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Tips & Strategies7 min read

How to start an affiliate programme for your course, coaching or community

How course affiliate programmes work, who to recruit, what to pay, and how to run one on WithMe. $25/month billed annually (UK £25), 0% WithMe commission.

WithMe Team·11 November 2026

To start an affiliate programme for your course, pick the products you want people to promote, set a commission, and give each affiliate a tracked link that credits them when someone buys. On WithMe this is built in: turn on Affiliate Sharing in a product's editor, leave the rate at the 20% default or set your own, and every buyer of that product gets a Share & Earn button with their own link. The commission is taken from the sale at checkout and WithMe pays the affiliate, so you never send payments yourself.

WithMe is $25 per month billed annually (UK £25), with a 14-day trial and 0% WithMe commission. Stripe and PayPal fees still apply. More than 8,000 creators use it.

What is a course affiliate programme?

An affiliate programme pays people a share of each sale they send you. Each affiliate gets a link with a code in it. When someone clicks that link and buys within a set window, the sale is credited to the affiliate and they earn a commission, usually a percentage of the price.

For a creator, it turns happy customers into a sales team that is only paid when it works. You pay nothing for clicks or posts that do not sell. The trade-off is margin: every affiliate sale earns you less than a direct sale, so the programme pays off when it reaches people you would not have reached yourself.

Who should your affiliates be?

The best affiliates for a course, coaching programme or community are usually people who have been through it. They can describe the result in their own words, they know who it suits, and their friends trust them. That is why WithMe gives the affiliate link to buyers: someone who bought your course can share it, and someone who has not cannot.

If you want a partner to promote you before they have bought, for example a podcast host or another coach, they need access to the product first. Once they are a customer of that product, the Share & Earn button appears for them like for any other buyer.

How does the WithMe affiliate programme work?

Affiliates are turned on product by product. Here is what happens once a product has Affiliate Sharing enabled:

Buyers of that product see a Share & Earn button next to it on your hub. It gives them a personal referral link that takes new buyers straight to the checkout.
A sale is credited to the affiliate if the buyer purchases within 30 days of clicking the link.
The commission is a percentage of what the buyer actually pays, after any promo code.
Affiliates cannot earn commission on their own purchases.
Affiliates get an email when they make a sale, and can see their clicks, sales and earnings on their affiliate dashboard.
If a sale is refunded, the commission on it is cancelled.

How do you set it up on WithMe?

Open the product in My Hub: a course, membership tier, 1:1 coaching, coaching call, webinar, community, digital product or custom product.
Open the Affiliate Share section and switch on Enable Affiliate Sharing. The product must be paid: free products cannot have affiliates.
Enter a Commission Rate (%), or leave it blank to use the default of 20%. Each product can have its own rate.
On a membership tier, 1:1 coaching or a community, choose Indefinite Commissions, or set the number of payment periods that earn commission.
Save the product, then tell your buyers about the Share & Earn button, in an email or a community post.
Watch results in Customers, on the Affiliates tab.

Should you pay commission on renewals?

When a product is paid in a single payment, the commission is paid once. For memberships, 1:1 coaching and communities, you decide whether affiliates also earn on renewals. Indefinite Commissions pays them on every payment for as long as the member stays. A number of payment periods, for example 3, pays them on the first three payments and then stops.

Paying on renewals makes a recurring product far more attractive to promote, because one referral can earn for months. A cap keeps the cost predictable. A common middle ground is to pay on the first 3 to 12 payments.

How do affiliates get paid?

You do not pay affiliates yourself. When a buyer uses an affiliate link, the commission is taken out of that sale at checkout, so it comes out of your revenue rather than being billed to you later. This is separate from WithMe's 0% commission: WithMe keeps none of it.

WithMe then pays the affiliate their commission around the middle of the month after the purchase, and contacts them directly to arrange the transfer. Each sale is held for 7 days first, so refunds can be taken into account.

How do you get affiliates to actually share?

Tell buyers the programme exists. Most will not notice a button on their own. Mention it in your welcome email and again after they finish the course.
Give them words to use: a short description of who the course is for and the result it gets, which they can paste into a post or message.
Ask your most successful students directly. A personal message works better than a broadcast.
Make the commission worth sharing. On a $49 product, 20% is under $10, which few people will post about. On a $500 programme, the same rate is $100.
Thank and feature your top affiliates, for example in your community, so others see that sharing pays.

How do you track results?

In Customers, the Affiliates tab lists everyone who has joined your programme, with their code, clicks, sales, commission earned and pending payout, plus your default commission rate. Use it to see which products get shared and who your best promoters are. If a product gets clicks but few sales, look at its sales page and price before you change the commission.

What is not included?

The 30-day referral window is fixed; you cannot change it per product. Only people with access to a product can get its affiliate link, so there is no public sign-up page for outside affiliates. Lead capture pages and free products cannot have affiliates. Promo codes are not linked to affiliates: a sale is credited only through the affiliate's link. There are no affiliate tiers or bonuses for hitting a number of sales.

How much does WithMe cost?

WithMe is $25 per month billed annually (UK £25), with a 14-day trial and 0% WithMe commission. Stripe and PayPal fees still apply. Free migration of up to 10 GB of your courses and members comes with the yearly plan. One plan covers courses, memberships, community, coaching, webinars and digital products, with the affiliate programme, promo codes and order bumps built in.

Affiliate programme questions

Do I have to pay my affiliates myself?

No. The commission is taken from the sale at checkout and WithMe pays the affiliate around the middle of the following month.

What commission does WithMe use by default?

20%. You can set a different rate on each product, or leave the rate blank to use the default.

Can affiliates earn on membership renewals?

Yes, on membership tiers, 1:1 coaching and communities. Choose Indefinite Commissions, or set how many payments earn commission.

Can someone who has not bought my product be an affiliate?

Not until they have access. The affiliate link is only available to people who are customers of that product.

What does WithMe cost?

$25 per month billed annually (UK £25), with a 14-day trial. WithMe takes 0% commission. Stripe and PayPal fees still apply.

Start your 14-day trial at https://www.withme.so/become-a-creator.