"Recurring commission" is the phrase every affiliate page wants you to read first. I keep a directory of the affiliate terms of 471 developer and SaaS tools, and every figure in it is read off the vendor's own program page, with that URL and the date it was checked. So here is what "recurring" turns out to mean.
Recurring stops after a year almost as often as it pays for life
267 of the 471 pay recurring commission. Here is how long "recurring" lasts:
| How long it pays | Programs |
|---|---|
| For the customer's lifetime | 104 |
| 12 months or less | 101 |
| 18 months to 3 years | 14 |
| The page doesn't say | 48 |
So a program that says "recurring" is about as likely to stop after a year as to pay for life. And almost one in five never tells you which.
That matters more than the rate. On a $50/month product, 30% for life pays $180 a year for as long as the customer stays. 50% for 12 months pays $300 once, then nothing. By the end of year two the smaller percentage has paid more.
What to look for on the page: "for life", "as long as the customer stays subscribed" or "lifetime" means lifetime. "First 12 months", "first year" or "for one year" means a cap. "Recurring" on its own means you should ask before you write anything.
Which kinds of software pay recurring
| Category | Pay recurring | Pay once | Don't say |
|---|---|---|---|
| No-code | 19 of 23 | 1 | 3 |
| Email & newsletters | 25 of 31 | 2 | 4 |
| SEO | 16 of 21 | 2 | 3 |
| Analytics | 13 of 17 | 0 | 4 |
| Developer tools | 27 of 36 | 3 | 6 |
| E-commerce | 28 of 41 | 6 | 7 |
| CRM & sales | 14 of 21 | 3 | 4 |
| Productivity | 47 of 80 | 12 | 21 |
| Design | 26 of 46 | 4 | 16 |
| Courses & communities | 10 of 18 | 4 | 4 |
| Support & live chat | 9 of 18 | 1 | 8 |
| HR & payroll | 5 of 14 | 4 | 5 |
| Hosting | 13 of 43 | 11 | 19 |
| CMS & site builders | 11 of 45 | 10 | 24 |
| Payments | 4 of 17 | 2 | 11 |
Most of the bottom is silence. Across the four lowest categories, 59 programs don't say whether they recur and 27 say they pay once. HR and payroll lean on a flat bounty per referred business instead: 9 of the 14 state a fixed amount rather than a percentage. Deel, for example, pays $500 per sales-qualified referral and $1,000 more when it becomes a paying customer.
Small print on the small categories: HR has 14 programs and payments 17. Read their rows as a direction.
The recurring flag is not the whole deal
Two more terms decide whether recurring money reaches you:
- Cookie window. 244 of the 471 don't publish one. A lifetime commission is worth nothing on a buyer who converts after the cookie expired.
- Minimum payout. 322 don't publish one. Recurring commission at low volume can sit under a threshold for a long time.
The data
- affiliateprogramterms.com/guide: this breakdown, recomputed from the records every time the directory changes, so it stays current after this post stops being.
- The free 50 as CSV: the free tier, one row per program, with the source URL and check date on every row. An empty cell means the vendor doesn't state it.
Terms change without notice. One program here changed both its rate and its cookie window between two checks three days apart, which is why every figure carries a date. If you find one that has gone stale, the vendor URL is enough; the correction is made against the page.
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