Refer one merchant.
Earn on every payment they ever take.
Send a merchant to SellStein Payments. We give you 20–30% of every platform fee they generate.
Recurring. Lifetime. Paid from our cut, not theirs.
0%
Starter rate
0
Day refund hold
0%
Top tier rate
Example payouts at the Starter rate
Examples only. Not real partners or real payouts.
Two ways to partner
Pick the lane that matches how you earn.
The Payments referral program is the main one. Open to anyone, automatic on signup. Technology partners build deeper integrations and we negotiate terms case by case.
Refer to SellStein Payments
Send a merchant our way. The moment they activate, you earn a recurring share of every platform fee on every transaction they process.
- 20% commission from day one. Promotion to 25% / 30% on volume
- Recurring for the lifetime of every merchant. No expiry
- Paid out from our platform fee. Your merchants pay nothing extra
- Live referral and earnings dashboard inside /sp/affiliate
Commission
20–30% recurring
Technology partners
Building plugins, integrations, or marketplace apps on top of SellStein. We co-engineer the launch and split economics case by case.
- Public REST API + webhooks for plugin builders
- Marketplace listing in front of every SellStein merchant
- Co-launch support and documentation review
- Custom commercial terms. Talk to us
Commission
Custom
Earnings calculator
Move the sliders. See your recurring number.
Drag in the merchants you can refer and the volume each one processes. Pick your tier. The number you see is what hits your account every single month for as long as those merchants keep selling.
How many merchants you refer who actually activate SellStein Payments.
Their gross processed volume. What they run through SellStein Payments each month.
Everyone starts at Starter (20%). Promotion to Silver / Gold is at our discretion based on volume and quality.
Math: total monthly volume × 0.7% platform fee × your tier rate. The 0.7% reflects what SellStein keeps after card-network and processor pay-through. Actual commission is computed on the real platform fee at charge time.
Monthly commission
$700
Recurring. Paid every month your merchants stay active.
Year 1
$8,400
Assumes merchants stay active all 12 months.
Year 3
$25,200
Three years of recurring commission, added up.
Three tiers
Starter to Gold. Same recurring math.
Every partner starts at Starter. Promotion to Silver and Gold is reviewed by our team based on referral volume and quality. No public quota, no surprise resets.
Starter
Open to everyone, automatic on signup.
Commission
20%
20% recurring on every referred merchant. Live dashboard, lifetime attribution, no minimum.
Silver
You are bringing real merchants.
Commission
25%
25% recurring on every referred merchant. Priority partner support and faster payout review.
Gold
You move serious volume.
Commission
30%
30% recurring on every referred merchant. Dedicated partner manager, co-marketing, early product access.
Promotion to Silver and Gold is at SellStein’s discretion based on referral volume and quality. We review accounts manually. No automatic threshold flips.
For your site, newsletter, or community
One link. Recurring while they sell.
Every partner gets a referral code at /sp/affiliate. Drop the link anywhere. Bio, sidebar, newsletter, embed widget. Every merchant who signs up under it is yours for life.
Embeddable widget + bare link
Drop sellstein.com/r/YOUR_CODE anywhere or embed the SVG widget on your site.
Lifetime attribution on signup
The moment a referred merchant signs up, the bond is permanent. No cookie expiry to worry about.
Live referrals and earnings
Open /sp/affiliate to see clicks, signups, activations, accrued and paid commission. Refreshed live.
Bank, USDC or PayPal
Pick a payout method once. Earnings clear after a 30-day refund hold and pay out on a recurring schedule.
embed.html
html1<!-- Embed this anywhere on your site. Replace YOUR_CODE with your -->2<!-- referral code from /sp/affiliate. SellStein tracks the click and -->3<!-- attributes any merchant who signs up to your account. -->4<a href="https://sellstein.com/r/YOUR_CODE" rel="noopener">5 <img6 src="https://sellstein.com/partners/widget.svg"7 alt="Powered by SellStein Payments"8 width="220" height="48"9 />10</a>1112<!-- Or use the redirect URL directly in newsletters, posts, bios. -->13<!-- Every visitor who signs up under it earns you 20–30% of the -->14<!-- platform fee on every payment they ever process. -->15https://sellstein.com/r/YOUR_CODEHow you actually get paid
From referral link to money in your bank.
No clawback drama, no surprise rules. The full money-flow, end to end.
- 1
You refer a merchant
Drop sellstein.com/r/YOUR_CODE in your bio, newsletter, or post.
- 2
They sign up + activate
KYC, bank, approval. The link to your code is permanent the second they sign up.
- 3
They process volume
Cards, recurring billing, payment links. Every charge generates a platform fee.
- 4
Your commission accrues
20–30% of the platform fee on every charge, recorded automatically per transaction.
- 5
30-day refund hold
A short hold so refunded charges flip to reversed before payout. Clean ledger.
- 6
Weekly payout
Every Monday, eligible commissions of $25 or more are bundled for payout. Bank, USDC, or PayPal.
Once a payout has cleared, we never claw it back. Refunds after payout sit on us, not you.
Compared
Why this beats one-time bonus programs.
Most partner programs are one-off bonuses dressed up as a program. SellStein pays you every month a referred merchant processes a payment.
| How it pays | SellStein | Shopify Affiliates | Stripe Partners |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commission | 20–30% recurring | ~200% one-time monthly fee | Invite-only / closed |
| Recurring vs one-time | Recurring on every charge | One-time bonus per merchant | Not published |
| Attribution length | Lifetime of merchant | 30-day cookie | Not published |
| Payout schedule | Recurring after 30-day hold | Bi-weekly, $25 min | Not published |
| Who can join | Any account with SellStein Payments on | Application required | Invite-only |
| Live partner dashboard | Live in /sp/affiliate | Daily refresh | Not published |
Comparison reflects publicly documented partner program terms as of 2026. Stripe Partners is invite-only and not directly comparable on retail terms; treat that column as a directional signal, not a quote.
The economics behind the share
Why we share more than one-time bonuses.
Shopify pays 200% one-time, Stripe runs invite-only. We pay 20-30% recurring for as long as they sell. Here is the math.
We charge merchants less
Our platform fee is lower than Shopify Plus and inline with Stripe. We share a slice. Merchants still pay less than the competition.
Merchants stay longer
Good businesses that were wrongly frozen elsewhere value a stable home. Every month they stay with us, you keep earning.
Recurring math beats one-time
On an active merchant, a 20% recurring share keeps paying every month. Run your numbers in the calculator.
Recurring (right) crosses one-time (left) before year-end.
No sales-team paywall
We do not have a paid sales team gatekeeping enterprise tiers. Our partners ARE our sales team. Paying you 20-30% is cheaper than hiring SDRs.
Everything in the box
A partner program fine print up front.
Real dashboards, real recurring math, real payouts. Open to every SellStein account with SellStein Payments on.
Live partner dashboard
Clicks, signups, activations, accrued and paid commission. All live at /sp/affiliate.
Dedicated manager at Gold
A real person at SellStein assigned to you once you reach Gold tier. Silver gets priority support.
Referral link + embed widget
Drop sellstein.com/r/YOUR_CODE anywhere or embed the SVG badge. Every signup is permanently attributed.
Lifetime attribution
Once a merchant signs up under your code, the bond is permanent. No cookie expiry, no resets.
Bank, USDC, PayPal
Pick a payout method once. Earnings clear after a 30-day refund hold and pay out on a recurring schedule.
Global from day one
20 languages, multi-currency dashboard, payouts wherever your bank or wallet lives.
Example scenarios
Recurring revenue looks like this.
Three made-up examples. Different audiences, same recurring math.
Creator
Example · YouTube channel, 80k subscribers
A creator refers 12 merchants who stay active. At average volume that is about $840 a month.
Active referrals · projected MRR
12 active · ~$840/mo
Newsletter
Example · ecommerce newsletter, 22k readers
One banner in a newsletter brings in 7 merchants. At average volume that is about $490 a month.
Active referrals · projected MRR
7 active · ~$490/mo
Agency
Example · agency with 40 DTC clients
An agency moves 24 clients that Stripe wrongly froze. At average volume that is about $2,100 a month in commission.
Active referrals · projected MRR
24 active · ~$2,100/mo
Made-up examples, not real partners. Earnings are projected at average volume after 6 months at Starter or Silver. No guarantee, just math you can redo.
Frequently asked
The honest partner program FAQ.
Straight answers. If something is missing, email support@mail.sellstein.com.
They get a regular SellStein account with SellStein Payments enabled. Same standard pricing every other merchant pays. Your commission is paid from our cut, not theirs. They never pay extra because you referred them, and there is no special partner-only plan they have to pick.
On every charge a referred merchant processes through SellStein Payments, we record a platform fee. Your commission is your tier rate (20% Starter, 25% Silver, 30% Gold) multiplied by that platform fee. Recorded automatically, no claiming required.
Each commission accrues on charge and holds for 30 days to cover refunds. Then it becomes eligible. Every Monday, eligible commissions of $25 or more are bundled into a payout to your method (bank transfer, USDC, or PayPal) set in /sp/affiliate.
If the refund happens during the 30-day hold, the accrued commission for that charge is reversed before payout. Clean. If the commission has already been paid out, we do not claw it back from money already in your account.
Every partner starts at Starter (20%). Promotion to Silver (25%) and Gold (30%) is reviewed manually by our team based on referral volume and quality. We look at activated merchants, processed volume, and behaviour. There is no public quota and we do not auto-flip on numbers alone.
No. Self-referrals are detected and blocked. Your own businesses cannot be attributed to your own referral code. The system rejects same-account and same-fingerprint signups before any commission accrues.
No cap, no expiration. Once a merchant signs up under your code, the attribution is permanent. You keep earning on every payment they process, every month, for as long as they stay active on SellStein Payments.
Bank transfer (most countries), USDC on supported chains, and PayPal. You set this up once inside /sp/affiliate; the destination is encrypted at rest and only used to send your eligible commissions.
No application. Every SellStein business that has SellStein Payments enabled gets a referral code automatically the first time they visit /sp/affiliate. If you do not have a SellStein account yet, sign up and the code is waiting for you.
Different program. If you are building a plugin, integration, or marketplace app on top of SellStein, email support@mail.sellstein.com. We negotiate co-launch and revenue terms case by case rather than running it through the standard recurring split.
Get started
No application. Just sign up.
Every account with SellStein Payments on gets a referral code automatically. Share it the same day.
- 1
Sign up for SellStein and enable SellStein Payments. Same flow as any other merchant.
- 2
Open /sp/affiliate. Your referral code and live link are waiting for you, no approval queue.
- 3
Drop the link in your bio, newsletter, site, or community. Earnings show up live as referred merchants activate and process payments.
Building a plugin or integration?
Become a technology partner