Affiliate links or paid brand deals: which pays off more for creators?

Commission can still bring in money weeks after the post, as long as people buy through your link and the programme credits those purchases to you. A flat fee, on the other hand, ends with the agreed post.

All amounts are examples, not typical rates. You find your own break-even with one sum: the fee divided by the commission rate. If a programme also pays per click, the sales you need to break even go down.

1. Say a brand offers you either a €400 flat fee for one Reel or 10% commission on the net value of purchases made through your link.
2. Break-even: €400 divided by 10% is €4,000. Only above that net figure does the commission pay more than the fee.
3. Net value usually means without VAT and shipping. At 19% VAT, at least €4,760 has to go through the checkout.
4. Take off returns: in a Bitkom survey published in 2024, online shoppers in Germany said they send back 11% of their online purchases on average, and 16- to 29-year-olds 15%. The survey counts purchases, not euros. If you apply those rates to sales value anyway, around €4,500 net has to be ordered for €4,000 to stick, or nearer €4,700 with a very young audience. With 19% VAT, that is around €5,350 or €5,600 at the checkout.
5. With an assumed basket of €50 net, that is around 90 orders through your link, for a single Reel.
6. Hybrid: a €200 base plus 5% commission also reaches €400 at €4,000 in net sales. Below that you get more than with commission alone, above it more than with the flat fee.

Fee or commission: under § 5a(4) UWG you have to make the commercial purpose of a post clear unless it is already obvious from the circumstances and leaving it out could lead your audience to a decision they would not otherwise have made. For a post that promotes another company, the law says there is no commercial purpose if you neither receive nor are promised payment or a similar benefit. So a promise counts too, such as commission you are promised on future sales. The law presumes that you received or were promised a benefit unless you can credibly show that you received none.

According to the German media authorities’ guide, a post based on an agreement with a brand is always advertising, even if the benefit is something other than money. The guide does not specifically mention commission agreed with a brand. But commission is money the brand promises you for the post, and § 5a(4) UWG expressly includes a promised benefit. If the product only plays a minor role in a video, the guide says a note such as “Unterstützt durch Produktplatzierung” (supported by product placement) at the start is enough. “Werbung” and “Anzeige” are the German words for advertisement. Abbreviations such as “ad” are not enough under that guide.

If you earn money as a creator on a regular basis, the Hesse tax administration says the tax office treats it as business income (Einkünfte aus Gewerbebetrieb). Both then count as business receipts: money for placements, posts or stories as well as commission on sales through your links. For the Kleinunternehmer limits (small business scheme) under § 19(1) UStG, €25,000 in the previous year and €100,000 in the current year, your total turnover counts, whichever model it comes from. That means the sum of your turnover taxable in Germany, counted by the payments you actually received and minus certain tax-exempt sales (§ 19(2) and § 1(1) no. 1 UStG). Services to companies abroad may therefore be treated differently.

For a fee you usually write the invoice yourself. A Gutschrift (self-billing credit note) from the brand only counts as an invoice if you agreed to it beforehand (§ 14(2) UStG).

The Künstlersozialabgabe (artists’ social insurance levy) is where the models can differ. Liable companies pay it to the Künstlersozialkasse when they pay self-employed artists or writers. According to the Künstlersozialkasse, payment for advertising with photos, videos or texts you created yourself is part of the levy base, while commission from an affiliate partnership is not, because it pays for embedding affiliate links rather than for creative or journalistic work. If the brand is liable, it pays the levy on top and may not deduct it from your fee. On a €400 fee that would be €19.60 for the brand in 2026, for example. The Künstlersozialkasse does not say if the exception also covers commission the brand pays for a post it has commissioned from you, such as the Reel in the worked example. That is for the brand to clarify with its tax adviser.

• What exactly is the job: how many posts, which formats, by when, and does the brand approve them first?
• What is the commission based on: net or gross, with or without shipping, after returns and cancellations?
• How is a purchase credited to you, through your link or a discount code, and how long after the click does a purchase still count?
• Can you see clicks and sales yourself, or do you only get a report from the brand?
• When is it paid out, and who issues the invoice or credit note?
• Does the brand want to use your photos or videos itself, for example in ads? Then the type, duration and territory of use belong in the contract. If the types of use are not listed one by one, the purpose of the contract decides how far the rights go (§ 31(5) UrhG).
• Does the brand want exclusivity, and if so, for which products and for how long?

On wyrld you earn from affiliate links through your own storefront. It doesn’t replace brand deals: the creator terms don’t require exclusivity, so you can run it alongside paid brand deals and other programmes. An exclusivity clause in a brand contract applies regardless. You paste the link to a product you use yourself. wyrld recognises brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops and creates the affiliate link for every offer it finds, so you don’t sign up with a network yourself. Depending on the shop you earn per click (CPC), per sale (CPA) or both. With shops that pay per click, you can earn even if nobody buys after the click.

If wyrld finds a product in several partner shops, your community sees the offers with prices side by side and buys directly from the shop at no extra cost. The cheapest new offer carries the “Best price” label. A purchase from another shop in the comparison counts for your storefront too. Earnings are settled at the start of the following month with a self-billing credit note, so you don’t write an invoice for them. Sales commission is paid out once the shop or partner programme has paid wyrld. Commission is based on the net value after returns and cancellations.

Besides fees and commission, wyrld Boost adds another way of getting paid: a brand books a campaign with a budget, many creators take part at once, and the payout follows KPIs set in advance, such as sales, clicks or reach. You decide for yourself which campaigns you join. If you work with a talent agency, it gets its own dashboard, maintains your storefront with you and sees the same figures. wyrld deducts any commission share you agree, from 0 to 100%, from your earnings, and your agency gets its own credit note for it. wyrld is free for creators. You are responsible for labelling your own posts, campaign videos included.