Collabs
Run an affiliate programme in which approved partners earn commission on the orders they bring in.
A collab is a customer you have approved to earn commission. Use collabs to let people promote the store and get paid for the sales they bring in.
When you approve a collab, Litestore creates a short link on the store's own domain, using the collab's code as the link's slug. When someone clicks the link, Litestore counts the click and sets the attribution cookie that the cart reads, and the orders that follow earn commission for that collab.
Litestore holds commission until it clears. After that, you pay it out through an append-only ledger, and you approve each payout request yourself. The hold means commission isn't paid out as soon as a card is charged, and the ledger keeps a permanent record of every payment that has been made.
Navigation
Marketing → CollabsLitestore keeps four kinds of record for the affiliate programme. It stores the collab, the tracked link created for them, each payout request they send, and a payout row for each request you approve.
Programme setup
Collab approval
Litestore creates their tracked link and sends the approval email with their code.
Commission
Choose the default rate and add any category overrides.
Payout approval
Approve requests once the balance has cleared. Each approval writes a row to the payout ledger and reduces the collab's cleared balance by that amount.
Collab links
When you approve a collab, Litestore creates their short link at /l/{code}. The link points to the store and adds affiliate UTM parameters. At the same time, Litestore sends the approval email with their code in it.
You don't set a collab's status by hand. Litestore shows them as approved, rejected or pending based on when you made each decision.
Every code and every link slug is unique, so no other collab can get the same code, and you can't create a link with that slug yourself.
Promoting a customer from their record skips the link
Approving from the Collabs page creates the collab's short link, but the
"make this customer an affiliate" action on a customer record doesn't. The
/l/{code} link shown to the new collab won't work, and the admin has no screen
for creating a link by hand. Approve collabs from the Collabs page instead.
Click tracking
When someone clicks the collab's link, Litestore adds a click to both the link and the collab. It also sets the affiliate cookie for the attribution window, which is 30 days by default, and orders placed within that time earn commission for the collab.
Litestore doesn't count clicks that appear to come from bots. Click counts are used in payout decisions, so inflated counts would lead to overpaying.
Commission rates
Each collab has a default commission percentage. An override sets a different rate for a specific category, either as a percentage or as a fixed amount.
Litestore saves the commission on every order line at checkout. If you change a rate later, the new rate only applies to new orders, and commission the collab has already earned stays the same.
Commission clawback
Litestore reduces earned commission in proportion to how much of the order was refunded. If an order is partly refunded, the collab no longer earns commission on the refunded part, and if it's fully refunded, they earn nothing from it.
Payout flow
Commission isn't payable as soon as it's earned. It has to pass a hold period and reach a minimum amount first.
Cleared orders
The order has to be older than the clearing hold, which is 30 days by default.
Payout minimum
The collab's cleared balance has to be above the minimum payout amount, which is 50 in the base currency by default.
Payout request
The collab asks to be paid their cleared balance.
Payout review
If you approve the request, Litestore writes a row to the payout ledger and reduces their cleared balance by that amount.
Litestore never edits or deletes rows in the payout ledger, and a clawback is recorded as a new negative row. As a result, a payment can't be reopened and paid a second time without leaving a record.
Programme settings
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Attribution window | Sets how long after a click an order still earns commission. | 30 days |
| Clearing hold | Sets how old an order must be before its commission can be paid. | 30 days |
| Minimum payout | Sets the cleared balance a collab needs before they can request a payout. | 50 in the base currency |
| Collab code discount | Caps how much a code that a collab creates can discount. | 15% |
| Active codes per collab | Limits how many discount codes a collab can have active at once. | 10 |
| Default commission rate | Sets the commission a new collab earns. | 10% |
These are fixed defaults in the store's code, not admin settings, so whoever runs the store changes them.
Tiers
You don't set a collab's tier. Litestore calculates it each time you open the page.
The tier depends on the collab's lifetime revenue:
basic
silver at 1,000
gold at 5,000
platinum at 25,000Programme rules
Collabs don't earn commission on their own purchases. If a collab buys with their own code, Litestore still counts the conversion and the revenue, but it doesn't pay any commission.
A collab can create their own discount codes within the limits shown in the settings table above.
Customer referrals are tracked separately. When an ordinary customer refers a friend, Litestore tracks it through that customer's own referral code rather than a collab link. If an order has both a collab and a customer referral, the collab gets the commission and the customer doesn't get a referral reward, because each order is credited only once.
Quick reference
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Sales questions
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