How to Pay Affiliates, Including Overseas Partners

Paying affiliates is the process of turning approved commission balances into money sent to partners on a fixed schedule.

How to pay affiliates comes down to 6 settings chosen before the first commission is due: payout method, schedule, hold period, minimum balance, tax form and payment record.

For a small SaaS program, start with monthly batches, a hold equal to the refund window and a $50 minimum, paid through PayPal or Wise once the affiliate has sent a W-9 or W-8BEN.

According to Stripe, card networks typically allow cardholders to dispute a payment within 120 days. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the 1099-NEC floor is $2,000 for tax years beginning after 2025.

The 5 steps below cover each setting, with the fees and forms behind each choice.

How do you pay affiliates in five steps?

Step 1: Which payout method should you use?

A payout method is the channel carrying money from your account to the affiliate's account. Pick the method by where your affiliates live and how many you pay each cycle.

PayPal Payouts is the quickest to set up for affiliates who already hold an account, and PayPal charges 2% of the payout, capped at $1.00 for US recipients and $20.00 for international ones.

Wise BatchTransfer suits overseas partners who watch the exchange rate, with up to 1,000 payments in one batch. Stripe Connect fits programs running their own payout code, and its $2 monthly account fee penalizes a long tail of small balances.

ACH or wire transfer has no single published price and means you store every affiliate's bank details.

Step 2: How long should the hold period last?

A payout schedule is the cadence at which a period closes: weekly, every two weeks, monthly or quarterly. The hold is the wait after a period closes before commissions become payable, and the hold absorbs refunds and chargebacks.

Stripe says card networks typically allow cardholders to dispute a payment within 120 days, far longer than a 30-day refund window.

In our Affiliate Program, the hold defaults to 0 days and tops out at 180, so the setting is a deliberate choice for every program.

The better trade is to absorb the occasional late chargeback instead of making every affiliate wait 150 days, and to never miss a published payout date.

Affiliate refund clawbacks covers refunds that land after payout, and tracking for recurring subscriptions covers each renewal.

Step 3: What minimum payout should you set?

The minimum payout is the balance an affiliate must reach before being paid, and anything below the line rolls into the next period.

Fixed fees make small payouts expensive: a $25 payout loses 9.3% to Stripe Connect and 2% to PayPal. PayPal charges a percentage until the cap, so a low minimum costs the same 2% as a high one.

Stripe's $2 account fee and $0.25 payout fee are fixed amounts. Paying 40 affiliates $100 each costs $40 through PayPal to US recipients and $100 through Stripe Connect. The affiliate's side matters as much.

At 20% of a $49 plan, one referred customer earns $9.80 a month, so a $50 minimum takes 6 months of that single customer and a $100 minimum takes 11.

In our Affiliate Program, the payment threshold field defaults to $100. Set $50 for PayPal or Wise and keep $100 for Connect. The commission rate itself is covered in how to start an affiliate program.

Step 4: Which tax form does each affiliate need?

Ask for the form at approval, because paperwork stalls once payment has gone out. A W-9 gives you the affiliate's taxpayer identification number.

The Internal Revenue Service instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC call for a 1099-NEC for anyone paid at least $2,000 in a year for services, filed by January 31.

An affiliate paid $1,999 in 2026 generally needs none, and one paid $2,000 does. The floor was $600 until the change for tax years beginning after 2025, with inflation adjustments possible from 2027.

Backup withholding is a flat 24% when a payee gives no TIN in the required way, so an affiliate who refuses a W-9 leaves you choosing between holding the payout and withholding.

What does a non-US affiliate send instead of a W-9?

A non-US affiliate sends a W-8BEN, or a W-8BEN-E for a company. Without the form, the IRS instructions say the withholding agent may have to withhold 30%.

Whether the 30% rate applies depends on where the income comes from, and IRS Publication 515 says the place where personal services are performed decides the source.

A commission for promotion done outside the United States is therefore generally foreign-source, so a documented overseas affiliate usually falls outside US withholding.

Pay counting as US-source is reported on Form 1042-S, titled Foreign Person's U.S. Source Income Subject to Withholding.

Have your accountant confirm how your commissions are classified, and ask about VAT, which can apply to an affiliate's invoice when you or the affiliate are in the EU or UK.

For disclosure and privacy rules, see affiliate compliance: FTC, GDPR and consent.

Step 5: How do you run each batch and keep the records?

A payout batch is one cycle of closing a period, paying every eligible balance and recording the result. Five actions make up the cycle.

• Close the period, such as March 1 to March 31, and total each affiliate's commission after refunds and reversals.
• Set aside balances under the minimum, such as $38 against a $50 minimum; the balances roll into April.
• Confirm payment details, the tax form and any required invoice for everyone left.
• Pay by uploading the PayPal or Wise file, or by sending the ACH or wire.
• Record each payment reference and email the affiliate the amount and arrival date.

Keep the reference, tax form and invoice for each payout together, so a year-end total takes minutes. In January, file a 1099-NEC for each US affiliate at $2,000 or more and send the affiliate a copy.

Stripe's Connect price list puts e-filing at $2.99 per 1099 sent to the IRS if payouts run through Stripe.

How do you pay overseas affiliates?

Overseas affiliates are best paid through a service matching the route. PayPal's international fee stops at $20, which a $1,000 payment reaches, so a $2,000 payment costs the same $20.

Wise's batch tool takes up to 1,000 payments per upload at the mid-market rate. Stripe Connect has limited reach: self-serve cross-border payouts run only among the US, UK, EEA, Canada and Switzerland.

Stripe Global Payouts covers more than 160 countries, but the service is generally available only to businesses in the US and UK and requires Stripe Treasury.

State commissions in one currency and say who bears the conversion cost; TrackRev programs pay in US dollars.

Affiliates who run a business often want an invoice for their own books, and a program can require one before a payout is released.

How do you screen overseas payees and reimburse expenses?

Sanctions screening is the check run on a recipient before the first payment.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control runs sanctions programs ranging from country-wide to targeted and publishes a list search tool, which a US payer should run on a new payee's name and country.

If you reimburse an overseas affiliate for something like a paid placement, put the amount on its own line with an invoice or receipt, apart from commission.

The 1099 instructions count a contractor's travel reimbursement as reportable pay when the contractor did not account for the expense to the payer, so a documented reimbursement is easier to explain.

For example, a $120 placement fee paid back on a receipt sits on its own payout line, with its own reference, next to the commission payout.

How does TrackRev handle payouts?

TrackRev is SaaS affiliate software for indie hackers and small SaaS teams.

In our Affiliate Program, each program sets its own payout rules: which methods partners may pick (PayPal, Payoneer, Wise, wire, ACH, WebMoney or other), a payment threshold, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly or manual periods, a hold of 0 to 180 days defaulting to 0, and an invoice rule of none, optional or required.

A refunded or disputed charge reverses its commission. Partners upload a W-9, W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E in the portal settings, and the partners table flags anyone without one.

At payout time you run the batch, pay from a single CSV export for PayPal or Wise, or from the bank details shown for wire and ACH partners, then mark each payout paid with its reference.

We built TrackRev to record the payout, not to send it: TrackRev does not move the money, and automatic payouts are not live yet.

Which TrackRev plan includes payouts?

The affiliate program needs a paid plan. The free plan is link tracking only, with 50 links and 1,000 tracked events a month.

Indie costs $29 a month for 1 workspace and 1 tracked domain, and Growth costs $299 a year for up to 10 workspaces and up to 10 tracked domains.

Neither plan caps the commission tracked, and TrackRev takes 0% of revenue. TrackRev is built for indie hackers and small SaaS teams, so the choice between the two plans depends on how many sites you run, not on team size.

See pricing for the full plan comparison.