Why why why do affiliate companies charge for checks?
 

:disgustWhy do you charge your affiliates anywhere from $1 - $10 for them to be paid.

That is the most retarded thing I have seen. Yes I know it has been around for a while, but everytime I see it, it makes me scratch my head and makes me not want to use that company.

I understand charging for wires, even epass, but to offer no "free" option to get paid is crazy. How much does it cost you to print a check and put a stamp on an envelope? If you use a company to print your checks and make the payments that is your choice, why are you passing that cost back onto your affiliates. Of all things to nickle and dime, doing it to people so they can get paid.

"Ok you made $100 this period let me send you your check here is $100, ok now give me $5 back so I can send you $95". WTF ?

What next, a surcharge of $2 a check to pay for your rent? $5 a check to pay for your electricity?

/retarded...

And no need for the replies " if they do it to 100's of affiliates it adds up, blah blah blah... I know they do it to try to save xxx a month. It is just an expense that should not be passed back. Make it up someone else, lower your payouts by a $1 a signup, factor it in some where else .... it is just bad to add that fee in. I also know the " contact your rep and if you have a problem we will waive it". again just bad to have it in the first place.

thus you wonder why you are one boring motherfucker grandpa simpson.

I'm now getting charged 4.99 for my cell phone because I won't use automatic pay.

tell me about it

I don't work for people that charge me anything.

It's a different world than it was 2 years ago. These days sales are lower, margins are tighter, but people still want to make as much as possible.

We ourselves charge $7.95 for each check we send out, or $35.00 for a wire transfer. The $35 is charged to us from our bank of course so we don't make any money paying out by wire. The $7.95 is to offset the cost of accounting.

There is much more than writing a check and licking a stamp. Sometimes it can be budgested to pay down the initial investment in the accounting software or infrastructure, or sometimes its just put towards the cost of staff. For example, the person who makes the checks is usually the same person who has to reconcile the accounts and make sure people are paid properly. Very often, people suddenly want to have checks made to someone else, or change their company name, move to a new city, etc etc, which takes a lot of expensive customer support and TLC.

The best way to save on the cost of your affiliate checks is to simply raise the minimum payout you wish to receive. It doesn't pay to ask for payouts at $50.00 especially if you are paid every week. Try increasing your minimum payout to something like $500. At the typical cost-of-payout, this will drop your cost to be paid from 14% to about 4% and the money you save will add up quickly too.

Suppose they they do that with their electric bill?
Or their phone bill?
Or their water/sewage bill?
Or their ISP?
Or the IRS?

probably not ....

Bullshit

In the US, if you owe a debt, you can not induce a charge for paying that debt. The "cost of accounting" is just part of your overhead as a business entity.

Perhaps they cut the trees down themselves and make the paper to print the checks on? Beats me.

Great so I up the amount for me to be paid out so I can save on the fees for the money to be sent to me, so the company can hang on to my money longer and they collect the interest on it, which I lose.

Companies still have to cut checks and reconcile accounts, do accounting work even without affiliates. That position/person still needs to be there.

It's just plain tacky, nickle and diming. Comes across so much better for the company to make it up somewhere else even if the affiliate makes less in the long run. It's all about perception and the pereception I get of a company that wants to charge me to send me a check is not good.

How about I start charging affiliate companies a nickel extra surcharge for every signup I send on top of their pay rate. That can go to help covering my over head.

In my situation, I am signing up to a lot of companies for a project where signups will be distributed over 100s of programs. It might take me months to reach a $500 min. with one company and to be honest I wouldn't want half these companies who are nickle and diming me to hold onto my money that long. If they that hard up to try to recoupe $2 for cutting a check and cut corners doesn't give me a good sense of security that some of them will be in business several months in the future when it would be time to send me the money.

That's bullshit and you know it. It doesn't fucking cost to change a name or an address and if it does, you need to fire the person who is overcharging you for their services. Increasing a payout only ensures you get to hold the money earned and draw interest off of it. Point blank, you should NEVER charge anyone who makes you money in order for them to be compensated. But that makes a lot of sense. Hard times, low sales so why not fuck those that actually keep you in business right?

:thumbsup

wow fuck that

We don't charge to send Checks or Epass :2 cents:

Interesting that when ever any affiliate program makes ANY changes or adds small charges they are scum of the earth.....even though that charge i MOST cases goes towards serving you the affiliate better.

Yet every year the demands from affiliates are more intense, marging are tighter and client pools shrink

See a pattern here Will76?

HighEnergy: you are just so far off the mark here.....

Have you ever had 10k + affiliates?
Have you ever been in charge of massive volumes of payouts?

Personnel, systems, hardware, Vacations, Incurrence the list goes on and on
1 employee paid 2500 USD will cost you 3500-5000 when you start calculating in how much it costs to "run" that employee

See this is exactly why SO many people in this business are scrambling every minute of the day....you don?t run your numbers, or even understand how to.
You just assume (well that only takes 5 minutes), etc etc

Most people on GFY do not even know their true cost of operation, they have NO clue.

One thing that is true in most any business, mainstream or adult internet/non internet....if the guy running the business is GREAT with numbers he WILL make a fuckload of cash, PERIOD....

So **********, when your company pays rent, other bills, etc do you send the full amount owed minus your $7.95 check fee?

I bet not...

I'm guessing you charge for checks....

Where did you see that I am saying that a program is "scum of the earth" for charging for checks?

The only demands I see affiliates making these days is to get paid from companies that stopped paying. What other demands are affiliates making? I know I don't ask companies for a thing except to be paid. You saying "affiliates demands are more intense every year" curious to hear what those demands are that you are getting.

So affiliate companies need to charge to send me money so they can better serve me, you kidding right? Its a check, it gets printed (or hell hand write it I don't care) put it in an enevlope, lick the stamp and drop it in the mail. How does my $2, $5 or whatever per check go to serving me better through that process.

I am not here saying companies who do this are scum of the earth. I am giving them free feedback of what it looks like from the eyes of an affiliate. The very people most of you are trying despretely to get traffic from. I'm explaining how it is all about perception, and asking why or how can companies really try to justify this.

See a pattern, full of energy... don't know what you talking about there? because I make a valid post, ask valid questions????

Actually no we don?t, not the point really :)

As for scum of the earth i did not say that you said that, again my point was that affiliates are really fast on the trigger when there is something they dont like yet does not think twice about it when programs go above and beyond for them, in some cases spending hundreds or thousands for custom work.
Custom designs, trailers, longer clips, encodes, the list goes on

As for the check price see my other post!
Company 1
Will asks for an address change, check is delayed 1-3 weeks or drama occurs
Company 2
No delay, email answered in 10 minutes

Ohh and i likewise know that you are not knocking anyone here will :thumbsup
But trust me 99% of the people on GFY simply do not know what programs have to deal with to keep everyone happy, and at the same time be successful so that they can stay in business, keep paying etc etc

Look at the Epass thread today or yesterday with a $1 increase for ATM use, i mean WTF? :1orglaugh

About the pattern again not aimed at you :winkwink:
The pattern is that programs are squeezed so tight and yet have to give more and more, etc bla bla lol

A bank wire cost money bacourse of the bank, you get charged
A check cost money becourse of accounting, you get charged

If you want to have ANY valid point here you should be asking him why he does not pay the 35 buck fee for you

Understand that this is about the Company setup!
You can find a LOT of affiliate programs that will pay ALL of this for you, but you only get paid 50% of recurring......yet will NEVER see a fee on payments, chargebacks ANYTHING

Ok all of that aside, what other affiliates bitch about. I do know what it takes to run / own a program, deal with affiliates etc... I still don't get the $2, $5, $10 charge to send someone a check. You still going to get pain in the ass affiliates, you still going to get people who bitch whether you charge to send them a check or not. Affiliates don't change their address often.

Bottom line is that it is another way for them to nickel and dime affiliates. If they send out 100 checks a week and they charge $3 a check, its a way for them to make $300 a week to help cover their bills, put more money in their pockets, whatever.

Charging someone to send them a check is screwing them. Think about it, really it is insaine to charge someone to pay them. When you have to pay your programmer, staff, people you buy content from, your hosting company, etc. etc... all those other people that a company has to send payments to, do they charge them as well?

You are wrong here. A bank wire is not a standard way to send payments. That is definitly something extra, a convienence. If the affiliate can't wait an extra couple days to get it in the mail then he can pay for the wire. Checks are standard, cheap way to send the payment. The main thing is that a company should at least provide 1 way for the affiliate to get paid without being charged short of him getting in his car and driving to that companies office to pick up the check. Which then I wouldn't be surprised if some companies still want to charge the fee.

When there is no way to get the money without being charged it feels like extortion. Ok you made money now you want to collect it... well its going to cost you.

I don't buy only the 50% programs wont charge you but the 60% ones will because you get paid more. There are so many ways programs make money off of having affiliates... what about all of the money that affiliates make that hasn't meet the min payout that sits and collects interest or that is never paid. You think all of the ++++ money they make from that they could at least not charge the people a fee to send a check for the people who do reach the min payouts.

Micro payments always cost 1000% more to handle, 2x 10k payments does not cost anything.....if that was all you did you wouldent need an accounting department.

A good efficient accounting department has to be billable!
Some of that can come through fee's
Some come from catching people like the Turbos
Some through deductions and just overall having good accounting people

Its not just the 3-8 bucks pr check, its a combination of all of it.

I will give you this though, for you to charge you need to have a large amount of payouts to the point where that is actually costing you a LOT
Everything i have written does not really apply to small programs.

But it does apply, ask any financial person

I think if I paid my bills and took off the $0.44 for each stamp I had to buy, to mail them checks, then took off another $0.02 per envelope, and hell, when I paid for hosting, I took off $5.00 because I had to go in, click my mouse a couple of times, and wait for the pages to load, that I would be pretty well fucked. Charging an outrageous amount (ie, $10.00) for a check is clearly a little wild, however I don't think that $2 or $3 is too big of a deal. The sponsor or whoever should be responsible for the cost of hiring that person to do the work... it's like me telling an affiliate that I want them to pay me for my time to add their shit to my sites. That's a little dumb, if I may say so myself.

Yeah that is correct. Some of them sell our fucking information to advertisers who send a ton of "Get your dick larger" shit in the US mail! What the fuck! I'm perfectly happy with my size, girth and everything, and my woman is, too, so leave me the fuck alone with that shit.

Oh, and another thing, whoever it is that is selling new affiliate information to these advertisers, you are a shady mother fucker and you will rot in hell, because I said so.

Seriously, though......

Will, ok i dont really know how i can best make you see this hehe
If i was to pay 100 affiliates and cover the 35 buck wire myself it would cost me a LOT less.........simple as that.
Actually about half of the cost of sending checks lol

Checks are ancient, hell Last time i gave a check to my banker in Denmark was 6 years ago and he had not seen one in years.
Its only used large scale in North America, for now, lets hope that changes

I doubt people do not make the $50 payout limit, even if they dident it would be an ASS of a program to not pay it out should the affiliate really need it....for what ever reason

that is the cost of running a business plain and simple. If you have 1000's of affiliates you need a bigger staff but you also "should" be making a lot of money too. Even if your profit margin is small.

I do buy any of the arguments at all on justify charging (forcing) someone to pay you a fee to be paid money they earned. If a company isn't making enough money to cover their bills or thinks they are paying their affiliates too much money, then they should cut back in other areas.... promotions, drinks at shows, bonuses whatever. Trying to nickle and dime someone to get paid by putting a fee on sending them a check is a terrible, terrible thing to do from a perception stand point. I am surprised that someone started it in the first place, and now it looks like a lot of companies are jumping on the bandwagon.

that makes no sense. So you are saying that a "big" company that has "1000's" of affiliates and sends out "1000's" of checks has to pass that fee back onto their affiliates???? Again its all the costs of running a business. But what doesn't make sense is that you make it sound like because the company is so big that it actually has to pay for a service or full time person to cut checks that it should pass that cost back onto the affiliate. So if the company is making millions a month and has to pay $3000 or whatever to a service to cut checks it doesn't have to pass that cost back it is a very successfull company DUE to the very affilaites it wants to nickle and dime.

but you saying a small opperation who likely doesn't make much money and doesn't cut many checks, so they don't have to hire a company doesn't have to charge because they don't have costs....

I agree with you 100% a big company cutting 1000's of checks definitely talkes on a cost of having to get those checks out. I don't agree that they have to or should pass that cost on.

is it my fault that they are so big and successful that I should have to pay for it $2 a check ? What a good expense to have, they make so much money and send out so many checks they actually have to pay a few thou or whatever for it. (part of doing business.... being forced to pay someone so they will pay you what you are owed is not.)

Comes down to smoothe operations i guess :)

I do have different views on these matters of course depending on the situation, but i will say this.
it was a good conversation......bit hard to come by these days on GFY :winkwink:

Whats worse is I always have to pay 30-60bucks to CASH them in:(

Ouch, that's all I can say.

Because I don't give my autograph for free.

That is exactly what i am saying, big or small it is still a business and should be run as such.
Just becourse you are huge does not mean that your margins are better....they just had better, smarter people run the company.

It sounds bad, im with you there LOL
But once something becomes a big enough of an expence trust me the MBA's of the world will make sure that it is covered.

On a side note i remember a guy here on gfy once said something interesting....stuck with me and this is 7 or so years ago.
It was a thread about Shaving (Programs shaving affiliates), he simply had come to terms with that fact that back then most likely everyone did so he chose to not give a damn about it.
Reason: Go with the people that make you the most money, nothing else

Ok sorry don't want to come across as being rude but your statement about affiliates not making the min and companies not sending it out anyway etc. etc.. shows me you have no clue about this stuff. There is a LOT of money affiliate programs sit on because min amounts are not paid. a lot. If everyone of those accounts that didn't meet the min wanted to "cash out" at the same time it would cripple more than a few companies.

There are 0 affiliates that would EXPECT for a company to cover the cost of the wire.

What does it matter if checks are ancient or not, it is still the cheapest and most common way to send payments. A lot of affiliates and programs are located in the US btw. How much does it cost to send a check from where ever you are, you said 2x the amount to send a wire ? It cost you $70 to send a check ?

ok.... lol. if you say so.

For people sending checks internationally if that gets expensive for them, then offer free epass, something. There should always be a way to get paid without the affiliate having to pay to get paid. period. i don't care what the method is. having to pay money to get money, the whole concept is stupid, and really makes the company doing it look bad.

I used to do mainstream shit and NEVER ONCE paid a fee, and I have gotten bank wires, checks, paypal, alert pay, you name it. Not once have I ever paid a fee to get paid until I came to adult.

LOL the margins aren't bigger you are right. but your profit is bigger because your volume is a LOT bigger. this is so simple I don't understand what you are missing. It is all scalable. It is all the cost of doing business for the company whether they have 1 affiliate and they hand write the check or if they have 10,000 affiliates and have a full time staff, with more affiliates comes more money and comes more expenses, like you said the margin stays the same. its all relative. its all cost of doing business and that is one expense that should be factored into their bottom line and not passed back.

hell shave if they need to cover their bills, just do it so people don't see. The check thing in their face is retarded, extortion etc... i shouldn't say check thing. its the fact that you have to pay someone to collect the money you owed. If you rather do wire, epass, whatever for free, there should be an option for the person to get paid without having to pay the company some of that money back. it is dumb. there is nothing else I can say. if you dont get it you never will.

Will
For me to send out 100 checks pr pay period it will roughly cost me the following
This is pr month and will of course varie depending on where you are
(This is if you have an employee hired to do this)
Employee: 3000
Hardware: 200
Software: 50-100
Vacation: 200-300
Insurrence: 100
Employee gets sick: 100-200
Vacations: 100-150
Misc, lunches, parties, etc etc: 50-100

So with 2 pay periods = 200 checks
Total: 19 bucks pr check

Now sending checks and managing all that is maybe roughly a half time job so...
$9.50 pr check

And this is your best case scenario really

Why do you think banks charge ATM fees? :winkwink:
Edit: or fees in general

And yes i aggree that everyone should have ONE free option...not sure if i mentioned that above or not....

Im off to bed, getting late here!

Solutions:

A) Tell all the banks not to charge for wires. Then you can get your wire for free. They don't need the extra money anyway, they are getting government money right now. It's like christmas for the banks.

B) Tell Epass not to charge a fee for transfers of any kind. They don't need to make any money, so I'm sure they will waive their fee.

C) Only promote programs who do not charge for checks.

D) Pay the check fee like everyone else does and understand the programs have bills to pay. With an honest revshare company, after they pay you for the sale, what is left? 50% - 30%? Then they have to pay for staff, hosting, advertising, new content, computers, upgrades, software, promos, whatever. THEN and only then when there is next to nothing left, someone will put a buck in his pocket, if he's lucky, from your sale. Overhead can be huge for some of these programs. So if they want to charge a couple of bucks for a check, so be it. They are already giving you 50% - 70% of the sale + that much of the rebill, so cut them some slack.

Banks charge for ATM use, many utility companies charge you for phone "speed pay" services. There are little fees everywhere, be it a tax on something (fee for the state or government) or a processing and handling fee.

With that said, if it's a program that does lots of cross sales or bangs cards... FREE CHECKS! :winkwink: