Siren

Quick Start: Your First Program

Set up your first affiliate program in 10 minutes. The bare minimum to get a working program with Siren installed.

Last updated: April 10, 2026

You just installed Siren and you want a working program right now, not a tour of every option. This page is for you. Start by picking the shape of your program, then pick how you want to install it.

What are you building?

Siren handles a lot more than traditional affiliate programs, so the first step is figuring out which shape your program takes. Pick the closest match below and you’ll land on a recipe that’s already configured for that use case. You can tune it afterward.

  • Affiliate program is the standard “pay a commission when a referral leads to a sale” setup. If this is your first program and you’re not sure which one fits, start here.
  • LMS revenue share pays instructors based on sales of the courses they teach. Good for course platforms where instructors bring their own audiences.
  • Marketplace vendor royalties pays vendors when their products sell. Fits Etsy-style storefronts where you host products created by other people.
  • SaaS partner program pays recurring commissions to integration partners, agencies, and resellers. Built around renewals rather than one-time sales.
  • Sales team SPIF or internal bonus pays your own salespeople a per-sale bonus. Same tracking model as an affiliate program, but the collaborators are employees.

If none of these match what you’re building, browse the full recipe library or skip to the Beacon path below and describe your program in plain English.

How do I install one?

Once you’ve picked a shape, you’ve got three ways to actually get it running. All three land you in the same place: a live program you can enroll collaborators in.

The fastest path: install a recipe

Recipes are pre-built, fully-configured programs you can drop into your site with one click. They’re the shortest distance between “Siren is installed” and “I have a working program,” because all the decisions about commission structure, attribution, and tracking events have already been made for you. You can always tweak things afterward.

Whichever recipe you picked above becomes the starting point here. If you’re still browsing, the Basic Affiliate Program recipe is a solid default for a standard percentage-based setup.

1

Open the Recipes library

Browse the full list at [/recipes](/recipes). Each recipe tells you what it creates and who it's for.

2

Pick the recipe that matches your use case

Use the shapes above as a starting point, or open the library and look for something closer to your setup.

3

Click Install

You'll be handed off to your Siren admin to confirm the install and review what's about to be created.

4

Adjust the rates and rules (optional)

Every recipe ships with sensible defaults. You can tune the numbers before installing, or change them later from the program edit screen.

5

You're done

Your program is live. Any collaborator you enroll in it can start earning immediately.

That’s the whole flow. Next, you’ll want to add a collaborator so someone can actually start earning, and then test the flow with a manual transaction to confirm everything’s wired up.

The guided path: build with Beacon

If you want more control than a recipe gives you but you don’t want to learn the program edit screen first, Beacon is Siren’s free AI assistant. Describe what you want in plain English (“a 30% commission program for my course creators, with a 14-day attribution window”) and Beacon will design the program for you and generate a recipe you can install with one click.

Beacon is the right choice when your idea doesn’t quite match an existing recipe but you don’t want to read the full tutorial either. It’s free and doesn’t require a Siren license.

The manual path: build it yourself

If you’d rather learn how Siren works as you go, you can build your first program by hand from the WordPress admin. The full walkthrough is in Create a Program in Siren. It covers every option on the program edit screen, so plan on spending more like 20 to 30 minutes the first time through.

What you’ll need before going live

Whichever path you pick, a working program needs three things in place before real money moves through it.

1

A supported integration

Siren tracks sales through WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, LifterLMS, LearnDash, NorthCommerce, or Gravity Forms. Check the [integration feature matrix](/documentation/general/integration-feature-matrix) to see what each one supports.

2

At least one collaborator

Someone has to be enrolled in the program to earn from it. You can add one manually from Siren > Collaborators, or [open registration](/documentation/getting-started/set-up-a-program-registration-form) so people can sign themselves up. Full walkthrough is in [managing collaborators](/documentation/getting-started/managing-collaborators-affiliates).

3

A way to test the flow

Before you announce the program to the world, [create a manual transaction](/documentation/getting-started/creating-transactions-manually) and confirm the conversion and obligation show up the way you expect. This catches configuration mistakes before real money is involved.

Where to go next

Once your program is live, these are the docs you’ll reach for next: