What is an affiliate marketing network? A plain guide for Shopify brands

By the RecruitAffiliates.ai team · 9 November 2026 · 8 min read

Facts about other tools come from their own sites, with the date we checked. Our editorial policy · About us.

An affiliate marketing network is a middleman between a brand and the sites that promote it. It tracks each sale, takes a fee and pays the promoter. A Shopify brand needs one only if it wants a ready-made pool of shopper sites and can pay the fees.

This guide covers who sits on each side, what a network costs and what we found when we looked at where promoters already earn.

Who is on each side of a network?

A network has two sides.

The brand side. This is you. The network calls you an advertiser or a merchant. You list an offer and set a commission, which is the cut of each sale you pay out.
The promoter side. These are the people and sites that recommend products. The network calls them publishers or partners. They include bloggers, review sites, newsletters, creators, coupon sites and cashback sites.

The network sits in the middle. It gives both sides one place to sign up, one tracking system and one payout. Awin's own pricing page shows the split. On a $100 sale at 6% commission, the partner gets $6 and Awin gets $3.50 on its Access plan (Awin US pricing, checked 9 November 2026).

Promoters usually join for free. Impact says signing up as an affiliate partner on its platform is free, and that payouts go out in 70+ currencies (impact.com, affiliate partners, checked 9 November 2026). Skimlinks says publishers can join free (Skimlinks, checked 9 November 2026). The brand is the side that pays the network.

Our guide to affiliate network or direct recruiting covers the choice. This page explains the parts.

How does a network work step by step?

You join and list an offer, with your commission rate and rules.
Promoters browse and apply, or you invite them.
A promoter gets a tracked link. A tracked link records which sales came from that person.
A shopper clicks and buys. The network records the sale.
The network takes its fee and pays the promoter the commission.

Step 2 is the catch, in our reading. Networks list your offer, and the promoters choose whether to apply. Who applies depends on who browses the marketplace. If you want to pick the promoters yourself, see what affiliate recruitment is.

What does a network cost a brand?

The network's fee is paid on top of the commission you promise. Here is what each network shows on its own public pages. We read them on 9 November 2026. Prices change, so check the page before you plan around one.

Network	What a brand pays, as published	Limits the page states	Source
Awin (US)	Access: $99 a month list price, with a special price of $49 until 30 November 2026. Plus a 3.5% tracking fee. First month free. Accelerate: $199 a month list price, $99 until 30 November 2026. Plus 2.5%. Advanced is custom.	Access has a 3-month minimum and up to three commission groups. Accelerate and Advanced have unlimited groups.	Awin US pricing
Awin (UK)	Access: £99 + VAT a month plus 3.5%. Accelerate: from £199 + VAT plus 2.5%. Advanced is custom.	Same 3-month minimum on Access and three-group cap.	Awin UK pricing
Impact	Starter: $30 a month plus 2.5% of revenue. Essentials: $500 a month. Pro: $2,500 a month. Enterprise is custom. Setup is $250 an hour on paid tiers.	Impact's page says Starter is for brands "starting their partnerships channel or spending $300k annually in marketing spend", on listed shop platforms only, with no add-ons. Essentials is for up to $2m a year in ecommerce revenue and Pro for $2m to $15m. The FAQ says 12-month contracts.	Impact pricing
CJ	No advertiser pricing on the page.	Not stated.	CJ for advertisers
Skimlinks	A monthly fee for its Preferred Partner program for merchants. No amount shown.	Not stated.	Skimlinks

Three things are worth noting.

The fee scales with sales. Awin's 3.5% and 2.5% fees, and Impact Starter's 2.5%, rise as you sell more. A flat monthly fee does not.
The cheapest plan has the tightest limits. Awin's Access plan caps commission groups at three. Impact's Starter plan is open only to the brands and shop platforms it lists.
Setup can cost extra. Impact lists $250 an hour for setup on the paid tiers.

Here is a made-up example. Say you pay promoters 10% and sell $5,000 through an Awin Access link in a month. Commission is $500. The 3.5% tracking fee is $175. The monthly fee is on top. You pay $675 plus the monthly fee for $5,000 of sales. Without a network, you would still pay the $500 commission and a tracking tool.

For the other pay models a network may offer, read CPA, CPC and CPS.

Which platforms sit behind promoters' links?

We ran a first search for 30 public Shopify brands on 22 October 2026. It showed 2,924 people, of whom 2,459 were websites (the rest were podcasts and creators, not counted here). Of those 2,459 websites, 654 (26.6%) had proof of earning on a page we read. Proof of earning means a disclosure, a network link, a tracked link, an own redirect link or a promo code. We then recorded the platform behind the links on those 654 websites.

This is the scan of 30 Shopify brands. It is a small sample, not the whole market. We could not read some pages, so every count is a floor. We could not read 732 of the 5,037 website pages found (14.5%). Fifteen of the brands were UK shops and fifteen were US. A site can use several platforms, so the rows overlap and are not a split of 100%. The table shows the four largest. LTK, Rakuten, CJ and others are in the full table.

Platform behind the links	Websites	Share of the 654
Amazon Associates	280	42.8%
Skimlinks	112	17.1%
Awin	86	13.1%
Impact	77	11.8%

Amazon links sat behind 280 of the 654 websites with proof of earning, so a tracked link is not new to them. The full table, with the method and its limits, is in where the websites around Shopify brands already earn. The scan method is on our research page.

One caution. These are the platforms behind the promoters' links. They do not tell you which network any one of your promoters would join through. An Amazon link shows a site earns from links in general. It says nothing about your brand.

Is Amazon Associates an affiliate network for your brand?

No. Amazon Associates is a program for promoting Amazon products. You cannot list a Shopify store there. Its fee page lists standard rates by product category, from 0% to a top rate of 10% on luxury beauty and Amazon Explore. Fine art is capped at $200 per product. The page shows no effective date, only a 1996 to 2025 copyright line (Amazon Associates fee schedule, checked 9 November 2026).

It matters here for one reason. It is the platform behind the most proven promoter sites in our scan, at 280 of 654. Those people already know what commission is.

Does a Shopify brand need a network?

Our advice: not at the start. You need a way to track sales and pay people. A network gives you that plus a marketplace. A Shopify app gives you the tracking without the marketplace. Compare them in Shopify affiliate apps compared.

A network makes sense if:

you want a wide pool of shopper-focused sites without finding them one by one;
you can pay a monthly fee and a per-sale fee on top of commission;
you are happy to wait for applications.

Direct recruiting makes sense if:

you want promoters who fit your product, found by name;
you want to keep the fee for commission;
you can send a first email and follow up.

You can run both. Start with a small direct program and add a network once it works. Our guide to what an affiliate marketing program is shows the parts. To judge who applies, read how to check a creator is a real promoter.

Where RecruitAffiliates.ai fits

RecruitAffiliates.ai is not a network. It finds the people already covering shops like yours, with the page that shows each one, and sends a personal first email you approve. It doesn't pay anyone or track sales. You still need an affiliate tool, an app that tracks sales and works out what you owe.

Launch is $79 a month for one brand, with a 7-day free trial and no card.

Frequently asked questions

What is an affiliate marketing network in simple terms?

It is a middleman. Brands list offers, promoters join and apply, and the network tracks sales and pays the promoters. The brand pays the network a fee on top of the commission.

How does an affiliate network make money?

From the brand side. Awin publishes monthly fees and a percentage fee on sales. Impact's Starter plan does too, while its higher plans show a monthly fee only. Skimlinks mentions a monthly merchant fee but shows no amount. CJ shows no advertiser pricing. Impact and Skimlinks say promoters join free. Awin's publisher page mentions no sign-up fee.

Is an affiliate network the same as an affiliate app?

No. An app tracks and pays the people you bring. A network does that and also gives you a marketplace of promoters who can apply to you.

Which networks do promoters of Shopify brands use?

In our scan of 30 Shopify brands, a small sample, Amazon Associates sat behind 43% of the proven websites. Skimlinks was at 17%, Awin at 13% and Impact at 12%. A site can use several.

Can a small Shopify brand afford a network?

Possibly. Awin's US Access plan lists at $99 a month, plus 3.5% per sale. The page we read on 10 November 2026 showed a special price of $49 until 30 November 2026. Impact's Starter plan was $30 a month plus 2.5%, for brands that meet its limits, such as a listed shop platform and a 12-month contract term in its FAQ. You also pay commission.