You can build your own affiliate program with Claude Code, a small web app, n8n and Stripe instead of paying a platform every month. Mine runs the signups, share links, coupon codes, a 30-day refund wait, payouts on the 15th and payout emails for the six apps I sell. It took me most of a summer, and the hard part wasn’t the features. It was making sure it works for people who aren’t me.
This post contains affiliate links. If you sign up through one, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only point to tools I actually use or would recommend.
Fifteen years on the other side of the dashboard
I’ve been an affiliate for over 15 years. I’ve joined a lot of programs, and I know what it feels like to log in, squint at a dashboard and wonder where anything is. I know the feeling of a balance sitting at $31 when the payout minimum is $50, month after month, until you forget the money is even there.
So when I started selling my own apps and wanted other people to promote them, I already had a list. Things I liked, things I couldn’t stand, and things I’d always wished someone would do. I wanted to build my own instead of renting one and living with somebody else’s rules.
This is also the build where I figured out how different it is to make a tool for other people. When I build something for myself, I’m the only user. If it breaks, I shrug and fix it. An affiliate program has strangers logging in, sharing links and trusting it to count their sales and pay them. Security, does it work, does it still work after the next change. There are a lot more boxes to check.
I’m proud of what it turned into. It’s new, I don’t have a lot of affiliates yet, and I haven’t pushed it hard. I’ve shared it on my own channels, but I haven’t reached out to recruit anyone. I think it’ll be great once people start using it for real.
What does a homemade affiliate program do?
A homemade affiliate program tracks who sent a buyer to your product, pays that person a commission, and gives them a place to grab their links and see their earnings. Mine does all of it for the six apps I sell, with my own rules instead of a platform’s defaults.
Here’s what an affiliate gets, and which old frustration each piece came from:
- A $25 payout minimum. I was never able to meet some programs’ minimums, so mine is low. The dashboard shows a progress bar toward it, anything under $25 rolls to the next month, and the December 15 payout skips the minimum so nothing sits stranded across a tax year.
- I cover the PayPal transfer fee. The affiliate gets the full commission.
- A dashboard you don’t have to hunt through. Each product gets one card with the share link and a copy button. Each card has three ready-to-post blurbs with the code and a disclosure built in, and there are disclosure templates for blogs, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, email and podcasts.
- A custom coupon code. Every affiliate gets a code, and they can change it once to something they like. The old code keeps working, so anything they already posted keeps paying them.
- 10% off for their audience. The same code is the buyer’s discount on the first month.
- A month of Pro on the paid apps. New affiliates get to use what they’re promoting.
- 20% commission on what their referrals pay, for up to a year.
Who is a homemade affiliate program for?
Build your own if you like building things and want full control over the rules. If you get frustrated easily, pay for a platform. It’s a lot to think about, and a program with real people’s money in it is a bad place to learn patience.
Build your own if:
- You sell your own product, like an app, a course or a digital download, and you take payments through Stripe
- You have opinions about how a program should treat affiliates and you want to set every rule
- You’d rather spend time than a monthly fee plus a cut of sales
- You’re fine checking things over and over before strangers use it
Skip it if:
- You want something running this week
- You sell physical products through a store platform with a built-in affiliate app
- You need payouts in a dozen countries (mine is US only)
- Debugging makes you want to throw your laptop
AI tools get better every month, so by the time you read this it might be a much quicker build. It wasn’t quick for me.
Here’s how the cheapest plans on two well-known platforms compare to my build, checked on their pricing pages in October 2026:
| My own build | Refersion Launch | Tapfiliate Launch | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | No platform fee | $39 monthly, $29 billed yearly | $89 monthly, $74 billed yearly |
| Cut of affiliate sales | None | 3% of affiliate-driven sales | None listed |
| Affiliate limit | None I set | Unlimited | 50 affiliates |
| Who sets the rules | Me, all of them | You, inside their options | You, inside their options |
| Free option | Not needed | A free listing plan, but tracking and payouts need a paid plan | 14-day free trial |
| Time to set up | Most of a summer | Their setup | Their setup |
| Who fixes it when it breaks | Me | Them | Them |
What do you need to build your own affiliate program?
You need a place to host the affiliate pages, a database, a way to take payments and make coupon codes, an email sender and something to run scheduled jobs. Most of mine runs on accounts I already had for my apps.
- Claude Code (paid Claude plan): how I built all of it, the n8n workflows included
- Cloudflare Workers (free tier to start): hosts the affiliate pages, the dashboard and the share links
- Airtable (free plan to start): holds affiliates, clicks, coupon codes, sales and payouts
- n8n (self-hosted, mine is on a small Hostinger VPS): runs the scheduled jobs, more on those below
- Stripe (fee per sale): takes the payments and makes each affiliate’s coupon code
- Resend (free tier to start): sends the login links and emails
- PayPal: how affiliates get paid
You’ll also want written affiliate terms, a privacy page and a way to collect tax info once someone earns enough to need a form. Those aren’t code, and they’re easy to forget.
How does a homemade affiliate program work?
A buyer clicks an affiliate’s link or types their code, the sale gets tagged with that affiliate, and the commission waits 30 days in case of a refund before it counts. Then a monthly job bundles up what each affiliate earned and queues their payout.
Here’s the path one sale takes:
- Someone applies. The form drops into Airtable and emails me. Spam gets a fake “got it” page and never reaches the table.
- I approve them. n8n makes their Stripe coupon code right away, and a backup run every 15 minutes catches anything missed. They get a welcome email and a login link (no passwords to forget).
- A buyer clicks. The link logs the click and remembers the affiliate for 60 days. If the buyer uses a code instead, the code wins.
- The buyer pays. The app records the sale as pending, tagged with the affiliate.
- 30 days pass. A daily n8n job flips pending sales to approved once the refund window closes. If the buyer gets a refund first, the sale gets reversed on its own.
- The 15th comes around. A monthly n8n job adds up each affiliate’s approved sales, skips anyone under $25 (except in December) and queues a payout. If it ever fails, my n8n error workflow emails me.
- I send the money. Once I mark a payout sent, n8n emails the affiliate and marks each sale paid.
And if I ever have to ban someone, their dashboard access ends right away and n8n turns off their coupon code within 15 minutes.
Why I check it so much
I’m a little paranoid about security, and I’d be mortified if someone joined and it didn’t work. So I checked it and rechecked it, and I still check on it.
It’s a good thing I did. A security review turned up 11 serious issues, all fixed before launch, and now a security check runs before every update and blocks it if anything serious comes back. Then I ran a fake applicant all the way through. The instant coupon step had never worked once. The 15-minute backup run had been covering for it the whole time, so nothing looked wrong from the outside. Building for myself, I’d never have found it, because I’d never have looked. My web app launch checklist grew out of builds like this one.
Get the generator
The generator walks you through the same decisions I made before I built anything. You pick your commission, payout minimum, how long a click counts and how long you wait for refunds. Then the buyer’s discount, custom codes, how you pay people and who can join. It writes a Claude Code build prompt with your rules in it, plus a before-you-launch checklist for the boring but important parts.
What it doesn’t do
My affiliate program is built for a small group of affiliates promoting my own apps, and it has gaps a paid platform wouldn’t.
- Payouts aren’t automatic. n8n queues them, but I send each PayPal payment by hand. Fine for a handful of people, not for hundreds.
- US only. No international payouts and no foreign tax forms.
- No affiliate marketplace. Nobody finds my program by browsing a directory. They find it on my sites.
- It’s new. I haven’t recruited affiliates yet, so only a few people have used it.
- The generator writes a starting prompt, not a finished program. Your build will still need the testing and rechecking mine did. It isn’t legal or tax advice.
Frequently asked questions
Can I build my own affiliate program without coding?
Yes, with Claude Code doing the coding while you make the decisions. Claude Code wrote the pages, the database setup and the n8n workflows for mine, and I decided every rule. You still need to test every step yourself, because you’re the one who has to know it works.
How much does an affiliate platform cost?
Refersion’s Launch plan is $39 a month billed monthly, plus 3% of affiliate-driven sales. Tapfiliate’s Launch plan is $89 a month billed monthly and caps you at 50 affiliates. Both have bigger plans, and both list cheaper yearly pricing on their pricing pages.
What payout minimum should an affiliate program have?
I picked $25 because I spent years stuck under higher minimums as an affiliate. A low minimum plus one month a year with no minimum at all (mine is December) means a small affiliate still gets paid instead of watching a balance sit there.
How long should an affiliate cookie last?
Mine lasts 60 days, and a coupon code beats the cookie if both are present. Codes still count when someone switches devices or blocks cookies, which is why I push affiliates to share their code along with their link.
How do affiliate refunds work?
Every sale waits 30 days before it’s approved. If the buyer gets a refund in those 30 days, the sale is reversed and the affiliate never gets paid for it, so I’m never chasing commission back from someone.
Can affiliates choose their own coupon code?
In my program, yes, once. They pick 3 to 20 letters and numbers on their account page, and their old code keeps working so earlier posts still earn.
Try it yourself
Build your own affiliate program with Claude Code, n8n and Stripe if you like building and want every rule to be yours. Pay for a platform if you’d rather not spend a summer testing payout math. Start with the generator, decide your rules first, and then test it like strangers are about to use it, because they are.
A tool I built
Build a Bio
Build a branded link in bio page in about a minute, then embed it on your own blog so your clicks land on your site, not someone else’s.
Build your bio →I run an affiliate program on the tools I build. Approved affiliates earn 20% on what their referrals pay, for up to a year. US only for now. See the program →
Related reading
- Easy to Build, Hard to Ship: My Web App Launch Checklist
- n8n Error Workflow: How I Stop Finding Out Days Later
- I Built My Own Link in Bio Tool and It Lives on My Blog
- My Software Bill Is $583 a Month. The Blog Is $328.
Want to promote my apps? The affiliate program is open. And subscribe if you haven’t yet, because the next build is already on my list.
