Course Affiliate Program

What This Recipe Does

This recipe creates a single affiliate program tailored for online course platforms. Affiliates share referral links to your course catalog. When a visitor clicks an affiliate’s link and purchases a course, the affiliate earns a 30% commission on the sale.

The configuration is straightforward, but the framing matters. This recipe speaks the language of course creators, LMS operators, and education marketplaces. The higher default commission rate reflects the reality of digital product economics, where margins are high and affiliate payouts can be generous without cutting into profitability.

Who It’s For

• Course creators and LMS operators who want to grow enrollments through referral partnerships
• LifterLMS site owners looking to add an affiliate channel alongside their existing course catalog
• Online education platforms building a Udemy-style, Coursera-style, or Teachable-style marketplace that rewards promoters for driving student sign-ups

How It Works

When you apply this recipe, Siren creates a program that tracks referred site visits. Each affiliate gets a unique referral link to your site. When a prospective student clicks that link and lands on your course catalog, Siren records the visit and ties it to the referring affiliate. If that visitor goes on to purchase a course, the affiliate earns 30% of the transaction’s line item total.

Attribution follows a “newest engagement wins” model. If a student clicks links from two different affiliates before enrolling, the most recent referral determines who gets paid. This keeps the system simple and gives affiliates a clear incentive to stay active in promoting your courses.

This program is designed to run alongside instructor royalty programs. Because the affiliate program and a course creator incentive program are separate, ungrouped programs, they stack naturally. A single course purchase can pay out both a 30% affiliate commission and a separate royalty to the course creator. The two do not compete or interfere with each other.

Commissions are calculated on line items only, so taxes, fees, and any platform surcharges are excluded. This gives you a clean cost basis for your affiliate payouts.

{
  "version": 1,
  "name": "Course Affiliate Program",
  "description": "An affiliate program for online course platforms. Affiliates earn 30% commission on every course sale they refer.",
  "programs": {
    "courseAffiliate": {
      "name": "Course Affiliate Program",
      "description": "Earn a 30% commission on every course sale you refer through your unique affiliate link.",
      "incentiveType": "saleTransactionPercentage",
      "incentiveResolverType": "newestBindingWins",
      "units": "USD",
      "status": "active",
      "incentiveAmount": 30,
      "engagementTypes": [
        { "type": "referredSiteVisit", "value": 100.0 }
      ],
      "transactionCompilers": ["includeLineItems"]
    }
  }
}