How to pay affiliates

[papamaku]

We're planning on launching an affiliate scheme and am after a bit of feedback regarding payment.

Our initial thoughts are to stick with paypal, i.e. ask for paypal email address during signup (but not name/real address etc etc) and then just send money directly to the affiliate's paypal account.

Would affiliates find this acceptable or do they prefer to get a physical cheque in the mail?

If not, could somebody recommend a good company that handles printing + mailing of cheques :)

[ronin]

I imagine that different affiliates have different preferences based on their geographic proximity to where the cheques are being sent out from (ie. how soon they can expect to receive the cheque), the currency in which the cheques are denominated, bank charges etc.

I have merchants which send me cheques, others which pay into my PayPal account and others which wire money directly to my bank account.

I'm not keen on the PayPal charges, but payment through PayPal usually means that the money arrives in my bank account a little sooner than if I have to wait for a cheque.

Bank draft is my most preferred method of payment.

[conroy]

There is a way to send Paypal money to affiliates which lets them receive the full amount. Unfortunately, you as the merchant then must pay the charge. I haven't used this as a merchant, so I'm not certain on all the specifics, but affiliates like it.

If you take affiliates from all over the world you'll most likely need multiple methods of payment.

[Brad_Waller]

I have found most of my affiliate prefer a check (US spelling) in the mail. I have a few non-US affiliates who I pay via PayPal, but not a large number. I print and mail the checks myself. I bought a run of 1,000 laser checks and envelopes, load the printer, and merge my list in an MS Word form to the printer. I can have all the checks printed in minutes, but stuffing the envelopes takes a bit. I can do all the checks in maybe 30 minutes.

PayPal has what they call "Mass Pay" (2nd from the left in the bottom menu for me). It is relatively affordable. A fee of just 2% of the payment amount with a cap of $1.00 USD (or its equivalent in the payment currency) will be assessed on each payment made using the Mass Payment feature.

I would recommend you collect as much information as possible and not skip name and real address. These are real affiliates who want to earn real money. Treat them like real business people and keep it very professional. You may even want to collect tax ID information in case anyone in the US earns more than $600.

[papamaku]

Thanks for the info guys, I suppose it depends upon how many people sign up? As to whether doing checks ;) oursleves is too time consuming or not.

Brad - US tax ids? now that opens up a whole other can of worms, that I think is best left to the accountants. (but we'll be sure to ask for the ids though now just in case)