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Affiliate network, partner marketplace, or your own program?

An affiliate network gives you partners, tracking and payments in one package, for a fee on every sale. A partner marketplace brings partners to software you run. Your own program gives you control, with recruiting left to you. Here's how each works in 2026, what each costs, and how to combine them.

By OpenPartner

When a company decides to work with affiliates, the first real decision isn’t which software to buy. It’s whether to join an affiliate network, list on a partner marketplace, or run your own program. They solve different problems. A network solves “we have no partners”. A marketplace solves “we have software but not enough partners”. Your own program solves “we want control over the partners we have”.

This post explains how each one works in 2026, what each costs, who owns what when you leave, and how they can be combined. We build OpenPartner, software for running your own program that includes a creator marketplace, so weigh that accordingly. Vendor details come from public pages, checked in October 2026, and are listed at the end.

The three models

An affiliate network is a middleman. It has thousands of publishers (affiliates) who’ve signed up with the network, not with you. You join as an advertiser, set commission rates, and publishers in the network apply to promote you. The network tracks the sales, collects the commissions from you plus its own fee, and usually pays the publishers. Think CJ, Awin, Rakuten Advertising or ClickBank.

A partner marketplace is a directory inside partner software. Partners join the marketplace, browse programs, and apply to the ones they like. Once you approve them, they’re partners in your program, tracked by that software and paid either by the platform or by you, depending on the software. PartnerStack’s network, the impact.com marketplace and the OpenPartner Network work like this.

Your own program (or an in-house program) runs on affiliate software you choose. You recruit partners yourself: customers, creators you reach out to, agencies you already work with. You set the terms, own the relationships and pay partners directly, or through your software.

Affiliate networks

What they charge

You pay the commission you set for publishers, plus a network fee. Some networks publish their fees:

  • Awin (which absorbed ShareASale: the ShareASale platform closed on October 6, 2025). Access is $49/month plus 3.5% of each sale’s value, with a three-month minimum term. Accelerate is from $99/month plus 2.5%, and Advanced is custom. In Awin’s own example, a 6% commission on a $100 sale pays the publisher $6 and Awin $3.50 on Access.
  • Admitad: Rise is $159/month plus a 3.5% tracking fee, with a three-month minimum, and Peak is $490/month.
  • FlexOffers published a $500 setup fee, a $500 escrow deposit, and a fee of 3% of sales (or 20% of the publisher’s commission on lead and action programs), with a $50 monthly minimum. Around October 20, 2026, it announced the sale of its direct advertiser business to FuseTwo, so check who you’d contract with and on what terms.
  • ClickBank and Digistore24 work differently: they’re the merchant of record for digital products, selling to the customer, taking a percentage plus a fixed fee per sale, and paying the affiliates. Digistore24’s European price list is 7.9% plus €1 per sale up to €400, and less above that; its US page says from 2.9% plus $1.

CJ and Rakuten Advertising, two of the largest, publish no prices: fees, minimums and payment terms are agreed per contract. You’ll often read that networks take 20–30% of commissions on top. That figure comes from vendors selling alternatives to networks; none of the networks we checked publishes it.

What you agree to

The bigger cost of a network is often in the contract, not the price list. From the public advertiser agreements:

  • Partners you meet there stay the network’s. Awin’s Access agreement bars you, for the term of the agreement, from paying current or former publishers in your Awin program for marketing outside Awin, with liquidated damages of 30% of what you paid or owed them. FlexOffers bars soliciting its publishers into another network or an in-house program during the term and for six months after. Admitad’s terms bar working with publishers it introduced for six months after you stop working together.
  • Parity. Awin’s Access agreement also says your commission on Awin can’t be lower than on other networks or your in-house program in that country.
  • Their tracking is the record. Admitad’s terms make its tracking the official record for billing. CJ’s master agreement says CJ and its affiliates may collect, own and use transaction data.
  • Notice to leave. Awin Access: 14 days, after the three-month initial term. FlexOffers: 30 days. Admitad: 30 business days.

These are the publicly posted versions. Your own contract may differ, so read it before you sign, and especially before you invite a publisher from the network to your own program.

When a network earns its fee

For a consumer brand that needs reach quickly, a network is often worth it. Coupon, cashback, loyalty and content publishers are already there, already trusted by the network, and already set up to be paid. You get one invoice instead of paying hundreds of publishers yourself.

Partner marketplaces

A marketplace sits in between. Partners browse programs and apply, like a network, but once you approve them they’re partners in your program, tracked by software you chose. What varies is the size of the marketplace, what it costs, and what strings come with partners you meet there.

MarketplacePartners, as the vendor states itAccess
PartnerStack Network138,000+ (B2B affiliates, agencies, channel partners)From the Launch plan
impact.com marketplace250,000+Included in its plans
Partnerize Discover750,000+ partners and 250,000+ influencersQuote-based plans
Dub partner networkNot stated consistentlyEnterprise plan only
Tapfiliate Affiliate OffersNot statedFree on paid plans, in beta
Affonso marketplaceNot statedIncluded on its three self-serve plans
OpenPartner NetworkNot stated (creators)Included on hosted plans

Two checks before you rely on one:

  • Do partners met there cost more? PartnerStack’s agreement has a separate fee line for “Referred Partners”, the ones it introduced, and requires that you pay them through PartnerStack.
  • Is it the right crowd? A B2B network of agencies and consultants is a different audience from a consumer publisher marketplace or a creator marketplace. Look at who’s actually in it.

We found no marketplace advertised by FirstPromoter or Tolt. Rewardful doesn’t run one either; it has a tool that searches the web for potential affiliates instead.

Creator marketplaces

If your partners are creators, the marketplace question changes. You need discovery, a way to book and pay for sponsored content, and tracking for what the content earns. Passionfroot runs a B2B creator marketplace with bookings and payments, and takes a fee on deals. GRIN publishes plans from free to $1,500/month, with a fee on the money you load into its wallet, from 20% on the free plan down to 5%. Aspire prices by demo. Modash is a discovery database rather than a marketplace, from $199/month.

Your own program

Running your own program means choosing affiliate software, writing your terms, and recruiting partners yourself. What you get:

  • The relationships are yours. Partners sign up with you. If you change software, you invite them to the new one. Nobody else has a claim on them.
  • No fee on top of commissions, from a middleman. You pay for software, by subscription, by revenue share or both. You don’t pay a network a percentage of every commission.
  • Your terms. Attribution window, commission rules, payout schedule, which partners you accept.
  • Your data. Clicks, customers and commission history live in software you can export from.

What you don’t get: partners. Nobody arrives because you set up a program. Recruiting is the hard part, and it’s why networks and marketplaces exist. Our guide to recruiting affiliates for your SaaS covers where to find them.

Side by side

Affiliate networkPartner marketplaceYour own program
Who finds partnersThe network’s publisher baseThe marketplace, plus youYou
Who tracks salesThe networkThe softwareThe software
Who pays partnersUsually the network, from your moneyDepends on the softwareYou, or your software
What you payCommissions plus a network fee, often setup or minimumsSoftware fee; some charge per marketplace partnerSoftware fee
Whose partners are theyShared: they’re the network’s publishersYours once approved; check termsYours
Best forEcommerce, travel, finance, consumer brandsSaaS and brands that want a recruiting boostPrograms with partners they already know

Which one fits

  • A consumer brand with a product catalog, especially ecommerce, travel or finance: networks are where coupon sites, content publishers and loyalty sites already are.
  • A SaaS company: networks built for retail are a poor fit for subscriptions, where commissions follow renewals for months. A SaaS company can run its own program and recruit through a marketplace inside its software, plus direct outreach.
  • A program that leans on creators: you need discovery plus a way to book and pay for sponsored content, not just a commission link (influencer affiliate tracking covers it). A creator marketplace fits better than a publisher network.
  • An existing customer base that loves you: your own program, starting with a refer-a-friend program for customers and a personal invite to the ones with an audience.

Combining them without paying twice

You can run your own program and list it on a marketplace, and add a network for a specific channel. Two rules keep that sane:

  1. One system decides who gets credit. If a network’s tracking and your own software can both claim the same sale, you’ll pay two commissions on it. Pick one source of truth for attribution and tell the other about conversions, or report network conversions into it by click id.
  2. Keep the terms separate. A partner recruited through a network or marketplace may come with that platform’s terms attached, such as fees, payment routing or rules about working with them directly. Read them before you move a partner from one channel to another.

Where OpenPartner fits

OpenPartner is software for running your own program, with a marketplace built in:

  • Your own program: tracked links and codes, attribution that follows the customer’s account once your app links their signup to the click, recurring commissions, refunds, and payouts you send from your own PayPal or bank account. Program and ledger tables, raw clicks and events included, export as a JSON or SQL bundle, or one table at a time as JSON, CSV or SQL.
  • A creator marketplace: the OpenPartner Network is included on hosted plans, with no extra fee on partners who find you there. Creators apply to your programs and can list priced packages, like a sponsored video, that you can book with a tracked link. Partners you approve are partners in your program, paid by you, on your terms.
  • Conversions from other systems: if a network or an outside tracker carries the click id, it can report the conversion by click id, so one ledger holds every commission.

It isn’t an affiliate network: there’s no publisher base of coupon and cashback sites, and we don’t pay partners on your behalf. Revshare is 3% of partner-attributed revenue with no monthly fee, and Flex is $49 a month plus 1.5%. Each conversion is billed the larger of that rate and 10% of the partner’s commission (5% on Flex). See pricing.

Sources

Checked on October 21–23, 2026.