How long does an affiliate cookie actually last?

A cookie window is the period after a click during which a purchase still earns you a commission. It is the single most consequential number in an affiliate programme and it is the one creators check least.

Boxed Tamagotchi from a US retailer, an example of a considered purchase where attribution window matters — A $25 impulse buy and a $250 considered purchase have completely different relationships with a 24-hour window.

Zero-earnings disclosure: LinkToLooks has been approved by no affiliate network and has earned $0 in commission to date. We are not a customer of any platform compared here and we receive nothing from any of them. Everything below is a published fact from a named source, or an explicit statement that a fact is not published.

What the published terms actually say

Programme	What the published terms say	Where it is stated
Amazon Associates	A session ends at the first of: 24 hours elapsing from the click-through, the customer placing a non-digital order, or the customer clicking a different affiliate link. If the customer adds a product to the cart inside that window, the order still qualifies if completed no later than 89 days after the initial click. The product must also ship and be paid for within 180 days of purchase.	Amazon Associates Program Policies, section 1(b)
CJ Affiliate advertisers	Set per advertiser. The network passes through whatever window each advertiser configures, so there is no single CJ number.	Per-advertiser programme terms
Creator platforms (LTK, ShopMy, Mavely)	Not published publicly. The window is inherited from whichever retailer programme sits behind the link.	Not published

That table is short for a reason. Amazon publishes its window in its Program Policies, which is why it is the number everyone quotes. Almost nobody else does — and the middle row is the one that matters most to a creator working through a network, because the window is an advertiser setting, not a network setting. Two links in the same post, routed through the same network, can carry completely different windows.

How the Amazon window really works

It is more subtle than the "24-hour cookie" shorthand suggests, and the subtlety is worth money.

The 24 hours is a session, and it ends early if the customer places a non-digital order or clicks somebody else's affiliate link. The second of those is why a competing link posted after yours can end your window before the clock does.
If the customer adds the item to their cart within the session, that specific product stays attributable for up to 89 days from the initial click. Add-to-cart, not checkout, is what unlocks the long window.
The product must also be shipped and paid for within 180 days of purchase for the commission to hold, which matters for pre-orders and backorders.

What this changes about what you post

Short windows reward impulse purchases. A $20 plush and a 24-hour window are well matched. A $250 lamp and a 24-hour window are not, because nobody buys a lamp in an afternoon.
Add-to-cart is the action to encourage where the terms reward it. Under Amazon's terms it converts a one-day window into an 89-day one for that product.
A competing click can end your window. Being the last link somebody clicked matters more than being the first.
Check the window per advertiser, not per network. "CJ has an X-day cookie" is not a true statement about anything.

Tamagotchi Nano priced under $20 at a US retailer in September 2026 — Under $20. This is the kind of product a short attribution window actually suits.

Where to find the number for a programme you are on

In the programme terms inside your network dashboard, per advertiser — not in a blog post. Third-party lists of cookie durations go stale fast because advertisers change them, frequently for Q4, and a wrong number here quietly changes what you should be promoting.

Our position: we publish only the windows we can point at in a primary source. That is why this page has three rows instead of thirty. A comparison table of forty programmes' cookie durations would be more useful if it were true, and it is not possible to make it true without checking forty sets of terms — which is what you should do for the two or three programmes you actually run.

Honest empty: we publish no cookie window for eBay Partner Network, Rakuten, Impact, Awin or any creator platform, because we could not verify those numbers against a primary source during this run. An unverified number here would be worse than an absent one, because you would act on it.

Last verified 1 September 2026 against the Amazon Associates Program Policies, section 1(b), for the 24-hour session, the 89-day add-to-cart window and the 180-day shipment condition. The per-advertiser statement reflects how the CJ network passes advertiser-configured terms through; there are 4,424 US advertiser feeds in that network on this date, each with its own terms.

Some links here are affiliate links. LinkToLooks has earned $0 from them to date — no network has approved us yet — so nothing on this page is picked to hit a payout.

Frequently asked

What is an affiliate cookie window?

The period after someone clicks your link during which a purchase still earns you commission. The clock starts at the click, not at checkout, and the length is set by the advertiser.

How long is the Amazon Associates cookie?

The session lasts 24 hours from the click-through, ending earlier if the customer places a non-digital order or clicks a different affiliate link. If they add the product to their cart in that window, the order still qualifies when completed within 89 days of the initial click.

Do all affiliate programmes have the same cookie window?

No. In a network like CJ Affiliate the window is configured by each advertiser, so two links in the same post can carry different windows. There is no single network-wide number.

Does clicking another creator's link cancel my commission?

Under Amazon's published terms, yes: a session ends when the customer clicks through a different affiliate link. Being the most recent link clicked is what counts.

Sources

Amazon Associates Program Policies — section 1(b) on session length and its end conditions, 1(b)(i) on the 89-day add-to-cart window, and 1(b)(iii) on the 180-day shipment and payment condition.
CJ Affiliate product feed API, queried 1 September 2026 — the 4,424 US advertiser feed count.