Publisher FAQ

(For a complete list of FAQ's, please visit the FAQ Library).

Below is a list of our most frequently asked questions. If you do not find the information you need, please contact Customer Service and we will get back to you shortly.

1. How much will I receive for products sold through ClickBank?

For standard products, initial payments for recurring subscriptions, and all installment payments, ClickBank purchases the product from the publisher at a wholesale price equal to 92.5% of retail, less a $1 stocking charge. This is also true of rebills for recurring billing subscriptions when the rebill price is $40 or more. However, for recurring billing subscriptions where the rebill price is less than $40, ClickBank purchases the rebills for the subscription from the publisher at a wholesale price equal to 90.1% of retail. For affiliate directed sales, the commission percentage is subtracted from the net sale price.

For affiliate directed sales, the commission percentage is subtracted from the net sale price.

2. How are the retail and wholesale prices determined?

Publishers recommend a suggested retail price for their products within limits defined by ClickBank. The lowest price for which ClickBank will sell a standard product is $3, and the lowest price for which ClickBank will sell a recurring billing product is $7.95.

ClickBank defines the maximum price for products when publishers submit a product for approval. Once ClickBank reviews the suggested retail price from the publisher within the applicable limits, the final retail price is set (please refer to the Client Contract). The wholesale price ClickBank pays publishers for their product is typically 92.5% of the suggested retail, less $1.00. For rebills associated with a recurring billing subscription where the rebill is less than $40, ClickBank purchases the rebill product from the publisher at a wholesale price equal to 90.1% of retail.

3. Can you charge my customers in their local currency?

Currently, all prices appear in US dollars on our order screen, although for credit card orders, the credit card companies will convert the charge to the customer's local currency on their credit card statement. The credit card company determines the exact exchange rate shortly after the sale is made.

A currency converter, which is located on the order form, is provided to allow customers to see the product price in their currency

4. What charges will I incur from ClickBank?

For publishers that want to sell their products through ClickBank, we charge a one-time $49.95 activation charge that must be paid upon approval of your first product. There are no monthly charges, but there is a $2.50 pay period processing fee for every check that ClickBank issues to you.

There are also charges for returned sales, revoked sales, and dormant accounts. As part of our commitment to quality customer service, ClickBank may approve a return of a sale in response to a customer dispute. When a sale is returned, the customer receives a 100% refund, and payouts from that sale are debited back out of the corresponding publisher and affiliate accounts.

A purchase is revoked if the customer's bank later claims the purchase was unfunded or fraudulent. Revoked sales cost us money and harm our reputation as a reliable product retailer. In these instances we charge the publisher $18 per credit card chargeback. We will charge an additional $35 per credit card chargeback if the publisher's products generate in excess of 1% chargebacks in any 90-day period. ClickBank reserves the right to delist any product or group of products at any time.

Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for an extended period of time are considered dormant. Dormant accounts are subject to a $1 charge per pay period after 90 days of inactivity, $5 per pay period after 180 days of inactivity, and $15 per pay period after 365 days of inactivity.

5. What is ClickBank's maximum retail price limit?

The typical retail cap for standard products is $50. In some circumstances, we can approve a retail cap as high as $200 for standard products, and even higher with a prior sales history with ClickBank with low refund and chargeback rates.

For recurring billing products, the typical retail cap for the initial payment is also $50. However, the standard retail cap for the rebill amounts is $30. In some circumstances, we can approve a retail cap as high as $100 for the initial payment, and as high as $50 for rebill amounts, and even higher with a prior sales history with ClickBank with low refund and chargeback rates.

6. Can ClickBank help me create a website?

ClickBank does not provide advice or training on the creation of websites. All publishers are responsible for learning how to create their own website, or hiring someone to develop one for them. However, since your success as a publisher is important to ClickBank we have collected some resources that you might find helpful. For more information, please visit our Resources page. We also suggest performing a search for website design tutorials on a search engine, such as "Google". You can also go to the ClickBank Marketplace and browse through the "Computing & Internet - Programming" section. We also suggest performing a search for website design tutorials on a search engine, such as "Google".

Additionally, there are many publishers offering services through ClickBank that may be able to assist you. To find these publishers, go to the ClickBank Marketplace and browse through the "Computing & Internet - Programming" section.

7. How many products can ClickBank sell for me through one account?

ClickBank can sell up to 500 different products per publisher, per account. To sell multiple products, you simply need to list a Thank You Page in your account for each product. Be sure to use a corresponding ITEM number in each payment link.

Here is an example: If you are a new publisher with the nickname, "PUBLISHER" and you have three ebooks that you would like ClickBank to sell, you would need to set up the following payment links on your Pitch Page(s) for each of your products:

http://1.PUBLISHER.pay.clickbank.net

http://2.PUBLISHER.pay.clickbank.net

http://3.PUBLISHER.pay.clickbank.net

To complete the process, you would:

Log in to your ClickBank account. Select the "Account Settings" tab, and then select "My Products".
Select the "Standard Products" tab or the "Recurring Billing Products" tab depending on which type of product you are adding.
Click the "Add new product" button.
Select "Subscription" or "Installment" in the product type radio button
Enter the Thank You Page URL, the item number, and the suggested retail price for your first product in the box. If the product you are adding is a recurring billing product, then you will also need to add a Product Title (up to 70 characters long) and a Product Description (up to 250 characters long). Both the Product Title and Product Description will appear on the order form, but will not appear in the Marketplace.

For recurring billing subscriptions, you must select a billing frequency, which is how often a customer will be charged after making the initial payment. You must also select the billing duration, which is the number of times a customer will be billed. You can select a duration between 2 and 99. IMPORTANT NOTE: The total duration includes the initial payment and each rebill (e.g. a duration of 12 months includes the initial payment and 11 rebills).

For recurring billing installment products, you must specify the installment price that will be charged each installment payment. The sum of the installment payments will equal the product price. You must also select the billing duration, which is the number of times a customer will be charged the installment price. You can select a duration between 2 and 4. IMPORTANT NOTE: The duration includes the initial payment and each installment rebill (e.g. a duration of 4 payments includes the initial payment and 3 installment rebills).
IMPORTANT: Be sure to click "Save Changes".

Click "Add a New Product" again if you have additional products to add and follow the steps in #4 above for each product.

The ClickBank system then knows where to send a customer once their purchase has been approved. If a customer were to click on the payment link for your first product (http://1.PUBLISHER.pay.clickbank.net), ClickBank would deliver the customer to the Thank You Page URL listed for item #1 under the "My Products" section in your account. This Thank You Page URL would contain the download link or access instructions for your first product.

Be sure to replace "PUBLISHER" with your own ClickBank nickname before using the examples above. For more information on how to set up your payment links, please go to Getting Started.

8. I have more than 500 products that I want ClickBank to sell for me. How do I set that up?

You will need to open another account. We offer a discounted price of $29.95 on additional accounts. When you send in your product approval request, please indicate that this is your second publisher account and our Product Approval Team will send you the discounted sales link at that time. Be sure to include the nickname of your original account for verification purposes.

9. Why am I not getting my sales notifications?

Please take note of the email address from which the sales notifications are sent: invoice@clickbank.com. If you do not receive our email notifications, your email program may be blocking that address. Please set your spam filters to accept invoice@clickbank.com. Unfortunately, email is not 100% reliable and can occasionally be lost, returned undeliverable, or caught in spam filters on its way to you. We recommend that you check your stats daily to see if you have made any sales.

10. I am selling multiple products. I see where all of the Thank You Page URLs go, but where do I save all of the Pitch Page URLs?

You do have to save the URL(s) for all of your Thank You Page(s) in your account.

However, the ClickBank system does not require the Pitch Page URLs to be entered.

You do need to save a Hoplink Target URL within your account if you want affiliates to refer customers to your site. You can only save one Hoplink Target URL per account, which is the page to which all affiliate traffic is directed. If you are only selling one product per account, your Hoplink Target URL will most likely be your Pitch Page URL. However, if you offer multiple products through the same ClickBank account, your Hoplink Target URL may be different from your Pitch Page URLs.

11. Does your system offer a shopping cart?

Currently, we are not designed to interface with shopping carts/baskets. Our system is best used for the sale of discrete items -- products sold one at a time or as a package.

12. What is an "affiliate"?

Affiliates are essentially product advertisers or marketers. ClickBank affiliates set up a free ClickBank account and then advertise a special link we call a "hoplink". If a customer clicks through the affiliate's hoplink and goes on to make a successful purchase, then the affiliate will earn a commission between 1% and 75%. The commission rate is set by the publisher.

For recurring subscriptions, ClickBank allows publishers to set a rebill duration up to 99 months (initial payment + 98 rebills). For installments, ClickBank allows publishers to set a rebill duration up to 4 months (initial payment + 3 rebills). If you are selling a recurring billing product, your affiliates will earn a commission for the initial payment and all additional rebill payments. The commission rate offered at the time of the initial payment remains the same for the rebills. If a recurring billing product is cancelled, no future commissions will be awarded.

13. Why is the affiliate program important?

Taking advantage of ClickBank's extensive affiliate network can be the driving force that takes your sales from mediocre to hugely successful! ClickBank only pays an affiliate a commission if the affiliate sends a customer through their hoplink to the publisher's Hoplink Target URL and the customer purchases the publisher's product through ClickBank.

As you can see, the affiliate program is more cost-effective than other types of advertising. For example, if you placed an ad in an online magazine, you would have to pay for the ad no matter how many people actually made a purchase. With our affiliate program, you are only paying the affiliate a commission when they refer an actual sale of your product through ClickBank. Your marketing dollars are 100% effective!

14. How do I encourage folks to become ClickBank affiliates?

We help build the affiliate network in two different ways:

First, we give you a way to promote the affiliate program from your own website. Please go to Leveraging The Affiliate Network under Publisher Tools for more information on how to set this up.

Second, we can list you in our Marketplace, which is where affiliates go to find new products they want to promote.

To see how the process works, click on the green arrow next to any main Marketplace category and you will get a dropdown list of the subcategories. Select a subcategory, and you will be taken to a page listing the products associated with that subcategory. Under the product description click on create hoplink and follow the instructions in the pop-up box. The ClickBank system automatically generates the correct hoplink for affiliates to use.

15. ClickBank is selling several of my products. Can affiliate hoplinks direct customers to specific pitch pages for different products offered through one account?

The hoplink, as well as the Marketplace listing, can only direct customers to the URL you have saved as the Hoplink Target URL on the "My Site" page under the "Account Settings" tab within your ClickBank account. If you are selling multiple products through one account, we recommend you design a Hoplink Target URL that acts as a gateway to all of your products. For instance, you could sell products from three different websites:

www.orange.com

www.blue.com

www.green.com

However, you would have to choose which one you want listed as the Hoplink Target URL in your account. If you choose www.orange.com as your homepage, a customer who clicks through an affiliate hoplink to your site will be automatically directed to www.orange.com. If you want affiliate hoplinks to connect customers to all of your websites, and you only want one ClickBank account, you should consider creating a new Hoplink Target URL that would serve as a passageway to your other websites. For example, you could create www.rainbow.com, which would contain links to www.orange.com, www.blue.com, and www.green.com. Affiliates will be tracked all the way through to the purchase of any of the publisher's products offered through that account.

16. How does ClickBank track the sales that an affiliate refers to me?

The affiliate's hoplink should be set up like this:

http://AFFILIATE.PUBLISHER.hop.clickbank.net

Affiliates replace "AFFILIATE" with their own ClickBank nickname and "PUBLISHER" with your ClickBank nickname.

When customers click through an affiliate link, they are taken to the URL that you have listed as your "Hoplink Target URL" in your ClickBank account. If a customer clicks through an affiliate link and decides to purchase your product from ClickBank, then the affiliate who referred the customer will receive a commission.

For example:

If the affiliate's nickname is "EXAMPLE", and the affiliate wanted to earn commissions by sending customers to the publisher with the nickname "DEMO", the affiliate hoplink would look like this:

http://EXAMPLE.DEMO.hop.clickbank.net

Any time a customer clicks through that affiliate hoplink and makes a ClickBank purchase, the affiliate will earn a commission - even up to 60 days later.

17. Is there a way for me to contact affiliates who are promoting my site?

As a matter of policy, ClickBank does not release the email addresses of our affiliates.

18. Who determines how much an affiliate gets paid?

Publishers can set the affiliate commission in their accounts to any percentage between 1% and 75%. This percentage is taken off the net sale amount of the product, not your suggested retail price. Our system automatically rounds commissions below $0.25 up to $0.25 and rounds any commission above $100 down to $100. Therefore, the minimum amount an affiliate will receive for referring a sale to a publisher is $0.25 and the maximum they will receive is $100.

Publishers can change their payout percentage at any time. When an affiliate generates a sale, the affiliate will be paid the commission rate set in the publisher's account at the time of the purchase. If the customer purchased a recurring billing product, the commission rate paid to the affiliate remains the same for the initial payment and subsequent rebills, even if the publisher changes his commission rate during the rebill schedule.

Here's an example:

A publisher sets the commission rate at 50%
On May 25th, a customer clicks through a hoplink and purchases the publisher's recurring billing product from ClickBank. The duration of the rebill schedule is four months (initial payment + 3 rebills).
The affiliate is paid a 50% commission on May 25th.
On June 15th, the publisher lowers the commission rate to 40%.
Despite the change in the commission rate, the affiliate in the above example is still paid a 50% commission on June 25th, July 25th, and August 25th assuming the customer does not cancel the subscription before it is completed.

19. How do I know if an affiliate was involved in a sale of my product at ClickBank?

This information can be found in a couple of different places:

If an affiliate generates a sale for you, their nickname will appear under the "Affiliate" column next to the appropriate order.

Under "Publisher Reporting", select "Affiliates" in the top drop down box and select a day range in the bottom drop down box. Click "Go".
Our system will create a report which lists any affiliate who has generated a sale for you during the time frame selected. The report will also tell you other helpful information, including the net number of sales and net dollar amount generated by each affiliate.

If you sell recurring billing products, there is a third way to see this information:

If an affiliate generates a sale of your recurring billing product(s), their nickname will appear under the "Affiliate" column next to the appropriate order.

20. Can a publisher be an affiliate?

Yes! Publishers can use one ClickBank account for both their publisher and affiliate activities.

21. What is the ClickBank currency converter?

The ClickBank currency converter displays the result of converting a total from USD to a selected currency. When a customer clicks on the "currency conversion" link located on the order form, a popup window is displayed allowing customers to display the total in a currency of their choosing.

The actual converted amount is dependent on the exchange rate offered by the customer's financial institution at the time they process the transaction. Exchange rates utilized in the ClickBank currency converter are provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and updated daily.

22. Does ClickBank support languages other than English?

Yes, currently ClickBank also supports Spanish. Once you enable a product for Spanish we will convert our customer facing communications for that product to Spanish, including the order form, confirmation page, customer service emails, and customer service pages on our site. In turn, as a publisher offering a product enabled for Spanish you must be able to: (1) offer that product in Spanish and (2) service potential customers in Spanish.

For information about how to enable Spanish products, please refer to the 2008-03-18 Release Notes.

23. Can I add a product image to the order form for one of my products?

Yes, currently ClickBank supports the ability to display a product image on the order form. For information about how to enable a product image on the order form, please refer to the Product Image & Title Release Notes.