Affiliate Inventory | Shopify

What it is

Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform for building and running an online store, with point-of-sale tools for physical retail alongside it. It is used by first-time sellers and large brands alike. The affiliate program is aimed at people whose audience is merchants rather than shoppers.

The deal

This is a flat bounty per merchant who signs up for a paid plan, not a share of what that merchant goes on to spend. The published figure is a ceiling rather than a rate: Shopify says the amount varies by the referral’s location and does not publish a per-country breakdown, so treat the headline as a best case. Only paid Basic, Grow and Advanced signups qualify. Tracking is where the program is unusually generous. The standard click window is short, but if your referral starts a free trial instead of buying outright, Shopify keeps watching that store for well over a year and still credits you when it converts to a full-price plan. There is no cap on total earnings. Existing Shopify merchants are allowed to join and promote the platform, they simply cannot claim on their own store.

Getting paid

Shopify uses Impact for tracking and payment. Commissions land in your balance once a month covering the prior month, and that cadence does not shift no matter how you configure withdrawals, so a referral made early in a month waits longest to become available. After crediting you can withdraw at a balance you set or on a fortnightly cycle. Payouts go by bank deposit or PayPal in most countries and can be taken in a wide choice of currencies. Shopify will not pay on refunded signups, fraudulent sales or revenue that was charged back, and it can withhold payment during fraud or anti-money-laundering checks.

The rules

This is one of the more tightly policed programs. Affiliates may not use their referral link directly in any pay-per-click advertising, and may not buy search keywords, trademarks or domain names using Shopify’s marks or confusable variants. Promoting Shopify on coupon, deal, discount or paid-to-click sites is prohibited, as is displaying an offer code on a public-facing page. Sub-affiliate and third-party networks require written permission, as does direct linking to Shopify pages. Cookie stuffing, bot and toolbar traffic, masked referral sites and deceptive redirects are all banned. You cannot earn on a store you own or opened yourself, and Shopify employees and merchants’ own employees cannot earn on their employer. Any site you promote from must be listed on your Impact profile.

Sources

• https://www.shopify.com/affiliates
• https://www.shopify.com/affiliates/terms