Affiliate program module
Booknetic SaaS is a WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin with Affiliate program module
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A quick clarification before we start
This page describes the Booknetic SaaS Affiliate add-on — a feature for SaaS platform owners that lets their tenants refer other businesses onto the platform and earn a commission on those referrals' first subscription payment.
Don't confuse this with the separate Booknetic.com affiliate program. That program is for promoting Booknetic the product; this one is a tenant-internal feature inside a SaaS owner's own platform.
What the Affiliate add-on does
The SaaS Affiliate add-on (booknetic-affiliate) turns your tenants into a sales channel for your platform.
- Each of your tenants gets a unique referral URL.
- When someone clicks that URL and later signs up as a new tenant on your platform, the original tenant earns a commission on the new tenant's first subscription payment.
- Commissions sit as Pending for a confirmation period you configure, then automatically become Approved when the period elapses.
- You run a monthly payout export from your admin and pay your tenants through whichever method you use (bank transfer, PayPal, store credit, etc.).
The model in one line: first-payment-only commissions, with a time-based confirmation delay you control.
How commissions are calculated
| Event | Commission earned by the referring tenant | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Visitor clicks the affiliate URL | 0 (logged for analytics) | A cookie is set on the visitor's browser. One referral per visitor — first link clicked wins (first-click attribution). |
| Cookied visitor signs up as a new tenant | Referrer earning per new user registration (default: 0; configurable as a fixed amount) | One-time per registered tenant. |
| Referred tenant's first monthly subscription payment | Configured monthly percentage of the payment amount (default: 30%) | First payment only. Renewals do not generate a second commission. |
| Referred tenant's first annual subscription payment | Configured annual percentage of the payment amount (default: 30%) | First payment only. |
Important — first-payment only. Commissions on monthly and annual plans are paid on the first payment your referred tenant makes after signing up, not on every renewal. If your tenants assumed they would earn on every renewal forever, set that expectation clearly before launching the add-on publicly.
Pending → Approved happens automatically (no manual approval step)
Every commission row starts as Pending. After the Confirmation days you set (default 30 days), the row automatically becomes Approved.
- There is no admin button to manually approve a row. The flip happens by passage of time.
- Lower confirmation days = faster payouts; higher confirmation days = more buffer if you ever issue refunds before payout.
- This is the answer to the most common Affiliate tenant question: "why is my commission still Pending?" — the confirmation period hasn't yet elapsed.
Platform-owner setup
- Install the add-on. Booknetic SaaS → Boostore → Affiliate program → Install.
- Enable the capability on plans that should have affiliate access. Booknetic SaaS → Plans → edit each plan → enable the affiliate capability.
- Configure commissions. Booknetic SaaS → Settings → Affiliate settings:
| Setting | Default | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Commission fee (%) for monthly subscription | 30 | Percentage of the first monthly payment paid to the referrer |
| Commission fee (%) for annually subscription | 30 | Percentage of the first annual payment |
| Referrer earning per new user registration | 0 | Fixed amount in your platform currency, paid on signup (before any subscription payment) |
| Redirect URL | Your site URL | Where the visitor lands after the cookie is set |
| Affiliate terms & conditions URL | (empty) | Linked from the tenant's affiliate dashboard |
| Confirmation days for the referrer earnings | 30 | Days from the event until the commission becomes Approved |
| Save referral ID on Cookie (days) | 30 | How long the click-attribution cookie lives in the visitor's browser |
- (Optional) Configure workflow notifications. Booknetic SaaS → Workflows → add an Email action on the
tenant_subscribedevent so a referring tenant receives an email when one of their referrals subscribes.
What your tenants see in their panel
Tenants on a plan with the affiliate capability enabled see an Affiliate program menu in their own admin panel:
- Affiliate URL at the top with a Copy button (format:
https://your-platform.com/?bkntc_ref={tenant_id}). - Date filter — Today / This week / This month / This year / Custom.
- Four statistic boxes — Unique URL Clicks, Registered users, Subscribed users, Earnings.
- Log table — every event with date/time, action, earning, status (Pending / Approved).
Tenants share their URL on social media, email, or their own website. Anyone who clicks gets a cookie; if they sign up as a new tenant on your platform, the original tenant earns.
Owner-side reporting and payouts
Booknetic SaaS → Affiliate program module shows two views:
- Affiliate Logs — every click, registration, and payment event across all your tenants, with referring tenant, registered tenant, earning, and status.
- Monthly Payouts — aggregated by tenant, filterable by year + month, exportable as CSV.
Important — Booknetic does not move money from your account to your tenants. Use the Monthly Payouts CSV export to drive your own payout process.
Common owner-side payout options:
- Bank transfer / wire transfer
- Stripe Connect mass payouts
- PayPal Mass Pay
- Store credit (add the amount directly to the tenant's Booknetic balance)
After paying out, you can delete the paid rows from Affiliate Logs (single or bulk delete) to keep your ledger clean.
Common questions and edge cases
Q: Do my tenants earn on every monthly renewal?
No. Commissions are paid on the first monthly (or annual) subscription payment only. Renewals don't generate additional commissions.
Q: Why is my commission still Pending?
The Confirmation days setting (default 30) hasn't yet passed since the event. Once it does, the row automatically becomes Approved. There's no manual approval step.
Q: A referred tenant cancelled their subscription. Does the referring tenant lose their commission?
No. Once Approved, the commission stays in the ledger. Cancellation does not retroactively reverse an approved commission.
Q: A referred tenant was refunded. Does the commission get clawed back?
Booknetic does not automatically claw back commissions on refunds. If you want clawback, manually delete the affiliate row from Affiliate Logs before payout. Build this manual check into your refund workflow.
Q: Can a tenant refer themselves?
Self-referrals are not an intended use case for the affiliate add-on. If you see self-referral activity in your Affiliate Logs, you can delete those rows.
Q: Does the affiliate cookie work across subdomains?
No — the cookie is per-domain. If your marketing site is on marketing.platform.com and your app is on app.platform.com, clicks on the marketing site won't carry into the app subdomain.