How many clicks does one affiliate sale take?
Problem
- Affiliate links look like free money, but most clicks never turn into a sale - and only sales pay.
- Site owners count clicks, not sales, and are surprised by how small the first commission cheque is.
Solution
- Read your visits off your WebCounter report and your clicks and sales off your affiliate dashboard.
- Put them into the free calculator below and it shows the clicks and visits one sale takes, what your links earn now and the traffic a monthly target needs.
Key points
- At 1% of clicks buying, one sale takes 100 clicks - and at 3% of visitors clicking, about 3,333 visits.
- On 5,000 visits a month that is 1.5 sales and about R96 a month, with an R800 product at 8% commission.
- R1,000 a month takes about 52,000 visits - ten times the traffic.
- A dearer product moves the answer as much as traffic does - at R3,000 the same R1,000 needs about 13,900 visits.
- Each click is worth about 64 cents - the number to compare with an ad.
In ads, affiliate or your own product we compared what each model earns per 1,000 visitors. This post zooms in on affiliate links alone and asks the question behind every commission: how many readers have to walk past the link before one of them buys?
Why one sale takes so many visits
An affiliate link only pays when two things happen in a row: a reader clicks it, and then buys on the shop's site. Both are small shares, and they multiply.
- Clicks per sale is 1 divided by the conversion rate. At 1% of clicks buying, that is 100 clicks; at 2%, 50.
- Visits per sale divides that again by the share who click. At 3% of visitors clicking, 100 clicks takes 3,333 visits.
- Both rates are estimates in the calculator - there is no reliable benchmark across shops and niches, so use your own dashboard.
- Commission rates differ by programme and category, so check the rate for what you actually link to.
Work out the clicks per sale for your site
Type your visits a month, the share who click an affiliate link, the share of clicks that buy, the price, your commission, a monthly target and your traffic growth. The calculator shows the clicks and visits per sale, your earnings now, the visits the target takes and when you would reach it - with a chart.
Prefer a full page? Open the affiliate clicks per sale calculator on CalcSA. To compare affiliate links with ads and a product of your own, the ads vs affiliate vs own product calculator puts them side by side.
Worked example: the calculator's defaults
A site with 5,000 visits a month, where 3% of visitors click an affiliate link and 1% of those clicks buy an R800 product at 8% commission, aiming for R1,000 a month, with traffic growing 3% a month.
- Each sale earns R64 - 8% of R800.
- One sale takes 100 clicks and about 3,333 visits.
- 5,000 visits bring 150 clicks and 1.5 sales - about R96 a month.
- R1,000 a month takes 15.6 sales, about 1,563 clicks and 52,083 visits.
- At 3% growth a month it takes about 80 months to get there - nearly seven years.
Three more cases, same defaults except the one shown:
- 2% of clicks buy: R192 a month, and R1,000 needs about 26,000 visits.
- 5% of visitors click: R160 a month - a link placed where the reader is ready to buy.
- An R3,000 product: R360 a month, and R1,000 needs about 13,900 visits.
Estimates. The 5,000 visits, 3% click share, 1% conversion, R800 price, 8% commission and 3% growth are assumptions, as in the calculator. Your affiliate dashboard shows your real rates.
Two years of affiliate earnings, by how many clicks buy
Same site, monthly affiliate earnings as traffic grows 3% a month, at 0.5%, 1% and 2% of clicks buying:
- 0.5% buy
- 1% buy
- 2% buy
Show the numbers as a table
| Month | 0.5% buy | 1% buy | 2% buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | R48 | R96 | R192 |
| 6 | R57 | R115 | R229 |
| 12 | R68 | R137 | R274 |
| 18 | R82 | R163 | R327 |
| 24 | R98 | R195 | R390 |
- Doubling the share who buy doubles the earnings - as much as two years of traffic growth does.
- None of the lines reaches R1,000 in two years - affiliate income at this size is pocket money.
- The cheapest lever is the link itself: a product the reader came for converts far better than a banner.
Reading your counter for this
Your WebCounter counter gives you the visits; your affiliate dashboard gives you clicks and sales. No counter yet? Get your free WebCounter counter - it takes a minute and costs nothing.
- Click share is affiliate clicks divided by unique visitors on your WebCounter report, for the same month.
- Find the posts that sell: the pages report shows which posts carry the readers - put your best links there.
- Count bots out - a raw count inflates visits and makes your click share look worse than it is.
- Watch visits per sale month on month: if it falls, your links are getting better.
Sources
- The 3% click share and 1% conversion are our estimates - no published benchmark was found that holds across shops and niches.
- The 8% commission is an assumption - rates differ by programme and category; check your own programme's terms.
- Calculator: CalcSA, Affiliate clicks per sale.
Estimates only. How many readers click and buy depends on the product, the price and how well the link answers the reader's question; your own dashboard is the test.
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