Cost of affiliate marketing

[CeriseM]

Hi,
I am working on setting up an e-commerce website for my company and would like to promote it through affiliates (most likely via an agency).
I have never done this before and would like to get more of an idea of how much this could cost.
I realise this is almost an impossible question to answer as the answer depends on so many factors: CPC or CPM, amount of traffic on affiliate site, CTR, agency costs, etc.
I guess what would help me would be to learn from some users' experience with it. Anything will be appreciated!

[skibum]

CJ used to be $2250 one time setup fee and then you pay your affiliates say $10.00 for every $100.00 sale and then CJ gets 30% of the affiliate payout with a minimum of $500/month.

It has probably changed by now cause that was a while ago. Other networks have variations of that model but there is usually some setup fee and then the network gets some % of what you pay the affiliates.

[CeriseM]

Thanks for this! Very useful