Why product rates need a custom commission plan
Your program has one Base Commission Plan, set under Program Settings → Program Details → General. It is deliberately simple: a single Commission Type (percentage or flat) and one Commission Rate that applies to every referred sale. There is no place on it to say “pay this rate for this product” because it is one rate for everything.
To pay by product, you create a custom commission plan. Custom plans let you add conditions that check what was bought and pay a different reward when they match. That’s the piece the base plan doesn’t have.
A custom commission plan can hold several rates at once, each with its own product condition, plus a default rate for everything else. So one plan can cover all your product-based rules.
Connect where you sell
So you can search for products by name instead of typing IDs, connect the platform your sales run through first. Referly pulls your product list from these connected integrations: Collections are a Shopify feature, so the option to target a collection only appears when Shopify is connected. With Stripe, WooCommerce, or Polar you target individual products. You don’t strictly need an integration to build the rule, but without one you’d have to enter product IDs by hand. See connect an integration to link a platform.Create a custom commission plan
Open Program Settings → Program Details → Commission Plans. At the top you’ll see your Base Commission Plan with a Default Plan badge. To make a new plan, select Add Commission Plan.
The plan builder opens. It has three parts:
- Commissions tabs across the top. Every plan starts with a Default commission, and you add more as Commission 1, Commission 2, and so on. Each tab is one rate.
- A Conditions panel on the left, where you decide when a commission applies.
- A Reward panel on the right, where you set what the affiliate earns when it applies.
Give the plan a name so you can recognize it later, then move to the commission you want to attach the product rate to.
Add a Product condition
Product-based rates work by adding a commission with a Product condition, then giving it the reward you want for those products. Pick the Add tab to create a new commission (for example Commission 1), or select an existing one. In its Conditions panel, select Add condition. Two dropdowns appear:1
Set the rule type to Product
Open the first dropdown (Rule type) and choose Product. This tells the commission to look at what the customer bought.
2
Choose Any of or None of
Open the second dropdown (Condition) and pick how to match:
- Any of — the reward applies when the purchase includes one of the products you select.
- None of — the reward applies to everything except the products you select.
Search and select your products
A search box appears below the condition. Start typing a product name and Referly searches your connected integrations, then shows matching results to pick from. You can select more than one.- If Shopify is connected, the box reads Search products or collections… and collection results are marked with
(collection)so you can tell them apart from individual products. - With other integrations, the box reads Search products… and shows individual products only.
- Leave the box blank to apply the rate to all products. That’s useful for a catch-all rate paired with None of, or when the condition is really about something else.
Set the reward for those products
In the Reward panel on the right, set what the affiliate earns when this commission’s conditions match — a percentage of the sale or a flat amount. This is the rate that will apply to the products you chose. Every plan also keeps a Default commission. It has no required conditions and catches any sale your other commissions don’t match, so nothing goes unpaid. Set the Default to your normal rate, and let each product commission override it for its own products.Commissions are checked in order, left to right, and the first one whose conditions match wins. The Default applies to anything left over. So put your most specific product rates first, and keep the Default as your fallback rate.
Add more than one product rate
To pay several different rates by product, add a commission for each one. Use the Add tab to create Commission 2, Commission 3, and so on, and give each its own Product condition and Reward. You can also combine a product with another check inside a single commission — for example a product and a minimum order amount. When a commission has two or more conditions, a selector appears:- ALL conditions must match — every condition has to be true.
- ANY condition can match — the reward applies if at least one is true.
Save and assign the plan
Save the plan when it looks right. A custom plan only affects affiliates once it’s assigned to them. You can:- Set it as the default plan new affiliates get, from the Commission Plans page.
- Assign it to an affiliate group.
- Change the plan on an individual affiliate or on a referred customer using the Change Commission Plan option.
Once the plan is assigned, referred sales that include your chosen products pay the product rate, and everything else pays the plan’s Default rate.
Related
Commission plans overview
See how Referly decides what an affiliate earns on each sale.
Conditional rules
Vary commission by order amount, landing page, coupon, and more.
Change an affiliate's plan
Assign a custom commission plan to specific affiliates.
Connect an integration
Link Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, or Polar to search products by name.