked example setups, one for each of those app types, with the reasoning behind each so you can adapt them rather than copy them blindly.
These are example structures, not the step-by-step setup. If you want the mechanics — how custom rules, tiers, and per-affiliate rates actually work — start with our guide on how to offer different commission rates in your affiliate program, then come back here for the worked numbers.
A note before the examples: treat every percentage below as a starting point to test, not a rule. The right number depends on your margins after app-store fees, how much an affiliate's audience converts, and how long your customers stay. Start a little lower than feels right, watch who actually performs, and raise rates for the affiliates who earn it.
(a) Subscription Apps
For a subscription app, the real value of a customer isn't the first payment — it's the months or years of renewals that follow. So a payout that only rewards the first sale quietly pushes affiliates toward customers who sign up and churn, which is the opposite of what you want.
A structure that lines up affiliate incentives with retention might look like this:
- First billing period: a higher rate — somewhere around 25–35% of that first payment — to make the initial sign-up worth chasing.
- Renewals: a smaller recurring share, perhaps 5–15% of each renewal, paid for as long as the customer keeps paying.
- Optional annual bump: if you sell monthly and annual plans, you can pay a little more on annual sign-ups, since those customers tend to stick around longer.
The logic is simple: the recurring share is what separates an affiliate who brings you a customer who stays from one who brings you a customer who cancels in week two. It costs you nothing on customers who churn, and it rewards the affiliates who genuinely understand your audience. For a meditation, fitness, or productivity app where lifetime value lives in renewals, this is usually the structure worth testing first.
(b) Mobile Games
Games are a different animal. There's rarely a single "purchase" — revenue comes from a stream of in-app purchases, currency packs, season passes, and the occasional whale who spends far more than everyone else. A flat percentage on a first purchase barely captures any of that.
A structure that fits a free-to-play game might look like this:
- A modest base rate on in-app purchases — say 10–20% — applied across the purchases an affiliate's referred players make, rather than a one-off bounty on install.
- A new-player bonus for the first qualifying purchase, to reward affiliates for bringing in players who actually spend, not just players who download and never open the app again.
- A higher rate on premium bundles or season passes, since those buyers signal longer-term engagement and are worth steering affiliate attention toward.
The thing to avoid in games is paying purely on installs — it rewards volume over quality and attracts the wrong kind of traffic. Tying commission to actual in-app spend keeps your affiliates focused on players who stay and spend. If your game has a clear "high-intent" purchase, like a season pass, paying a little extra on that is an easy way to nudge promotion toward your most valuable players.
(c) One-Time-Purchase Apps
A paid-up-front app, or one with a single unlock or lifetime purchase, is the most straightforward of the three — there are no renewals to share, so the whole payout sits on that one transaction. That actually frees you up to be more generous on the sale itself.
A structure here might look like this:
- A single, clear rate on the purchase — commonly 15–30% — high enough to be worth an affiliate's effort while still leaving you margin after app-store fees.
- A launch or bundle bonus, a temporary boost around a release or a discounted bundle, to concentrate affiliate energy when it matters most.
- A higher rate for niche or hard-to-reach audiences — educators, specialist creators, or communities that convert well even if they're small.
Because there's only one payment to work with, the lever that matters most for a one-time-purchase app is timing. Scheduling a temporary commission boost around a launch or a seasonal sale often does more than permanently raising your base rate, because it gives affiliates a reason to push now.
How to Actually Set These Up
Every structure above can be run per affiliate with Insert Affiliate, so you're never locked into one model for your whole program — a subscription-style recurring share for one partner, a launch bonus for another, all in the same dashboard.
We've kept this post focused on the examples on purpose. For the step-by-step mechanics — creating custom rules, setting tiered rates, choosing whether a rule applies to renewals or all transactions — head to our pillar guide on how to offer different commission rates in your affiliate program. It walks through the structures comparison and the setup itself.
When you've picked the structure that fits your app, you can get in touch and we'll walk through the right starting numbers for your specific app and audience.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's a good commission structure for a subscription app? A higher rate on the first billing period (around 25–35% as a starting point to test) plus a smaller recurring share on renewals (roughly 5–15%) tends to align affiliates with customers who stay, rather than ones who churn quickly.
How should mobile games pay affiliates? Paying on actual in-app spend rather than on installs usually works better — a modest base rate on purchases, a bonus on a player's first qualifying purchase, and a higher rate on premium bundles or season passes. Treat the numbers as a starting point to test.
What about a one-time-purchase app? With no renewals to share, you can be more generous on the single sale (commonly 15–30% as a starting point), and lean on timed launch or bundle bonuses to concentrate affiliate effort when it matters.
How do I actually create these rules? See our guide on how to offer different commission rates in your affiliate program, which covers the setup step by step.