“We use one tool for UGC, another for affiliates and a third for ads.”
Affiliate marketing pays a partner a share of the sales they send you through a tracked link or code; you get the orders and nothing else. UGC pays a creator for a video you can use in your own channels and ads; you get the asset and its rights, whether or not it sells. Commission-based UGC does both at once: the creator makes the video, you can use it, and part or all of their pay is a share of the sales or the ad spend it drives. Affiliate pays on the link. Commission-based UGC pays on the link, the code, or the ad spend behind the video. That is why the three-tool setup exists, and why it does not have to.
Why you ended up with three tools
Affiliate platforms were built for links: a program page, tracking, a payout on sales. UGC marketplaces were built for files: a brief, a delivery, a fee per video. Ad tools were built for spend. None of them was built to pay a creator a share of the ad spend behind their own video, because that number lives in the ad account and the creator’s deal lives somewhere else. So a brand that wants creators paid on sales for their posts, paid for the video it runs as an ad, and paid more when that ad scales, ends up stitching three systems and a spreadsheet.
What affiliate buys
A brand publishes a program: a rate, a tracking method, rules on what qualifies. Partners, who may be publishers, coupon sites or creators, get a unique link or code and promote the product wherever they like. When a tracked sale happens, the partner earns the share. The brand pays only on results, owns nothing the partner made, and often does not know what the partner made. The largest public example is Amazon Associates, whose standard rates run from 1 % (Grocery, Health & Personal Care) through 3 % (Beauty, Home, Pets, Toys) and 4 % (Apparel, Shoes, all other categories) to 10 % (Luxury Beauty) (Amazon rate table).
What UGC buys
A brand briefs a creator to make a video that looks like a customer made it: a demo, a review, an unboxing. The brand pays for the video, per video or per hour, and gets rights to use it on its site, in email, in organic posts and, if the rights say so, in paid ads. The creator may or may not post it. Public prices: a median advertised offer of $100 per video in Pitchlo’s report of 670 briefs (December 2025 to November 2026), and an average UGC payout of $154 in Collabstr’s 2026 report from its 2025 marketplace data.
Side by side
| Affiliate marketing | UGC (flat fee) | Commission-based UGC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the brand buys | Traffic and sales | A video and rights | A video, rights, and results |
| How the creator is paid | % of sales or $ per order | Fee per video or per hour | Share of sales, share of ad spend, or both, with or without a base; a per-view term if they post |
| Brand’s upfront cost | None | The fee | None, or a small base |
| Rights to the content | None, usually | Yes, as agreed | Yes, usually included |
| Where the content runs | Partner’s channels | Brand’s channels and ads | Both |
| Who carries the risk | Partner | Brand | Shared |
| Attribution needed | Yes, links and codes | No | Yes for sales; no for ad spend |
| Typical rates (public) | 1 to 10 % at Amazon; median around 15 % in YouTube Shopping | $100 median advertised; $154 average paid | Above affiliate; set from margin |
| Program rules | Published, strict, often exclude paid ads | A brief | A brief with counting rules |
Sources for the rate column: Amazon Associates, Google Merchant Center Help, Pitchlo, Collabstr.
Why affiliate rates are lower than UGC commissions
Because the affiliate supplies less. An Amazon affiliate supplies a link; Amazon supplies the product page, the trust, the checkout and the delivery, and pays 3 % on a beauty product. A YouTube Shopping affiliate supplies a video and an audience, and Google reports a median rate “around 15 %” with the bottom quarter at “10 % or less” (Google Merchant Center Help). A UGC creator on commission supplies a video, usually the rights to run it as an ad, often a post to their own audience, and sometimes their handle for partnership ads. Each of those is worth paying for, which is why a brand that copies its affiliate rate into a UGC brief gets no applicants. Working the rate out is in UGC creator commission structure.
Where attribution differs
Affiliate programs run on links and codes with published rules, and the rules can be strict:
- Amazon’s operating agreement, from 14 April 2026, adds a 180-day limit for a purchase to qualify and disqualifies purchases referred “through any paid or boosted advertisement linking to Amazon” (Amazon Associates).
- Shopify Collabs pays on affiliate links and discount codes, holds commissions for a default 30 days (adjustable 1 to 90), cancels them if the order is fully refunded in that period, and charges a 2.9 % processing fee on each automatic commission payment (Shopify Help Center).
Flat-fee UGC needs no attribution; you paid for the file. Commission-based UGC needs the same machinery as affiliate for the sales part, plus one thing affiliate tools do not have: a way to pay on ad spend. Because you run the video as an ad from your own account, you can read spend per ad and pay the creator a share, with no link involved. That is how commission UGC sidesteps the paid-ads exclusion affiliate programs impose: links and codes pay for organic, spend share pays for paid. Details in creator sales attribution.
Example: the same creator under three deals
Example. A creator with a mid-sized audience makes one video about a $50 product. Over 60 days their post drives 80 tracked orders, and the brand runs the video as a Meta ad on $5,000 of spend, which drives a further 300 orders in the ad platform’s count.
| Deal | Terms | Creator earns | Brand gets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Affiliate only | 10 % of tracked orders | 80 × $5 = $400 | 80 orders; no rights to the video, so no ad run |
| UGC flat fee | $150 for the video with ad rights | $150 | The video, the ad run, 300 ad orders, plus 80 organic orders if the creator posted anyway |
| Commission-based UGC | $50 base + 10 % of tracked organic orders + 6 % of ad spend | $50 + $400 + $300 = $750 | The video, the rights, 80 organic orders, 300 ad orders, and a creator who wants to film again |
The affiliate deal is cheapest and gets the least. The flat fee is cheap here because the video worked; if it had not, $150 bought nothing. The commission deal costs the most in this scenario and buys the most, and it would have cost $50 if the video had failed. Which is right depends on how often your videos work and whether you need to own them.
When to run which
Affiliate when you want reach from many partners at zero upfront cost, do not need the content, and can live with little control over message or placement.
Flat-fee UGC when you need videos for your own ads, site or email on a date, cannot yet attribute sales per creator, or are auditioning creators at a fixed cost each.
Commission-based UGC when you need the content and can measure results, want creators to share the risk and the upside, and will scale winning videos as ads with the creator paid as you do.
Most brands want all three at once. The question is whether that needs three tools.
How HourlyUGC does it
Every way to pay creators. One platform. On HourlyUGC a campaign carries any mix of hourly, per video, commission, CPM and samples, so the affiliate side and the UGC side are the same deal:
- Commission is both shares. A share of Meta ad spend (1 to 30 %, optional cap per video) and a share of sales (1 to 50 % of each order, or $1 to $500 per order), together or alone, on top of a per-video or hourly base or none.
- Sales are counted by Meta or by HourlyUGC: a connected Shopify store or the Hourly Pixel, last touch within 7 days, through creator links and codes. Both counts are shown side by side; the one you chose is paid.
- Ad spend is read per ad on ads built through Build Ads from the Library, matched to the video and the creator.
- Partnership ads run from the creator’s handle from inside the campaign, one request per creator.
- Rights and files sit with the video in the Library, with the term it was delivered under.
- Terms freeze per video. A change to the campaign applies forward only.
The affiliate program, the UGC brief and the ad path are one campaign with one statement per creator.
Disclosure and rights
Not different on disclosure. The FTC treats a commission, a fee and a gifted product the same way: a material connection that must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously where the endorsement appears. For affiliate links its sample wording is “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post,” and the disclosure belongs in the video and near the links, not only in the comments (FTC FAQ). The brand shares responsibility; put the requirement in the brief.
Different on rights. An affiliate program grants the brand nothing. A UGC brief says what the brand may do with the video, where and for how long, and whether it may run from the creator’s handle. Commission-based UGC usually includes ad rights, because the model depends on the video running.
Proof
ALLSALE, Head of Growth, on running it in one place on HourlyUGC: “The rights are ours the moment payment clears. Everything sits in one place, so the team stopped chasing invoices and files.”
Next step
Start a campaign on HourlyUGC with a per-video base, a share of sales through creator links and codes, and a share of ad spend on the videos you scale. Pricing is on https://hourlyugc.com/pricing.