Which affiliate platform should an influencer actually pick?
Part of: For creators
Nearly every page ranking for this query lists the same eight networks with commission ranges and cookie windows presented as fact. We tried to read those figures from the operators' own documents on 1 September 2026. One of them published terms we could actually open.
So this page does two things instead of one. It gives you the five criteria that decide whether a programme is worth your time, and it tells you honestly which of those five we could verify for each platform and which we could not.
The five criteria that actually matter
Ignore the headline commission rate until you have checked these, in this order.
- Cookie or session window. How long after the click you still get credit. This varies more than commission rates do and matters more.
- Commission range by category. A single headline percentage is almost always the top of a range that bottoms out near zero.
- Payout threshold and timing. How much you must accrue before anything moves, and how long after the sale it arrives.
- Approval difficulty. Whether you can join today or must be reviewed, and what gets an application rejected.
- Catalogue size and durability. How much inventory you can actually link to, and whether those links survive.
What we could verify, and what we could not
We requested each operator's own published terms with an ordinary browser request on 1 September 2026. The results:
| Source | What happened | Terms usable? |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Associates operating agreement and rate card | Answered in full | Yes |
| Skimlinks publisher support | Redirected, then HTTP 403 Forbidden | No |
| Awin publisher payments wiki | Redirected to the marketing homepage; the article no longer resolves | No |
| eBay Partner Network | Request timed out | No |
| ecfr.gov (for the disclosure rules) | Redirected to an unblock page | No |
This is not a complaint about websites. It is the finding: affiliate programme terms are far less public than the pages summarising them imply. When a listicle gives you eight networks' cookie windows to the day, ask where those came from, because they are not coming from a document you or we can open today.
Our rule for the rest of this page, and it is the whole reason to read ours: a figure we could not read is marked unverified, not filled in.
Keep reading
The platforms, one by one
Amazon Associates — the only fully documented one
- Session window: 24 hours from the click, ending early if the customer orders or clicks through a different Associate's link. The customer then has up to 89 days to complete that order.
- Commission range: published rate card from 0.00% to 10.00%. Luxury Beauty 10.00%; Physical and Digital Music 5.00%; Physical Books, Kitchen and Automotive 4.50%; All Other Categories 4.00%; televisions and digital games 2.00%; gift cards and alcoholic beverages 0.00%. Fine art fees cap at $200 per item.
- Payout: approximately 60 days after the end of the month earned. Thresholds $10 direct deposit, $10 gift card, $100 cheque with a $15 processing fee.
- Approval: open to apply; sites promoting sexually explicit, violent, false or defamatory material are ineligible, as are sites directed at children under 13 or using Amazon trademarks in a domain or username.
CJ Affiliate — terms unverified, catalogue measured
- Session window: Unverified. Set per advertiser rather than network-wide.
- Commission range: Unverified. Set per advertiser.
- Payout threshold and timing: Unverified — we hold no approved terms to quote.
- Catalogue: the one thing we did measure. See the section below.
Skimlinks — terms unverified
- Publisher support documentation returned HTTP 403 to our request on 1 September 2026.
- Model differs from the others: it converts ordinary product links automatically rather than requiring you to build each one.
- Revenue share, threshold and timing: Unverified.
Awin, Impact, ShareASale and eBay Partner Network — terms unverified
- None of these published a terms document we could open on 1 September 2026; the Awin publisher-payments article now redirects to a marketing homepage and the eBay Partner Network request timed out.
- Cookie window, commission range, threshold: Unverified for all four.
- We are naming them anyway because omitting a real network to make a table look complete would be worse than admitting a gap.
LTK and ShopMy — creator-first, terms unverified
- Both are creator storefront platforms rather than open networks, and both operate application-based access rather than open signup.
- Commission, threshold and window: Unverified.
- The structural difference worth knowing: these give you a storefront as well as links, which is a different product from a network that only tracks clicks.
Catalogue depth, measured rather than claimed
Catalogue size is the only one of the five criteria you can verify from outside, and we did. Across one day of product-feed queries on 1 September 2026 we pulled 8,596 unique listings from 88 US advertisers in a handful of narrow product niches. A single niche returned inventory from dozens of distinct retailers.
Durability matters as much as depth, so we measured that too. Of 208 live destination URLs sampled across the 14 largest advertisers, 3 of the 124 we could check had already 404'd — concentrated on a peer-to-peer marketplace where each listing is a single item. A network heavy in one-of-one resale stock has a large catalogue and perishable links, and those two facts belong in the same sentence.
| What we measured | Result |
|---|---|
| Unique listings pulled in one day | 8,596 |
| Distinct US advertisers returning inventory | 88 |
| Destination URLs sampled for liveness | 208 |
| Sampled URLs that could be checked at all | 124 |
| Of those, already returning 404 | 3 |
| Advertisers that refused automated checking entirely | 6 of 14 |
Two rows from two different advertisers in the same day's pull. Catalogue depth is not a marketing claim you have to accept; it is a query you can run.
How to choose without taking anyone's word
- Start where the terms are published. If you cannot read a programme's payout threshold before joining, that is information about the programme.
- Check the rate for your category, not the headline. A 10% top rate is irrelevant if everything you cover sits in a 3% bucket.
- Multiply the rate by your actual basket value before comparing programmes. A lower rate on dearer goods usually wins.
- Ask what happens when stock sells out, because that decides whether your back catalogue keeps earning.
- Apply to more than one. Approval is not guaranteed anywhere, and category coverage differs sharply between networks.
Last verified 1 September 2026. Every term quoted on this page was read from published operator documents and checked on 1 September 2026; every term we could not read is labelled unverified rather than filled in. These terms change without notice; the date is the point.
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 the best affiliate platform for influencers?
On published-terms transparency alone, Amazon Associates, because it is the only one of the platforms here whose session window, full category rate card and payout thresholds we could read on 1 September 2026. On economics it depends entirely on your category's basket value, which is the calculation nobody else does for you.
What is the Amazon Associates cookie window?
24 hours from the click, ending early if the customer places an order or clicks through a different Associate's link. The customer then has up to 89 days to complete that order.
What are Amazon Associates commission rates?
A published rate card from 0.00% to 10.00% by category: Luxury Beauty 10.00%, Physical and Digital Music 5.00%, Physical Books, Kitchen and Automotive 4.50%, All Other Categories 4.00%, televisions and digital games 2.00%, gift cards and alcoholic beverages 0.00%.
Why does this page not list every network's cookie window?
Because we could not read them. Skimlinks returned 403, the Awin publisher payments article redirects to a homepage, and eBay Partner Network timed out on 1 September 2026. We mark those unverified rather than reprinting figures we cannot source.
Sources
- Amazon Associates Programme Policies and Operating Agreement — the 24-hour session window and its early-termination conditions, the 89-day completion window, payment approximately 60 days after month end, the $10 direct deposit / $10 gift card / $100 cheque thresholds with a $15 cheque fee, and the site eligibility and termination grounds. Read 1 September 2026.
- Amazon Associates standard commission income rates — the 0.00% to 10.00% category rate card and the $200 fine-art fee cap. Read 1 September 2026.
- CJ Affiliate product feeds, US advertisers, queried 1 September 2026 — the catalogue-depth and advertiser figures. Link liveness measured directly the same day across 208 destination URLs.