Siren Essentials

Run an Affiliate Program and Creator Royalties on the Same Sale

“Can I pay both the affiliate who drove the sale AND the creator who built the product, on the same order?”

Siren runs an affiliate and royalty program as two ungrouped programs on one WordPress site, so the affiliate who referred the order and the creator who built the product both earn from the same sale.

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What's Included

Siren Essentials

Program

Affiliate Program

Commission Percentage of transaction

Attribution Newest engagement wins

Tracking Referral links

Program

Creator Royalty Program

Commission Percentage of transaction

Attribution Newest engagement wins

Tracking Owned product sales

Optional add-ons

Turn these on in the setup. Each installs with the recipe and can raise the plan it needs.

Lifetime commissions Siren Plus
Reusable collaborator group Siren Plus

Reviews

Trusted by Teams Running Real Incentive Programs

Armando J.

Principal Software Engineer, PerezCarreno & Coindreau

Siren Affiliate Manager is an exceptionally well-designed and thoughtfully built WordPress plugin. If you're running an affiliate program with multiple affiliates, different transaction types, or custom engagement triggers that need to generate commissions, this tool gives you serious power and flexibility. What really sets it apart, though, is the developer. Alex has been incredibly helpful and willing to customize the plugin for my specific use case. More importantly, he was focused on creating real value for my business - not just billing hours. That kind of mindset is rare. The plugin is robust, flexible, and clearly built by someone who understands real-world affiliate program complexity. I can't recommend Siren highly enough.

Julian Foster

Digital Strategist

Affiliate and Royalty Stack Snapshot

A quick overview of who this program is for, what it tracks, which partners it rewards, and how Siren helps you manage it.

Best for	Course platforms and digital marketplaces paying creators and promoters
Main goal	Pay both the referring affiliate and the product creator per sale
Partners involved	Affiliates who refer buyers and creators who own the products
Actions tracked	Referral link visits and creator-bound product sales
Rewards supported	25% affiliate commission stacked with a 50% creator royalty
Starting point	Start free with Siren Lite. This program runs on Siren Essentials ($229/yr).

What This Recipe Does

This recipe creates two independent programs designed to pay different people from the same transaction:

Affiliate Program - 25% commission to the person who referred the buyer, tracked via referral link visits
Creator Royalty Program - 50% royalty to the person who created the product, tracked via product ownership bindings

These programs are deliberately not grouped. When a customer buys a product, both programs evaluate the transaction independently. The affiliate who drove the traffic earns 25%, and the creator who built the product earns 50%. Two different people, two different roles, both compensated from one sale.

This is the foundational model for course platforms, digital marketplaces, and any creator economy where you need to reward both the builder and the promoter.

Who It’s For

Course platform operators building a marketplace where instructors create courses and affiliates drive enrollments
Digital product marketplace owners who need to compensate both product creators and the affiliates who sell their work
Creator economy platforms where content producers and promoters are different people with different compensation models

How It Works

The Affiliate Program uses the referredSiteVisit engagement type. When someone clicks a collaborator’s referral link and later makes a purchase, the affiliate earns 25% of the transaction. Attribution uses newestBindingWins, so the most recent referral link click determines who gets credit. This is standard affiliate behavior.

The Creator Royalty Program uses the collaboratorProductSold engagement type. This is fundamentally different from referral tracking. Instead of tracking who sent the buyer, it tracks who created the product. When a creator is bound to a product in Siren and that product sells, the creator earns 50% of the line item total. No referral link is needed because the engagement is tied to product ownership, not traffic.

The two programs coexist because they answer different questions. The affiliate program asks “who sent the buyer?” while the royalty program asks “who made the product?” Since these are always different people (or at least different roles), stacking them is the correct behavior. A platform owner running a course marketplace wants both the instructor and the affiliate to earn from every sale.

If you want to cap total payouts per transaction, you can adjust the percentages. A 25% affiliate rate plus a 50% royalty rate means 75% of each sale goes to collaborators, leaving 25% as platform revenue. Adjust these rates to match your margin targets.

How the Affiliate and Royalty Stack Works in Siren

1

Start with a ready-made program

One sale pays two people in this setup. The recipe builds both halves at once, an affiliate program paying 25% on referred orders and a royalty program paying creators 50% when their products sell, deliberately left ungrouped so both fire on the same transaction.
2

Define partners and eligibility

Affiliates and creators hold different roles, so they enter the system differently. Promoters join as collaborators with referral links, while creators are bound directly to the products they own.
3

Set tracking rules

The affiliate side watches referral link visits and credits the newest click before checkout. The royalty side ignores traffic entirely and checks whether the product sold has a creator bound to it, so creators earn without sharing any link.
4

Customize rewards

Both rates are adjustable, and together they define your platform margin. The defaults send 25% to the affiliate and 50% to the creator, leaving 25% of each sale as platform revenue, calculated on line item totals.
5

Manage approvals and payouts

Because each program produces its own earnings, a single order can show two pending payouts to two different people. Review and approve both sides in your Siren admin.

Everything You Need to Build and Manage a Affiliate and Royalty Stack

Siren gives you the tools to create the program structure, track the right actions, and reward the right partners, all from one flexible incentive program system.

Create

Prebuilt Affiliate and Royalty Stack recipe
Custom program builder
Program-specific rules
Partner eligibility rules
Product and category filters
Multiple program support

Track and Manage

Referral link tracking
Coupon tracking
Product or category tracking
Lead, form, or signup tracking
Partner dashboard
Payout management

Reward

Percentage commissions
Flat-rate rewards
Recurring commissions
Royalties or revenue share
Tiered rewards
Performance bonuses

Why Use Siren for a Affiliate and Royalty Stack?

Traditional incentive program software tools	Siren
Built for one program type	Built for multiple incentive programs
Often limited to one reward model	Supports commissions, bounties, royalties, revenue share, and bonuses
Rewards usually tied to one action	Rewards can be tied to different measurable actions
Harder to manage overlapping programs	Program groups and rules control how programs interact
May require multiple tools as you grow	Supports different partner programs from one system

Affiliate tools pay the person who sent the buyer, and royalty tools pay the person who made the product, but almost none pay both on one order. Siren treats programs as composable building blocks, so stacking a commission and a royalty is default behavior rather than a workaround.

Connect Your Affiliate and Royalty Stack to the Tools You Already Use

Siren works as the incentive layer behind the systems where partner-driven actions happen: your website, checkout, ecommerce store, forms, LMS platform, subscription flow, or custom workflow.

WordPress WooCommerce LifterLMS LearnDash REST API Custom workflows

Start Your Affiliate and Royalty Stack for Free

Start with Siren Lite for free to learn the basics, then run this affiliate and royalty program on Siren Essentials ($229/yr) when you are ready for the full structure. No upfront commitment.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is an affiliate and royalty program?

It's two payout structures running on the same store at once. The affiliate side pays a commission to whoever referred the buyer, and the royalty side pays the creator who owns the product that sold. On a marketplace or course platform, that means one order can compensate two different people for two different contributions.

Who should use an affiliate and royalty program?

Platforms where the person who makes the product isn't the person who promotes it. Course marketplaces are the clearest case, with instructors building courses while affiliates drive enrollments, and the same split shows up anywhere building and selling are separate jobs. If you only have one of those roles, a single affiliate or royalty program is simpler.

How can both programs fire on the same sale?

Because the programs are not in a program group. Siren's default behavior is to let every active program evaluate every transaction independently. Without a group enforcing mutual exclusivity, both the affiliate commission and the creator royalty calculate and pay out on the same sale.

Does the affiliate earn on their own purchases?

Only if they referred themselves, which is uncommon. The affiliate program tracks referral link visits, so a sale needs a prior referral event to trigger a commission. Self-referral policies are configurable in Siren's settings.

What if a product has no creator bound to it?

The royalty program only fires when the product sold has a collaborator bound to it via the collaboratorProductSold engagement type. If no creator is bound, the royalty program simply does not activate for that transaction. The affiliate commission still pays out normally.

Can I add more programs to this stack?

Yes. You can add any number of independent programs. For example, you could add a platform fee distributor or a customer referral bonus. As long as programs are not grouped together, they all evaluate independently.

affiliate royalty stacked-programs course-creator creator-marketplace revenue-sharing udemy-clone teachable-clone udemy-clone-wordpress course-creator-revenue