Affiliate earnings calculator
This calculator turns traffic into an earnings estimate using the commission terms a program has actually offered you. It is the tool this site most wanted to exist, because the affiliate space is full of headline commission rates and almost no honest arithmetic about what they produce.
This is an estimate built from the figures you entered, not a projection and not a guarantee. Real programs apply minimum payouts, negative carryover, geo restrictions and cookie windows that can all reduce what actually lands. Check the program’s own terms.
How to use it
Start with monthly visitors to the pages that carry your partner link — not your whole site. Click-through is the share of those visitors who click through to the partner; for a well-placed contextual link this is usually low single digits, and anyone quoting you double digits is describing a landing page, not an article. Sign-up conversion is the share of clickers who complete registration on the partner’s side, which you do not control and cannot usually see until you have data.
Then pick the commission model you have been offered. Revenue share pays you a percentage of what your referred users generate, so it needs an average revenue per user and a retention assumption. CPA pays a flat amount per qualifying sign-up and ignores what happens afterwards. Hybrid pays a smaller flat amount plus a smaller share.
The two numbers people get wrong
The first is retention. Revenue share only pays while the referred user is still active and still generating revenue. Assuming a user stays for a year when the realistic figure is two months overstates lifetime value by a factor of six, and it is the single most common way affiliate projections detach from reality.
The second is average revenue per user. For a trading platform this is fee revenue, not deposit volume — a user depositing a large sum but trading rarely generates very little. Programs sometimes quote averages skewed by a handful of exceptional accounts, so a median would serve you better if you can get one.
What this cannot see
Payout minimums delay when money reaches you. Negative carryover means a losing month is deducted from your next positive one, which can make a high revenue share worse than a modest CPA. Cookie windows decide whether a sign-up three weeks after the click is credited to you at all. Geo restrictions can void conversions entirely from certain markets. None of these appear in the arithmetic above, and all of them can matter more than the headline rate.
Frequently asked
Is revenue share always better than CPA? No. Revenue share can be better with high-retention users, and much worse with churn or negative carryover. CPA pays predictably and immediately. Model both with realistic retention before choosing.
Why does the steady-state figure differ from the first month? Under revenue share, month one only earns from month one’s cohort. Once cohorts accumulate up to your retention assumption, several cohorts pay at once. That is the steady state, and reaching it takes as many months as your retention figure.
Are these numbers a forecast? No. They are arithmetic on your assumptions. Change the assumptions and the answer changes.