Set the program rules that decide who applies and how they behave

The program settings look like admin. They are not. Each one changes who applies to your program and how they behave once they are in, and every one of them is easier to set before the first invitation than to change after the first dispute.

Cookie window

The window decides how long after a click a signup still counts. B2B buying takes weeks: someone reads an affiliate's article, trials two competitors, comes back a month later. A window shorter than your real buying cycle quietly denies affiliates referrals they earned. Set it to match how long people actually take to sign up after first hearing about you. Reditus runs its own affiliate program on a 30-day window.

Payout threshold

The threshold is the amount an affiliate has to accumulate before a payout is made. Reditus sets a default of $100 on new programs, and you should probably lower it. Thresholds of $200 or $500 exist and they are a plain mistake: a new affiliate waits months for the first payment that proves you pay at all, which is precisely the moment they decide whether to keep going. Set the threshold so that an affiliate is paid after their second or third commission.

The mechanics give you a verification window regardless. Commissions generated in a month enter a payout on the first of the next month, and you then have 30 days to pay, so there are 30 to 60 days to check that a referred account is real and using the product before any money moves. Payouts run through PayPal by default, with Wise and bank transfer on request; automated payouts cost 5% by card or 2% by invoice.

Approval mode

Review every application, or auto-accept. Auto-accept fills the program faster and is the right setting while you are still learning who converts. Review is right once you know. Track 2 has the full argument; the setting itself takes a second, and it can change any time.

Paid ads policy

Whether affiliates may run paid ads, including on your brand name, is a policy decision, not automatically fraud. It is also the setting that most changes who applies: allow paid ads and you will receive applications from affiliates with no website, often outside your market, who intend to run ads on your brand and earn on the results. That can be exactly what you want, or not. Decide it now, write it on the program page, and if the answer is no, switch on the automatic rejection of referrals that arrive from paid search, so nobody earns from ignoring the rule. Track 5 covers the staged version, where you allow one trusted partner and nobody else.

Channels, terms and the fraud flags

State which promotion channels are allowed. Publish terms from the template, including the paid-ads rule and what happens to affiliates who break it; a program with the rules written down can remove an affiliate without an argument. Then know what the fraud detection actually flags, so you do not over-read it: the same IP on affiliate and referral, the same email, and referrals arriving from paid search. Any of the three is flagged for you to decide on. A refund or chargeback rejects the commission. Most of the B2C fraud playbook simply does not apply to B2B SaaS, because nothing is paid before a payment lands and your payment processor already screens it.