CPC or CPA: how are creators paid for affiliate links?

The abbreviations come from advertising and describe what the shop pays. That is why they say “cost”, even though you are the one receiving money. The IAB, which publishes standards for online advertising, describes CPA in its glossary as what an advertiser pays for each visitor who takes a defined action beyond the click, such as signing up for a newsletter. For sales, the glossary has its own term: CPS (cost per sale). With creators’ affiliate links the action is usually a purchase, so CPA there often simply means commission per sale.

Say one shop pays 3 cents per click and another pays 8% commission on the net value, and 30% of sales lose their commission through returns or cancellations. On average, a sale then earns net basket × 8% × 0.7. The right-hand column shows the conversion rate at which both models earn the same. Above it, CPA pays more. All figures are assumptions for this example, not any shop’s actual terms.

So with cheap products, roughly one in 28 clicks has to turn into a sale before commission keeps up with 3 cents per click. At €150 net, one sale in 280 clicks is enough. To get your own conversion rate, divide your sales by your clicks. Say 1,000 clicks bring 12 sales, which is 1.2%: for products around €60 net, CPA would come out ahead, for products around €15, pay per click would.

The 30% returns rate is deliberately high. According to Bitkom, online shoppers in Germany send back 11% of their online purchases on average, and 16- to 29-year-olds 15%. Fewer returns lower the break-even point for CPA. If a shop pays both, you don’t have to weigh one against the other: the commission comes on top of the pay per click. Use the calculator further down to plug in your own figures.

Sales commission is often calculated on a net amount. For the Amazon Associates programme, for example, the policies say the basis is what Amazon actually receives, minus shipping costs, taxes, credits and discounts, among other things. Orders where a cancellation, return or refund has been initiated are excluded there. What exactly counts is set out in each programme’s terms.

Then there is the tracking window. A sale only counts if it happens within the period after your click that the programme sets, often called the cookie duration. If the person comes through another partner’s link in between, the sale can go to that partner. On Amazon, for example, the policies say your session ends as soon as the person visits Amazon through an affiliate link that isn’t yours.

A sale is often only final after a few weeks. In Germany, consumers who buy online can usually withdraw within 14 days (§ 355(2) BGB, the German Civil Code), and for goods the period only starts once they have arrived (§ 356(2) no. 1 BGB). In a Bitkom survey from autumn 2023, the wrong size, for example with clothing or furniture, was the most common reason for returns, named by 67%. That is why sales commission is often only confirmed once it is clear the purchase is kept. With CPC this rarely matters.

The details come from Stylink’s terms and conditions (August 2026, § 3), LTK’s German FAQ and the Amazon Associates programme policies (version of 14 April 2026), read on 22 October 2026; the wyrld row comes from wyrld itself. Other programmes set their own terms, and some pay both. Campaigns and other paid jobs that some programmes offer alongside are not shown in the table. Terms can change, so check them before you link.

wyrld has both: depending on the shop, you earn per click, per sale or both. You don’t have to find a programme yourself. You paste the link to a product or pick it from the catalogue, and wyrld recognises the brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops and creates the affiliate link for each offer it finds. You don’t sign up with any network. Brands can also pay for campaigns through wyrld Boost that run across many creators, based on KPIs they set in advance, such as sales or clicks. Taking part is up to you.

Your community sees the offers wyrld found with prices side by side and buys where they like, directly from the shop and at no extra cost. According to Bitkom (2022), 65% of online shoppers in Germany say the lowest price is a decisive factor when choosing a shop. So anyone at your storefront looking for a better price already sees the other offers there and doesn’t have to keep searching without your link. Whichever of those shops they pick through your links, you earn on the click, the sale or both, depending on the shop. Your dashboard tracks clicks and commission, so after a few weeks you can swap the assumptions in the worked example for your own numbers.

Commission is paid on the net value after returns and cancellations. Earnings are settled at the start of the following month with a Gutschrift (self-billing credit note), so you don’t write an invoice. wyrld pays out sales commission once the shop or the affiliate programme has paid it to wyrld. If you work with an agency, it gets its own dashboard, maintains your storefront with you and sees the same figures. wyrld deducts any commission share you agree on from your earnings when it settles, and your agency receives its own credit note. wyrld is free for creators, and the creator terms do not require exclusivity: as far as wyrld is concerned, your links on Stylink, LTK or Amazon can stay. What those programmes allow is set out in their own terms.