How much can you earn from affiliate links with 10,000 followers?

Earnings per month = clicks × pay per click + clicks × conversion rate × net order value × commission rate × (1 − share of returns and cancellations).

The first part is pay per click, the second is commission on sales. If a shop pays only one of the two, set the other part to zero. Your follower count does not appear in the formula. It only matters through the number of people who see your posts and then tap a link.

• Clicks: how often your links are tapped in a month. What counts is what the programme accepts as a valid click. Stylink, for example, pays for genuine clicks under its terms; duplicate clicks and clicks from outside your registration country do not count there.
• Pay per click: the amount a shop pays for one click. If it pays only per sale, this is zero.
• Conversion rate: the share of clicks that lead to a purchase. In the calculator this field is “Share of clicks that buy”.
• Net order value: the order value without VAT and shipping, called “Average basket, net” in the calculator. Amazon, for instance, calculates on its revenue minus shipping costs and taxes, according to its programme policies.
• Commission rate: the percentage the shop pays on a sale, which varies by brand or category. If you link through a platform that sits between you and the shop, use the rate that platform pays you.
• Returns and cancellations: commission is usually cancelled on purchases that are sent back or cancelled. According to its programme policies, Amazon excludes orders where a cancellation, return or refund has been initiated.

These are reference points, not the terms for your product. The rate that applies is set in the shop’s affiliate programme. According to Bitkom, the most common reason for returns is a size that doesn’t fit, for example with clothes or furniture: 67% give it as a reason. And 29% have deliberately ordered more than they need, such as clothes in several sizes. So for fashion a share above 11% seems likely, although Bitkom gives no separate figure for it.

All values are assumptions for the example, not averages and not the terms of any particular shop: 3 cents per click, 2% of clicks lead to a purchase, a net order value of €60, 8% commission, 30% returns and cancellations. The 8% sits between Amazon’s rate for clothing and the range LTK gives. The 30% is deliberately well above the Bitkom average of 11%, so the example is more likely to understate than overstate.

The “Both together” column only applies to shops that pay for the click and the sale. With affiliate links, many programmes pay for only one of the two: according to their own pages, Amazon and LTK pay on sales, while Stylink pays for clicks on recommendation links.

Per click, every row comes out the same: 9.72 cents, of which 3 cents come from pay per click and 6.72 cents from commission. This figure is called EPC (earnings per click). Once you know your EPC, you can scale up any number of clicks in one step. In the example, 2,500 clicks come to €243.

Having 10,000 followers doesn’t tell you which row is yours. Measure it for a week: for every post with a link, note how many people saw it and how many tapped the link. That ratio is your click-through rate. Combined with the reach of the posts you plan, it shows how many clicks a month are realistic.

Each row changes one value only; everything else stays as in the example with 1,000 clicks. The 11% is the Bitkom average for returns, meaning the share of purchases sent back, not counting cancellations.

Only more clicks raise both parts at once. Conversion rate, order value, commission rate and returns affect the commission only. So if a shop pays only per sale, doubling the conversion rate doubles your total earnings. If it pays only per click, the conversion rate changes nothing.

In practice, a product at twice the price earns twice the commission per sale. How many people buy the pricier product is something only your stats will show. And an honest picture of the product helps your commission too: according to Bitkom, 41% have returned something at some point because it did not match the picture or description online.

1. Take your clicks from the last 30 days from the stats of your storefront, your bio link or your affiliate programme. If you have no links yet, start with a small number and recalculate after the first month.
2. For your most-clicked products, check if the shop pays per click, per sale or both, and at what rate. Set anything that is not paid to 0 in the calculator.
3. Divide your sales by your clicks. That is your conversion rate. If you have no sales yet, use a low value and replace it once the first ones come in.
4. For the order value, take the net price of the products you link most often. With Germany’s standard VAT rate of 19% (§ 12(1) UStG), divide the shop price by 1.19: €71.40 in the shop is €60 net. Some goods have the reduced rate of 7% (§ 12(2) UStG), in which case you divide by 1.07. Your actual order value can be higher: according to its fee schedule, Amazon can also count purchases of other products, including from categories other than the one you linked.
5. Deduct returns. If your audience is mostly young, use at least the 15% Bitkom reports for 16 to 29-year-olds, and likely more for fashion.
6. Enter everything in the calculator below and replace the figures it starts with, as they are only examples. Compare the result with your statement after a month. If it is off, check conversion rate and returns first, because these are the values you estimate least precisely.

On wyrld you just paste the product link. wyrld recognises the brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops and automatically creates the affiliate link for each offer it finds. You don’t have to sign up with affiliate networks yourself. The partner shops include the three cases from the example table: shops that pay per click, shops that pay per sale and shops that pay both. They pay wyrld on their own terms, and you get a part of that. So the example values on this page and in the calculator are not wyrld’s terms.

If wyrld finds your product in several partner shops, your community sees the offers with prices side by side and buys where it likes, directly from the shop and at no extra cost. For 65% of online shoppers in Germany, the lowest price is a deciding factor when choosing a shop, according to a 2022 Bitkom survey. The offers in the comparison run through wyrld and count for your storefront, paid per click, per sale or both, depending on the shop. Because everything runs through one account, you see clicks and commission in one dashboard, live. Divide your earnings by your clicks after a few weeks and you have your own EPC, so you no longer need the calculator’s assumptions.

If you’re already on LTK, Stylink or Amazon, you can use wyrld alongside them, for example as another link in your bio: the creator terms require no exclusivity. If you work with an agency, it gets its own dashboard and runs your storefront with you, and you both see the same figures. Commission is paid on the net value after returns and cancellations, as in the formula above. Earnings are settled at the start of the following month with a Gutschrift (self-billing credit note), and commission on sales is paid out once the shop or affiliate programme has paid wyrld. wyrld is free for creators, with no sign-up fee, subscription or cost per product, and the creator terms set no minimum follower count.