Skip to content
DevDiggers Docs

How to Enable Lifetime Commissions (Pro)

By default a commission needs a referral to exist at the moment of the order: a link click, a live cookie, or a coupon. Lifetime commissions drop that requirement. Once an affiliate has won a customer, that customer belongs to them and every later order earns commission on its own.

This is the setting that turns a one-off referral into an income stream, which is why serious partners ask about it before they promote you.

1. Open the setting

Section titled “1. Open the setting”

Go to DevDiggers Plugins → Affiliates → Configuration → Commissions and scroll to Lifetime Commissions.

The Lifetime Commissions section of the Commissions settings tab

2. Turn it on

Section titled “2. Turn it on”

Tick Link referred customers to their affiliate permanently. It is off out of the box.

Section titled “3. Decide how long the link lasts”

Lifetime Window (Days) defaults to 0, which means the link never expires. That is the offer partners want and the one that costs you most, because you pay on that customer forever.

The Lifetime Window field highlighted

Set 365 and you pay for one year per customer, which is usually the honest middle. The window is counted from the date the link was created, not from the last order.

4. Save

Section titled “4. Save”

Click Save Changes. Nothing is applied retroactively, so the link starts being written on the next referred order.

What actually happens on the order

Section titled “What actually happens on the order”

The link is written on a customer’s first referred order and is never overwritten afterwards. A later affiliate cannot take a customer someone else won, however they were referred.

Three things stop a link from paying:

  • A guest checkout is skipped. There is no account to attach the link to, so a customer who never registers never gets one.
  • A suspended affiliate earns nothing. The link is only honoured while the affiliate is Approved, so suspending someone stops their lifetime earnings without you unpicking anything.
  • An expired window stops paying. Past the number of days you set, the link is ignored.

How it interacts with everything else

Section titled “How it interacts with everything else”

Lifetime attribution is the fallback, not a replacement. A live referral still wins: if the customer arrives through a link or a coupon, that referral is what gets credited on that order.

It also does not skip the fraud checks. An order that would be refused as a self referral is still refused when the attribution came from a lifetime link. See How to Block Self-Referrals.

Section titled “Undoing a link”

Turning the setting off stops lifetime commissions immediately, because the link is only read while the setting is on. The stored link stays on the customer, so turning it back on restores the same relationships rather than starting everyone from scratch.

Where to go next

Section titled “Where to go next”