Commission is a marketing budget, not a fee
Affiliate commission looks like a cost line, but it's really performance marketing you only pay on a sale. Judge it against your ad cost per acquisition — if commission is cheaper per order than paid ads, raising the rate to attract better creators is usually the right move.
Where sellers get squeezed
The failures follow a pattern, and they're all visible in the inputs above.
- • Low-ticket products can't absorb platform fees, commission, and shipping at the same time.
- • Returned goods are frequently unsellable, so the product cost stays even when the revenue leaves.
- • Free samples to creators are a real, recurring line — budget them, don't improvise them.
- • Discount events compress margin faster than they lift volume on thin-margin items.
For affiliate creators
If you're the creator rather than the seller, set the affiliate share to 100% and read the commission line as your income: units × price × rate. Conversion on video-driven shopping is usually low single digits of viewers, so estimate on views, not followers.
Related guides
Long-form playbooks on the same topic, written by the RevenueLab editorial team.
Amazon FBA Fees Explained: A Sellers' Guide to Real Unit Economics in 2026
Referral fees, FBA fulfillment, storage, returns, and ad spend — the line items that turn a 'profitable' Amazon SKU into a money loser, and how to model them honestly.
Read the guideAmazon FBA Profit Guide 2026: Real Margins After Referral, FBA Fees, PPC, and Returns
Why Seller Central's calculator under-reports your true cost, the 30% ROI rule aggregators use, and the levers that actually move FBA margin.
Read the guideeBay Seller Fees Explained 2026: The True ~17% Take Rate and When to Subscribe to a Store
FVF, the $0.30 fixed fee, payment processing, and Promoted Listings — line-by-line — plus the exact volume where a Basic/Premium/Anchor Store pays for itself.
Read the guideFAQ
What commission rate should I offer creators?
Most categories cluster at 10–20%. Below 10% it's hard to get meaningful creator interest; above 25% you need a very high gross margin to survive it.
Are platform fees a fixed percentage?
They vary by market, category, and promotional period, and introductory rates are common for new sellers. Check your current seller centre rate and enter it above rather than assuming a fixed number.
Do returns cost me the product too?
Often yes — many returned items can't be resold. This calculator keeps full product cost on all units shipped for that reason.
How do affiliate creators estimate earnings?
Multiply expected orders by price and commission rate. Work backwards from views with a conservative 0.5–2% viewer-to-order conversion for shoppable video.
How this calculator is built
Independently maintained
Written by Sam Doshi and the RevenueLab editorial team. We don't sell the data feeds this tool is built on.
Sourced from primary data
Benchmarks come from public AdSense / Stripe / IRS disclosures and reader-submitted data — never third-party "$X per view" claims. Full methodology.
Last editorial review
Reviewed on a rolling quarterly cycle. Dated reviews are published on the methodology record for each calculator.
Editorial standards
See our editorial policy and disclaimer. Results are estimates, not advice.