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A sub-affiliate is an affiliate who was recruited by another affiliate in your program. The recruiter earns a small override on every sale their sub-affiliate makes, paid on top of the sub-affiliate’s own commission. Nothing comes out of the sub-affiliate’s share. It’s a way to grow an affiliate army: your best affiliates bring in more affiliates, and they have a reason to help those people sell.
Sub-affiliates are a Growth plan feature. Affixo never holds or moves money. Overrides are commissions like any other, paid by you through your normal payout run.

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How someone becomes a sub-affiliate

There are two ways a new affiliate gets linked to a recruiter.
  1. They sign up through a recruit link. Every affiliate has a personal recruit link that looks like https://<your portal>/signup?recruiter=<their code>. It opens your affiliate signup page, not your product, so people who have never bought anything can join as a sub-affiliate.
  2. They bought first, then joined. If someone buys through an affiliate’s link and later signs up as an affiliate with the same email address, they’re linked to that affiliate automatically.
If both apply, the recruit link wins.

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Turn it on

It takes two steps, both in the merchant admin.
1

Switch sub-affiliates on

Go to Settings → General → Sub-affiliates and turn on Let affiliates recruit. Recruit links only work while this is on.
2

Set an override on a campaign

In the same section, each campaign is listed with its current override. Click Set override to open that campaign’s Rewards step and fill in Level 2 · Recruited affiliates, either a percentage or a flat amount per sale.
Until at least one campaign pays an override, recruiters have nothing to earn, and the settings page warns you about it.

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How the override is calculated

A percentage override is a share of the sub-affiliate’s sale, after any refunds. A flat override is a fixed amount per sale. For example, with a 20% commission and a 5% override: The override follows the sale. A partial refund shrinks it in proportion, a full refund reverses it, and if the sub-affiliate’s own commission is denied, the override is denied too.

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What affiliates see

When sub-affiliates are on, each affiliate’s portal has a Sub-affiliates tab. It shows their recruit link, ready to copy and share, and the people they have recruited so far.

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Changing a recruiter

Open the affiliate in Affiliates, choose Edit affiliate, and change Parent affiliate (recruiter), or set it to no parent. Only admins can do this. Affiliates can’t move themselves under someone else.

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Rules

  • First recruiter wins. If someone clicks two different recruit links, the first one counts.
  • Links are remembered for 60 days. After that, a newer recruit link can take over.
  • No re-parenting. A recruit link only links someone when their affiliate account is created. Existing affiliates are never moved by a link, only by an admin.
  • Same program only. A recruit link from one program never carries into another program.
  • Active recruiters only. A link from an affiliate who isn’t active, or someone’s own link, is ignored. The person still joins your program, just without a recruiter.
  • Growth plan. Turning sub-affiliates on needs the Growth plan or higher.

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Set it up from code

You can manage overrides through the API or an AI assistant instead of the admin:
  • API: GET, PUT and DELETE /v1/campaigns/{id}/sub-affiliate-rule read, set and remove a campaign’s override. See the API Reference tab, under Campaigns. Setting an override also switches sub-affiliates on for your program.
  • MCP: the affixo_set_sub_affiliate_rule and affixo_remove_sub_affiliate_rule tools do the same from an assistant. See MCP server.