Title: Squad Affiliate – Affiliate Program & Referral Plugin for WooCommerce and Divi Author: The WP Squad Published: October 24, 2026 Last modified: October 24, 2026 --- Search plugins ![](https://ps.w.org/squad-affiliate/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev=3646075) ![](https://ps.w.org/squad-affiliate/assets/icon.svg?rev=3646075) # Squad Affiliate – Affiliate Program & Referral Plugin for WooCommerce and Divi By [The WP Squad](https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpsquad/) [Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/squad-affiliate.1.0.0.zip) * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/squad-affiliate/#description) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/squad-affiliate/#reviews) * [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/squad-affiliate/#installation) * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/squad-affiliate/#developers) [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/squad-affiliate/) ## Description **Squad Affiliate — the self-hosted affiliate program and referral plugin for WordPress, WooCommerce and Divi.** Run your own affiliate program directly in WordPress: recruit affiliates, track referrals, calculate commissions and pay partners — with no SaaS platform fees, no per-sale cut, and no third-party cookies. Affiliate tracking is self-hosted and first-party, so referrals keep being credited when ad blockers strip third-party scripts, and your affiliate data stays in your own database rather than on someone else’s analytics platform. Squad Affiliate is an affiliate marketing plugin built for real stores. It tracks WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads sales, memberships, courses and donations; it handles percentage, flat, tiered, recurring and lifetime commissions; and it gives every affiliate a dashboard where they can find their referral link, their clicks, their earnings and their payout history. It is also built to feel at home in a Divi 5 site: the affiliate registration form and the affiliate dashboard are real builder modules you drop onto a page, and shortcodes cover every other theme. #### Why a self-hosted affiliate plugin Hosted affiliate platforms charge a monthly fee, take a percentage of the commissions you pay, and keep your referral data. A self-hosted affiliate program costs nothing per sale, keeps every affiliate record in your own WordPress install, and works with the checkout you already run. #### How attribution works A visitor who arrives through an affiliate’s referral link is remembered with a first-party cookie. When that visitor buys, the order is credited to the affiliate. You can also tie a WooCommerce coupon or an Easy Digital Downloads discount code to an affiliate, so a purchase that applies the code is credited even without a referral link. When both apply, the referral link wins. #### Lite (this plugin) includes * Unlimited affiliates with first-party, ad-blocker-resistant tracking. * Referral-link, coupon-code and direct-link attribution — a link parameter, a vanity slug (`?ref=jane`), an affiliate’s coupon, or simply the site they referred the visitor from. * Short links: every affiliate can create `/go/…` links on your domain that credit them and forward to any page — one of yours or one on another site. * An affiliate who owns a website can ask that it be registered as a direct-link domain, from their own dashboard; you approve or decline the request. Nothing is credited, and no visitor is reattributed, until you say yes. * Commissions: flat, percentage, per-affiliate override, and a rule engine for per-product, per-category, per-role, per-campaign and volume-tier rates. Recurring( subscription renewals), lifetime (a referred customer’s later orders), multi- level overrides, signup bonuses, performance bonuses and pay-per-lead all ship free. * Choose what a commission is a percentage of: exclude shipping and tax, or pay on net revenue. * Large commissions can be held for review instead of approved automatically. * Affiliate registration with manual or automatic approval, and a self-service dashboard where affiliates see their referrals, clicks, earnings, team and payout details. * Affiliate groups with their own rates, and a leaderboard. * Divi 5 modules — Affiliate Registration Form and Affiliate Dashboard — plus shortcodes for the whole portal or any single screen: [squad_affiliate_dashboard],`[ squad_affiliate_login]`, [squad_affiliate_register], `[squad_affiliate_apply]`. * Personalised landing pages, built in whichever page builder you already use. [ squad_affiliate_referrer] prints the name (or company, website, country) of the affiliate who sent the visitor, `[squad_affiliate_coupon]` prints their code, and `[squad_affiliate_if_referred]` / `[squad_affiliate_if_not_referred]` wrap the content that should only appear for one of the two. * A creatives library — banners, text links, email swipe copy and social posts — plus a banner builder: pick a standard ad size, write the copy, and the banner is generated, added to your media library and saved as a creative. * WooCommerce (HPOS-aware) and Easy Digital Downloads referral tracking, with self-referral and one-referral-per-order guards. * Memberships, courses and fundraising too: MemberPress, LifterLMS, Paid Memberships Pro, LearnDash, SureCart and GiveWP, plus lead commissions from Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WPForms and Fluent Forms. * Payouts: approve and mark as paid by hand, export a plain batch CSV, or pay through store credit an affiliate spends on your shop or a bank transfer you record once sent. Affiliates choose which of those rails they get paid through and can request a withdrawal. * Reports: earnings over time, per-source and per-campaign performance, conversion rates, and a monthly summary email. * Transactional emails you can edit, preview and test-send, with your own logo, colour and footer. * One-click migration from eighteen other affiliate plugins, plus a CSV path for anything else — affiliates, commission history and click logs. * Sample data on request: a complete demo programme you can remove again in one click, for trying the screens before you have real affiliates. * An Abilities API surface and an MCP server, so an AI agent can read your programme with the same capability checks a person gets. * Privacy tools: GDPR personal-data export and erasure. #### Squad Affiliate Pro adds * AI fraud scoring at ingestion — a deterministic scorer plus a plain-English explanation written through WordPress’s own AI Client; suspicious commissions are auto-held, never auto-paid (and it fails open: an AI outage never blocks your store). * MLM matrix topologies — Unilevel, Binary, and Forced network trees. * The PayPal Payouts API, Stripe Connect and Wise bulk-payment files as payout rails, plus the PayPal- and Wise-shaped CSV exports each provider’s own upload tool expects. * Automated and scheduled payout dispatch (hands-off, one-click runs), and loyalty points as a payout rail. * Server-side (S2S) conversion tracking for cookieless attribution. * Multiple programs / campaigns and affiliate networks (run several merchants). * Affiliate ranks with rate bonuses, influencer retainers, pay-per-click commissions, and customer advocacy (turn buyers into affiliates). * Custom registration fields, and branded short links — affiliates name their own link (`/go/jane`) instead of taking the generated one. Short links themselves are free. * Smart links: one printed link that sends a phone, a desktop, or a visitor in another country to a different page, without reprinting the link. * Team roles and permissions, and an audit log of every administrative action. * Tax / KYC collection (W-9 / W-8 / 1099) with a payout gate and year-end reports, Zapier / Make automation, FluentCRM sync, and affiliate broadcasts. Squad Affiliate’s goal is competitive parity in the free build: Pro is reserved for the differentiators above, not for the features every other plugin charges for. Squad Affiliate is part of the Squad family by WP Squad, the team behind Squad Modules for Divi. Documentation, guides and the Pro comparison: https://squadaffiliate.com/ ### External services Referral tracking, commission calculation and payouts are all handled locally by your own WordPress installation. Out of the box the plugin contacts nothing. Each service below waits on a decision of yours — a setting you fill in, a dialog you approve, or a permissions screen you accept — and each one names the address it would reach; none of them is required to run an affiliate program. #### Outgoing webhooks (optional, off by default) If — and only if — you enter one or more webhook URLs under Settings, the plugin sends an HTTP POST to each of those addresses on two events: when a referral is recorded, and when a payout completes. You choose the addresses, so you choose the service: your own endpoint, an automation tool such as Zapier or Make, or nothing at all. A referral event sends the referral and affiliate IDs, the commission amount and currency, the order ID and the status. A payout event sends the payout ID and the payout method. No visitor IP addresses, no customer names or addresses, and no order contents are included. Leaving the webhook URL setting empty means no request is ever made. Because the destination is whatever you enter, its terms and privacy policy are the terms and privacy policy of the service you point it at. #### Sample-data download (optional, off by default, asks first) The sample-data importer works entirely offline: a dictionary of names, tiers, amounts and campaigns is built into the plugin, so pressing Import never contacts anything. Richer and translated dictionaries live in a companion public repository on GitHub. Downloading them is a separate button, and it is refused until you have explicitly approved the download in a dialog that names the address — no request happens before you say yes. The request is a plain GET for a zip of https://github.com/thewpsquad/ squad-affiliate-sample-data ; nothing about your site, your affiliates or your visitors is sent, and the archive is unpacked into your own uploads directory. You can delete the downloaded copy at any time and the importer falls back to the built-in dictionary. GitHub’s terms and privacy statement apply to that download: https://docs.github. com/site-policy #### AI fraud scoring Earlier builds could optionally call an external AI risk-scoring service. That service has been retired and the setting that enabled it is gone. Fraud scoring is available in Squad Affiliate Pro, where it runs locally: a deterministic PHP scorer, with the optional plain-English explanation going through WordPress’s own AI Client — so the provider is whichever one you have installed and keyed, and Squad Affiliate has no AI service of its own. #### Freemius (licensing and product analytics, opt-in) Squad Affiliate uses the Freemius service to deliver Squad Affiliate Pro and its updates, and — only if you consent — anonymous usage diagnostics. Freemius runs on an explicit opt-in: on activation you are shown a permissions screen and can ** skip** it. No data is sent to Freemius unless you opt in, or you activate a Pro licence. When enabled, the data sent may include: your site URL, WordPress and PHP versions, the administrator email address, active plugin and theme information, and the Squad Affiliate version. It is used for licence validation, update delivery and product analytics. Nothing about your affiliates, your referrals, your commissions or your visitors is ever sent. * Service: [Freemius](https://freemius.com/) * Terms of Service: https://freemius.com/terms/ * Privacy Policy: https://freemius.com/privacy/ ## Installation 1. Upload the plugin to `/wp-content/plugins/squad-affiliate`, or install it from the Plugins screen in your dashboard. 2. Activate it. The custom tables are created automatically on activation. 3. Open Squad Affiliate in the admin menu to review pending affiliates and payouts. 4. Add the Affiliate Registration Form and Affiliate Dashboard modules to a page in the Divi builder, or place the `[squad_affiliate_dashboard]` shortcode on any page. 5. Optional: give each step its own page with `[squad_affiliate_login]` (sign in), [ squad_affiliate_register] (create an account) and `[squad_affiliate_apply]` (join the program). `[squad_affiliate_dashboard]` already covers all three on one page, so use these only if you want separate URLs. ## FAQ ### Does it use third-party cookies? No. Tracking is self-hosted and first-party, so it resists ad blockers and is friendlier to privacy regulations. ### How do affiliates get credited for a sale? Two ways. A referral link sets a first-party cookie that credits the affiliate when the visitor buys. Alternatively, you can assign a WooCommerce coupon or an EDD discount code to an affiliate from the coupon editor; any order that applies that code is credited. If a visitor has both a referral cookie and a mapped coupon, the referral cookie takes precedence. ### How do I link a coupon to an affiliate? Edit the WooCommerce coupon and enter the affiliate’s ID in the “Affiliate ID” field. From then on, orders using that coupon are attributed to that affiliate. ### Do I need WooCommerce? WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads is recommended for automatic referral tracking on purchases, but the affiliate program itself works independently. ### How are affiliates paid? Approve pending commissions and mark them as paid by hand, pay through store credit or a bank transfer, or export a plain batch CSV — all free, and affiliates choose which of those rails they get paid through. The PayPal Payouts API, Stripe Connect and Wise bulk-payment files, the PayPal- and Wise-shaped CSV exports, and running batches automatically on a schedule are Squad Affiliate Pro. ### Can I try the screens before I have any affiliates? Yes. Settings has a sample-data importer that builds a complete demo programme — affiliates in tiers with a referral network, sales and leads across every status, campaign-tagged clicks, coupons, creatives, withdrawal requests and payout batches— and removes exactly what it created when you are done. The accounts it makes use addresses reserved for documentation, so they cannot receive mail, and no notification is sent while it runs. Use it on a development or staging site. ### What happens to the AI features if the service is down? Fraud scoring is advisory and fails open: referrals are approved as normal and flagged as “degraded” for later review. Your tracking and payouts are never blocked. In Lite, no AI endpoint is configured by default, so no external request is made at all. ## Reviews There are no reviews for this plugin. ## Contributors & Developers “Squad Affiliate – Affiliate Program & Referral Plugin for WooCommerce and Divi” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. Contributors * [ The WP Squad ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpsquad/) [Translate “Squad Affiliate – Affiliate Program & Referral Plugin for WooCommerce and Divi” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/squad-affiliate) ### Interested in development? [Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/squad-affiliate/), check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/squad-affiliate/), or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/squad-affiliate/) by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/squad-affiliate/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss). ## Changelog #### 1.0.0 * First-party, ad-blocker-resistant referral tracking, with vanity slugs, QR codes, short links and direct-link (referring-domain) attribution. * Coupon-code attribution: map a WooCommerce coupon or EDD discount code to an affiliate from the coupon editor, or auto-generate one per affiliate; the referral- link cookie takes precedence when both apply. * Affiliate registration (manual or auto approval), a React self-service portal ( referrals, clicks, creatives, team, payout details, withdrawals) and a full admin dashboard with reports. * Referral creation on WooCommerce (HPOS-aware) orders and Easy Digital Downloads purchases, with self-referral and one-per-order guards — plus MemberPress, LifterLMS, Paid Memberships Pro, LearnDash, SureCart, GiveWP, and lead commissions from Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WPForms and Fluent Forms. * Commission rule engine: per-product, per-category, per-role, per-campaign and volume-tier rates, on top of flat, percentage and per-affiliate overrides. Recurring, lifetime, multi-level, signup and performance bonuses included; shipping/tax exclusion and net-revenue share configurable. * Refund reversal, and a review hold for commissions above a threshold. * Payouts: approve, mark-as-paid, a plain batch CSV export, a store-credit wallet and bank transfer. Affiliate-chosen payout methods and withdrawal requests. The PayPal Payouts API, Stripe Connect, Wise bulk-payment files and the provider- shaped CSV exports are Squad Affiliate Pro. * Divi 5 modules: Affiliate Registration Form and Affiliate Dashboard, plus shortcodes for the portal, its individual screens and referrer-aware landing pages. * Affiliate-initiated direct-link requests: an affiliate asks that their own domain be credited to them, and you approve or decline it from the same Direct links screen used to register one directly. A request changes nothing on its own — only your approval creates the live claim. * Twenty-one REST controllers under `squad-affiliate/v1`, outbound webhooks, and a registered Abilities API surface with an MCP server over it. * Editable transactional emails with preview and test send; a monthly summary. * Setup wizard, sample-data importer, and one-click migration from eighteen competitor plugins plus CSV. * GDPR personal-data exporter and eraser, with IP-retention control. * Fail-open risk seam: no scorer ships in Lite, and an absent verdict is a neutral approve marked degraded. ## Meta * Version **1.0.0** * Last updated **1 week ago** * Active installations **Fewer than 10** * WordPress version ** 6.4 or higher ** * Tested up to **7.1.4** * PHP version ** 8.1 or higher ** * Tags * [affiliate](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/affiliate/)[affiliate marketing](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/affiliate-marketing/) [affiliate program](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/affiliate-program/)[referral](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/referral/) [woocommerce affiliate](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/woocommerce-affiliate/) * [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/squad-affiliate/advanced/) ## Ratings No reviews have been submitted yet. [Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/squad-affiliate/reviews/#new-post) [See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/squad-affiliate/reviews/) ## Contributors * [ The WP Squad ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpsquad/) ## Support Got something to say? Need help? [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/squad-affiliate/)