23 modules. $149/yr.
Affiliate program features that take AffiliateWP + 4 add-ons + Tapfiliate's SaaS to match. Self-hosted. Your data stays yours.
The whole stack, in one plugin
Most WordPress affiliate programs are assembled — a base plugin, plus a separate add-on for MLM, another for per-product commissions, another for advanced payouts, another for A/B email testing. By the time you wire it all together you're paying $500–$1,000/yr and managing five integrations that fight each other on update day. Asteris ships every one of those WordPress affiliate plugin features as core modules. One plugin. One update path. One settings screen.
The four two-tier (MLM) affiliate plugin features sit alongside the AI swipe-copy generator, cloud-assist fraud detection, EDD adapter and Surecart adapter — none of which are available as add-ons from rival vendors at any price. If you've shopped affiliate plugins before and bounced off the add-on stack, this is the shorter list. See all 31 modules grouped by category →
Every module in this list ships activated. There is no "Pro upgrade" hiding 80% of the value. The Starter licence ($149/yr, one site) unlocks the full feature set. The only thing the 3-site Pro and 10-site Agency tiers buy you is more activations — not more features.
Sprint 9A — Polish
Bulk operations
Approve / reject / suspend / reinstate affiliates; approve / reject commissions; mark-paid / failed on payouts.
CSV export
Affiliates, commissions, payouts — honours all active filters.
Sortable column headers
All admin list tables sort by any column, ascending or descending.
Date-range picker
Reports + Commissions pages — narrow to any window.
Dashboard widget
At-a-glance: 30-day commission total, pending count, top affiliate.
Sprint 9B — Onboarding + UX
Affiliate onboarding wizard
4-step guided signup. Captures payout details + tax info up-front.
Admin impersonation
"View as" any affiliate from admin. Yellow banner shows you're impersonating. Full audit log.
Email throttling
Per-recipient per-template per-day cap (default 10, hard cap 50). Stops runaway sends.
Per-product commission rates
WC product tab override. High-margin items pay higher commissions.
i18n + WP-CLI
Translation-ready. Full CLI: list / approve / reject / payout / recompute / stats.
Mobile-responsive portal
Affiliate portal works on phones. Public /go/{handle} pages mobile-first.
Sprint 9C — Performance
Denormalised aggregates
Lifetime earnings / referrals / balances stored on affiliates table. No SUM() across thousands of commissions.
Stats API optimisation
Cursor pagination + transient cache. Sub-50ms response on 50K-commission sites.
Sprint 9D — Licensing
License client (HMAC-signed)
Activate / validate / deactivate against pay.asteriscommerce.com. Standard Asteris licence flow.
Sprint 10+ — Differentiators (no other plugin has these in one package)
★ MLM / two-tier referrals
Optional. Affiliates earn commissions on their sub-affiliates' sales. Configurable tier-2 rate per affiliate.
★ AI swipe-copy generator
16 pre-written marketing snippets seeded. AI variants via Asteris AI module (Asteris for WordPress).
Vanity landing pages
/go/{affiliate-handle} branded landing pages with built-in cookie + view counter.
★ Cloud-assist fraud detection
Opt-in. SHA-256-hashed fraud signals shared across Asteris stores. Privacy-first — no PII ever leaves.
★ Stripe Connect direct payouts
Affiliates onboard via Stripe Express. Payouts settle direct to their connected account — fastest, lowest-fee option.
PayPal API auto-batch
OAuth2 + Payouts API. Schedule weekly batches. Bank transfer fallback for non-Stripe / non-PayPal regions.
Non-WC adapters
Drop-in EDD + Surecart support via Order_Source interface. Write your own adapter for any cart.
A/B email tests
Variant routing on transactional emails. Open-pixel tracking. Pick the winning copy automatically.
The cart integrations no rival ships in core
Most rival affiliate plugins are WooCommerce-only. AffiliateWP charges $79/yr extra for an EDD affiliate plugin add-on. There is no first-party Surecart affiliate plugin from any major vendor. Asteris ships both adapters in core, sharing the same admin pages, the same affiliate portal, and the same commission engine.
WooCommerce
HPOS-compatible. Subscription-renewal commissions. Coupon attribution. Bundle support. Tested on Storefront, Astra, Kadence, GeneratePress, Avada, Divi.
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD)
Adapter in core. Tracks downloads, bundles, recurring subscriptions, software licence keys. Same admin UX as Woo.
Surecart
Webhook-based tracking on Surecart's hosted checkouts. The only major Surecart affiliate plugin option until v1.0.
Custom carts
Implement the Order_Source interface — one PHP file — to add any cart. We've used it to wire up MemberPress and LearnDash in customer support.
How to evaluate the feature set
If you're comparing affiliate plugins, three lenses do most of the work:
1. Total cost to match the feature list
Don't compare "base price to base price". Compare base + every add-on you'd actually enable. Asteris's $149 Starter unlocks MLM, per-product rates, bank-CSV, A/B emails, impersonation, EDD + Surecart adapters, AI swipe-copy, cloud-assist fraud, Stripe Connect. The same stack assembled from a rival's add-on catalogue runs $923–$1,223+/yr at one-site pricing. Pricing breakdown →
2. Hosting model + data ownership
SaaS affiliate platforms — Tapfiliate, Rewardful, Refersion — charge $79–$890/yr and keep your data on their servers. Cancel and you lose everything. Self-hosted plugins keep data in your wp_ tables. Asteris is self-hosted. Period. Why this matters →
3. Cart coverage
If you're on WooCommerce only, most plugins work. If you're on EDD, AffiliateWP charges $79/yr extra. If you're on Surecart, only Asteris ships a native adapter. If you're on something custom, only Asteris ships a documented adapter interface for it. Migration guides for the 5 most-common rivals →
Ready?
$149/yr for 1 site. $299 for 3. $549 for 10. No founder gimmicks. No SaaS subscription.
See pricing →