Affiliate Commission Calculator
What affiliate traffic earns, and how many clicks a monthly income target needs.
Affiliate income is clicks multiplied by conversion multiplied by commission, and each of the three is easier to improve than raw traffic. Doubling the conversion rate costs nothing; doubling the traffic usually does not.
Enter your traffic, click-through, conversion and commission, and this calculator shows the revenue per thousand visitors and the clicks a target income requires.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Visitors per month, Affiliate link click-through rate, Merchant conversion rate, Average commission per sale, Monthly income target, Cookie window in days
- What you get
- Revenue per month, Revenue per year, Revenue per 1,000 visitors, Clicks needed for the target, Visitors needed for the target
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Affiliate Commission Calculator
- 1 Enter Visitors per month
- 2 Enter Affiliate link click-through rate - The share of visitors who click an affiliate link.
- 3 Enter Merchant conversion rate - The share of those clicks that become sales.
- 4 Enter Average commission per sale
- 5 Enter Monthly income target
- 6 Enter Cookie window in days - How long after the click a sale still counts as yours.
- 7 Press Calculate. You get Revenue per month, Revenue per year, Revenue per 1,000 visitors, Clicks needed for the target, Visitors needed for the target, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 8 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
60,000 visitors at a 5% click-through
A well matched audience already earning more than the stated target.
You enter
- Visitors per month
- 60,000
- Affiliate link click-through rate
- 5%
- Merchant conversion rate
- 3%
- Average commission per sale
- $40.00
- Monthly income target
- $3,000.00
- Cookie window in days
- 45
You get
- Revenue per month
- $3,600.00
- Revenue per year
- $43,200.00
- Revenue per 1,000 visitors
- $60.00
- Clicks needed for the target
- 2,500
- Visitors needed for the target
- 50,000
A 5% click-through sends 3,000 readers to the merchant, and a 3% conversion rate turns those into 90 sales. At $40 each the revenue is $3,600 a month, or $43,200 a year, which is $60.00 for every 1,000 visitors and $1.20 for each click. The $3,000 target needs 2,500 clicks and 50,000 visitors, so the current traffic is 17% above what the target requires, and the sale needs to happen within the 45 day window to be counted.
15,000 visitors at a 3% click-through
A smaller audience where the target needs more than four times the traffic.
You enter
- Visitors per month
- 15,000
- Affiliate link click-through rate
- 3%
- Merchant conversion rate
- 1.50%
- Average commission per sale
- $18.00
- Monthly income target
- $500.00
- Cookie window in days
- 30
You get
- Revenue per month
- $121.50
- Revenue per year
- $1,458.00
- Revenue per 1,000 visitors
- $8.10
- Clicks needed for the target
- 1,852
- Visitors needed for the target
- 61,728
The 450 clicks produce 6.75 sales at a 1.5% conversion rate, which at $18 each is $121.50 a month, or $1,458 a year. That is $8.10 per 1,000 visitors and $0.27 per click. Reaching $500 a month needs 1,852 clicks, which is 61,728 visitors at a 3% click-through, so the target is 4.12 times the current revenue. Improving the conversion rate to 6.2% would deliver the same $500 without any extra traffic.
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Frequently asked questions
How many clicks do I need to hit an income target?
The target is divided by what one click earns on average, which is the conversion rate multiplied by the commission. A 3% conversion rate on a $40 commission means each click is worth $1.20, so $3,000 a month needs 2,500 clicks.
At a 5% click-through rate those clicks come from 50,000 visitors, which is below the 60,000 the example site already has. The useful part is seeing which of the three variables to move: raising the conversion rate from 3% to 3.75% would cut the clicks needed to 2,000 without any extra traffic.
What does the cookie window have to do with my earnings?
It decides whether a sale is credited to you. A 45 day window means a reader who clicks your link and buys six weeks later still counts; a 7 day window means the same sale is lost if they take longer to decide.
The field is on the page to make the point rather than to change the arithmetic, because the calculator cannot know how your readers behave. For considered purchases with a long decision, a short window can remove a large share of the revenue you are modelling, so check the terms before setting a target from this page.
Is the average commission the rate or the money?
The money. Enter $40, not 8%. The calculator multiplies sales by that figure, so entering a percentage would understate the revenue by a factor of about a hundred.
To turn a percentage into an amount, multiply the average order value by the rate. A 8% commission on a $500 product is $40, and that is the number the field wants. If your programme pays different rates on different products, use a weighted average based on what actually sells.
Why does the revenue per 1,000 visitors matter more than the total?
Because it tells you whether more traffic is the answer. In the first example $60.00 comes from every 1,000 visitors. In the second, $8.10 comes from every 1,000, so the same income would need more than seven times the traffic.
When the figure is low, the fixes are usually the offer, the placement of the links and the match between the reader and the merchant rather than the volume. When it is high, paying for traffic can make sense, because each visitor is worth enough to cover the cost of getting one.