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★ Asteris Docs

Two-tier (MLM) referrals

Two-tier referrals (commonly called MLM) let an affiliate earn a smaller commission on sales generated by sub-affiliates they recruited. Asteris Affiliates includes this in core from Starter — AffiliateWP charges $199/yr extra for the equivalent.

Enable two-tier

Settings → Commissions → Two-tier referrals → Enable.

When you toggle it on, the affiliate signup form gets an optional “Who referred you?” field. New affiliates who fill it in get assigned a parent affiliate.

Set the tier-2 rate

Default tier-2 rate: Settings → Commissions → Default tier-2 rate (e.g. 2.5% — typically a fraction of the tier-1 rate).

Override per affiliate: edit an affiliate → Tier-2 rate (override).

How it pays out

When a tier-2 affiliate (Sarah) generates a sale:

  1. Sarah earns the tier-1 commission at her configured rate
  2. Sarah’s parent (Tom) earns the tier-2 commission at the configured tier-2 rate
  3. Both commissions are credited independently

Tom does not need to be active in the sense of making sales; he just needs to be an approved affiliate.

Caps + safeguards

  • Maximum recursion depth: 2 (hard-coded — no tier-3 / tier-N). MLM regulation in most jurisdictions limits commission depth.
  • Self-referral blocked — Sarah can’t recruit herself.
  • Circular blocked — A → B → A loops are detected and the second referral is rejected.

MLM is legal in most jurisdictions when the primary revenue is from product sales (not from recruitment fees). Asteris Affiliates doesn’t charge sub-affiliates to join, so the structure is single-product affiliate marketing with a referral bonus — not a pyramid scheme.

Check your local rules. We’re not lawyers.

Reporting

The Reports page shows tier-1 vs tier-2 commissions separately. Top recruiters appear in the Recruiter leaderboard widget.

Disable later

Toggling off stops new tier-2 commissions but preserves existing ones. Affiliates already paired keep their relationship in the database; you can clear all relationships via Tools → Reset MLM relationships if you want a clean break.