Best affiliate software to use?

MPA3 or Nats

You should check with Mansion Productions and their MPA 3 .

We are not all set up yet but having a license and having the system installed already, I can confirm you will be getting top detailed stats, more fancy functionalities and options than you ever use plus their sales and support team is prompt and easy to talk to.

something custom

What price is it? I can't seem to find that on their website.

I was looking at nats, but I dont like the idea the owner runs sites. I feel this gives him an unfair competition since he would know my traffic sources, conversion ratios etc. So i'll use something else.

Best to doublecheck but as far as I remember 2,5k for the license and then monthly scaling fee in range of hundreds of dollars depending on the amount of the sign ups you get (of course you don't pay till you have the site up and start getting sign ups).

Got an ICQ or something? I could reffer you to the righteous

You can also buy the license for a one time fee @ $18 or $19K

Lets bump this back up

word.

Are you accusing me of stealing my customers data? Thats quite a bold accusation.

I welcome you to come to NJ and see my program and you tell me if I am or not. Believe me if I were "stealing data" as you seem to like to imply my program would be much larger.

It really is quite a large accusation to make without any proof to back it up what-so-ever as well as against GFY rules.

Don't tell me "I wasn't accusing you I was just saying I don't like the idea." Saying you don't like the idea is just a lesser way of making the accusation.

Also, I wonder if this is even a real thread as one of my competitors seems to like to tell me "You really should raise your prices and get rid of your sites."

I have run sites since 1996. I'm not going to give it up because a few random people don't like it vs. the 100s of clients we have who know and trust us or because one of my competitors thinks I should raise my prices.

MPA's stats as of now don't equal the stats NATS provides let alone the stats NATS 4.0 will provide. If you'll be in Florida stop by our Booth or Cabana and check out NATS 4.0. I think you will be amazed. Either way I wish you luck with your program.

So basically the only option is mpa3 or using ccbill then?

Nats for sure!!!!!!

The search function located at the top of the screen is a little more helpful.

Here's a short list:
NATS
MPA3
Partnersoft
Clickman
Monolith
Executive Stats
Truestats
Ultimate Affiliate
IdevAffiliate
RSclickthru
Traffic Farmer


Much like choosing a CMS, figure out your budget and what you what it to do first, then go from there. We use Nats.

NATS

w3rd

epoch has a deal with MPA3 so if you use epoch I think you have to option to
use MPA3 through them. Not 100% sure...if I'm wrong someone please correct
me.

Also if you use VXSbill (own merchant account) you can use their custom
software which is the same as what payserve is using.

There's pro's and con's to each of the options really you just have to check
what fits best to what you want. Even getting a custom program built has
con's for example webmasters may be suspicious about it. A lot of people
somehow got the idea stuck in their mind that if you use a recognized
program like Nats or MPA3 they won't get cheated. Or in some cases with
MPA3 that they will get cheated because years ago some program that used
MPA3 was caught for using a shaving module.

Fact is that people shave, software doesn't. And there isn't any software
that can and will prevent that. There's many different ways to shave
affiliates regardless how they do it. You can even shave using CCbill their
program and apart from the software you can do it manually.

No company will ever admit that whether they have ever built plugins that
can do it automatically..but take my word for it..I've seen many different
programs that offered such module on request. Software companies don't
come up with such feature..the ones that have built them in the past have
done so by request just like most other features you see in software today.

The rare exceptions of companies that truly never did doesn't exempt them
for the possibility of adding such feature by others as all systems allow 1 way
or another to add code/scripts and call them through templates or plugin api
modules.

Getting your own custom build software isn't viable for most programs simply
because it takes way too long to build something that's anywhere near as
good as the available software on the market is. Once you have developed
a system is just the start of it. All the variables that come into play which
need to be covered takes years to solve and you'll only discover them in
practice by discovering all these things based on data generated in a live
situation. So to just build a system that looks like an affiliate program and
does what you want it to do still needs to be adjusted for what all your
affiliates will do with it.

Taken all that into account imho there's hardly any programs today that
would go through all this and benefit by doing that....defenitely not in the
short run....if they manage to get it all tight in what....2 to 3 years adding
all the cost, money lost due to the leaks that cheaters exploited before you
discovered and fixed them is a hell of a lot more expensive than just buying
or leasing something that's out there.

And I haven't even mentioned the cost of very skilled coders and the risk
and problems you expose yourself to in case you lose them somewhere
down the line. Even when all is completed they have to keep developing
it full time just to keep up with all the changes in our industry. Nowadays
that's just not worth it unless you have a team of kickass coders and you
also will sell the software at some point just like TMM and Mansion do.

Realistically the only real disadvantages of using existing software is that
to some extend you depend on the software company for updates, fixes
and support of their software. That can be covered in MOST cases by
not just buying a usage license but instead buy a full source code license.
Most programs on the market do offer such license upon request. Yes that
doesn't come cheap but compared with building something similar yourself
it's still a fraction of the cost of building it yourself. Anyone who tries to
make you believe different has no clue what he's talking about.....Anyone
who thinks I'm wrong please contact me as I would be more than happy
for you to PROOF that I'm wrong. I'll gladly pay a standard price to anyone
who can provide me with an equal quality product as what's out there after
it's proven that it really is equaly good. If not.....then I guess you were wrong.
So anyone willing to take me up on this challenge.....contact info is in my
Sig....

Sorry about the long post...anyone not serious interested in this topic can just
skip my post as it only may concern to people who are exploring the available
options. Those don't mind spending 2 minutes my post and if they do then
I wish them all the luck in the world coz they'll be needing it for sure.

And I don't mean all this be arrogant coz I could care less if anyone thinks I'm
nuts..I just share my thoughts on this based on 15 years hands on experience
with many different companies, programs and software in many different
environments.

Wow, you sure get unreasonably defensive about someone's concerns. He most certainly didn't accuse you. When I was in the market for affiliate software I also considered the fact that our data would be at your fingertips. To not take that into account when making a major software purchase would be completely ignorant.

ServerGenius, always a pleasure to read you!

Try jamrox for mainstream

Oh 1 last thing I forgot to point out regarding existing software that's on the
market. The biggest practical problem that some of these have.....especially
under extreme high load is that all the software on the market is that they
become inefficient due to the way they are built.

This kind of software has so many features due to the demand of the different
programs that are using it which means that in order to do that they need
to be build in a way that they can handle all this.....that means that in most
cases you get something that can do a lot more than what each individual
company will ever use. Some software have solved this better than others.

But even if all features are made in seperate modules that are loaded by
a basic core system it still has limitations coz though you only use some
of it.....the core has to be flexible enough to use all the different modules.
For example that means that a lot of database queries are chopped in
many seperate queries in order to keep it flexible and modular. that means
that the database load will always be much higher than something that is
build to do just exactly what you may want it to do. And for the people who
are not to tech savvy. Database load is one of the first and main bottlenecks
that you will encounter on high load.

A stats page that executes 200 seperate database queries to fetch the
results can never be as efficient as the same page that's rendered with
a fraction of the amount of database queries.

For most programs this will never become an issue as they are simply too
small to encounter these problems..but I have worked and dealt with such
issues and especially for those this is a major issue. As those programs
really don't want to deal with changing to another system and all the hassle
and risks that brings when you have ten thousands of active members and
thousands of active affiliates.

There is a solution for solving such problems with the software they are using
but from the 2 that I have dealt with that ran into these problems for some
reason neither them nor the software company was able to think of the
solution that I have for it..........Anyone who's dealing with such issues and
is desperate...feel free to contact me. I guarantee that I have simple
solution for your problems and that I can make them disappear for good
and not only that I can fix it very fast. Think I'm bluffing? Give it a try!
If I fail to solve it....I won't charge a single dollar....and I have no problem
signing a contract/NDA that includes this offer.

If I succeed I'll foot you a nice bill but I'm sure it's worth it and still be a
fraction of the costs you have when dealing with such problems and your
attempts to solve them.......

Great post, just to add that once you use the mpa3 with Epoch it's a bit limited to all the functionalities you would get with a full license, but still most probably the best turn key free affiliate software to get right now, it still works with two processors cascade (also less processors to choose with, with full you have every possible billing integrated) and has a couple of nice practical features and sophisticated stats system in place. I am curious what will CCBILL come with.

VXSbill is another great all integrated tool, mostly because if you set up billing with VXSbill they will charge you way less per transaction than third party billers and they will also process more cards in general, as for example Maestro cards that CCBILL doesn't if I am not mistaken here. For Example OrgyCash (former Erromax aka partyhardcore) uses them as well as LionDollars. Just make sure you can process at least 25k a month.

It just posted twice so I deleted the mess.

Thank you Sir, knowing that even just 1 person gets something positive from
what I have to say makes it worth for me to write it. I don't think or claim
to be always right or to know it all coz I'm not and don't. I just share what
I know or think based on my experience to be used as something to think
about..no matter if it's right or wrong....use it as a second opinion or take
from it what you think applies to you if you agree...if I'm wrong please correct
me so I can benefit from my mistakes as well....if someone points them out
to me...I don't mind to be corrected or to admit if I'm wrong when it becomes
clear that I am.....I strongly believe in sharing thoughts, opinions and knowledge
with others as I believe by doing that it always contributes positively to
everybody's result.

Sharing thoughts give anyone more info and angles to your ideas so you
can make better decisions regardless if all thoughts are correct or wrong.
if they're wrong at least you thought about it and can't overlook things
which without it you may haven't thought about at all. Pointing out
when someone is wrong he again learns something new which he can
use to benefit from himself.......no matter how you look at it that's
a win win situation....unless you don't take everything said for being true
and correct.

It's a shame that many people feel offended or attacked when someone
points out to them for being wrong....People should be happy when someone
points out their mistakes.....I rather be wrong 100 times and be able to fix
it than to start a pissing match with people that were kind enough in the
first place to help me by teaching me something through pointing out
something that II'm doing wrong.......

Oh well....in a perfect world lol....as long as they're still 1 or a few people
who agree on this than it's still worth hanging around and to absorb all the
nonsense and bullshit that is flying around in this chaotic, some frustrating,
often quite entertaining place called GFY.

shit....I wrote a novel today.....my GFY minutes are up for today back to
work I'll back for more tomorrow. Anyone who has questions or remarks
about anything i've said feel free to hit my up at any time by IM I'm
always happy to discuss, help and learn from anyone regardless if I know
you or not.

Thanks for letting me know that at least 1 person read my novel, it's good
to know that I didn't cramp my fingers for nothing......lol

Great posts ServerGenius

Off topic: PBucksJohn where in NJ are you?

bump for John

great posts server!

I really wanted to have something I have the source code to, mainly so if there is a problem at 2am, I can try to do something about it other then put a ticket in and sit there waiting.

Also, I don't really want anyone else to have the ability to see my data, I am sure Nats or Mpa3 could care less about my stats but it's still a fear I have.
Yes whatever coder I hire could have access to the data too i guess.

i would use NATS if they could solve some SEO issue from my perspective (i'm a SEO analyst before anything else) but i do prefer sponsors that use NATS for some obvious reason ;)