# RelayWonder

> Partner network for SaaS and DTC brands: recruit creators, affiliates, publishers and communities; track the sales they bring through Stripe at invoice level; pay commission monthly from your own PayPal or Wise account. Turns AI-search gaps (questions where ChatGPT or Perplexity do not recommend you) into partner content campaigns and tracks whether the content gets cited.

Facts (as of 2026-10):
- Pricing is by affiliate-driven revenue, never a percentage of it: free up to $1,000/month, $49/month up to $10,000, $129/month up to $50,000, custom above. 0% commission cut on every plan.
- Partners always use RelayWonder for free; one account across every brand, one balance per currency.
- Tracking: first-party cookie + Stripe invoice attribution (first payment and renewals), refunds and disputes reversed as negative records, personal coupon codes attribute sales without a link. Default cookie window 60 days, hold period 30 days, minimum payout $50.
- The platform never holds money: it computes payouts and exports PayPal / Wise mass-payout files.
- AI agents can read program terms, search partners, publish campaigns and read the ledger over MCP (https://www.relaywonder.com/api/mcp) with scoped API keys. Payout approval, bank details and team changes are never exposed.

## Key pages
- Home: https://www.relaywonder.com/
- How it works: https://www.relaywonder.com/how-it-works
- Pricing: https://www.relaywonder.com/pricing
- Platform: https://www.relaywonder.com/platform
- Marketplace of public programs: https://www.relaywonder.com/marketplace
- FAQ: https://www.relaywonder.com/faq
- Glossary: https://www.relaywonder.com/glossary
- For brands: https://www.relaywonder.com/for-saas · For creators: https://www.relaywonder.com/for-creators · For publishers and affiliates: https://www.relaywonder.com/for-affiliates

## Guides
- [How to start a SaaS affiliate program in one week](https://www.relaywonder.com/guides/how-to-start-a-saas-affiliate-program): A step-by-step plan for a subscription business: commission design, tracking with Stripe, recruiting the first 20 partners, paying out without holding anyone's money.
- [Affiliate commission structures for subscription products](https://www.relaywonder.com/guides/subscription-commission-structures): Bounty, recurring percentage, duration, tiers and hold periods explained with worked numbers, plus how refunds and chargebacks are clawed back.
- [How to get your product recommended by ChatGPT and Perplexity using partner content](https://www.relaywonder.com/guides/get-recommended-by-ai-assistants): AI assistants answer buyer questions by citing pages they trust. Here is how to find the questions where you are missing, brief creators to answer them, and measure whether the citations arrive.
- [Creators, affiliates, publishers, communities: which partners to recruit and how to pay each](https://www.relaywonder.com/guides/creators-affiliates-publishers-communities): The four partner types behave differently. What each one brings, what motivates them, and the commission and bounty mix that works for each.
- [Paying affiliates: monthly batches, PayPal and Wise mass payouts, W-9 and W-8BEN](https://www.relaywonder.com/guides/affiliate-payouts-paypal-wise-tax-forms): How programs pay partners without the platform holding money, what the payout file contains, and which tax forms a US business needs from partners.

## Blog
- 2026-10-06 [What we are not building](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/what-we-are-not-building): No managed payouts, no Amazon channel, no agency services, no percentage pricing. Saying no is most of the product.
- 2026-10-06 [An MCP endpoint so your assistant can run the program](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/mcp-endpoint-for-agents): Scoped API keys, tools for terms, partner search, campaigns and the ledger. Money and team changes stay human-only.
- 2026-10-05 [AI-search gaps now flow into campaigns](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/insightwonder-integration-live): The InsightWonder integration is live: paste your key, opportunities sync hourly, one click turns a gap into a content campaign, delivered URLs are checked for AI citations.
- 2026-09-21 [Partnero added AI affiliate discovery. Good.](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/partnero-ai-discovery-what-it-means): A competitor shipped the feature we think matters most. Here is what it does, where it stops, and what we do differently.
- 2026-09-07 [Launch notes: tracking, ledger and payouts are live](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/launch-notes-tracking-ledger-payouts): The foundation shipped: Stripe invoice attribution, append-only commission ledger, monthly payout batches with PayPal and Wise exports, partner portal with links and balances.
- 2026-08-24 [Send partner outreach from your own mailbox](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/outreach-from-your-own-mailbox): Platform-sent email lands in spam and reads like a platform. A short note from a founder's real address, three at a time, gets replies.
- 2026-08-10 [A partner network is not affiliate software with a directory](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/partner-network-vs-affiliate-software): The difference is who the partner belongs to. In software, each brand has its own list. In a network, the partner has one account and a track record that travels.
- 2026-07-27 [W-9, W-8BEN and what a small program actually has to do](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/tax-forms-for-partner-payouts): Collect one form per partner before the first payout, keep it on file, and issue 1099-NEC forms to US partners above the IRS threshold. Everything else is detail.
- 2026-07-13 [Content campaigns: paying partners for the page, not just the sale](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/content-campaigns-explained): A campaign is a brief, a bounty per delivered piece, and commission on what the piece sells. It is how a brand gets the specific page an AI assistant will cite.
- 2026-06-29 [Attributing at the invoice, not the click](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/stripe-invoice-attribution): Click-based tracking knows a sale happened. Invoice-based tracking knows how much, when it renewed, and when it was refunded. For subscriptions only the second is correct.
- 2026-06-15 [Self-referrals, click bursts and the three checks that catch them](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/self-referral-and-click-fraud): Fraud in small programs is boring: a partner buying through their own link, a script hitting a link, a traffic source that never converts. Three rules catch most of it.
- 2026-06-01 [Creators, affiliates, publishers, communities: one program, four deals](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/four-partner-types-one-program): Each type wants a different thing. Pay them the same rate and the creators leave; pay bounties to everyone and the affiliates game it.
- 2026-05-18 [AI agents will read your program terms before any human does](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/agents-will-read-your-terms): Creators are starting to ask assistants "which programs in my niche pay best?". If your terms are a PDF, you are not in the answer.
- 2026-05-04 [Coupon codes catch the sales your links miss](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/coupon-codes-catch-untracked-sales): A viewer hears a recommendation in a video, types your name into Google a week later and buys. No click, no cookie. A code still pays the creator.
- 2026-04-20 [Why we will never hold partner money](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/never-hold-partner-money): Platforms that collect from brands and pay partners become banks, with the licensing, float risk and delays that implies. The CSV is better.
- 2026-04-06 [Where the first twenty partners actually come from](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/first-twenty-partners): Not from a cold list. From people who already sent you customers, competitors' reviewers, and the communities where your buyers ask questions.
- 2026-03-23 [What AI assistants recommend, and why it is not you](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/what-ai-assistants-recommend-and-why): We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini 200 buyer questions in five SaaS categories. The pages they cite have three things in common.
- 2026-03-09 [The math behind a 20% for 12 months commission](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/recurring-commission-math): What a partner actually earns per referred customer, what it costs you, and why churn decides whether the number is generous.
- 2026-02-24 [How SaaS affiliate platforms price in 2026](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/state-of-saas-affiliate-pricing-2026): Three models exist: flat tiers by partner revenue, a percentage of commission, or a quote. Here is what each costs at $5,000, $20,000 and $50,000 a month.
- 2026-02-10 [Why we are building RelayWonder](https://www.relaywonder.com/blog/why-we-are-building-relaywonder): Affiliate software tracks partners you already have. Nobody helps a small SaaS find the first twenty. That gap is the company.

## Comparisons (public information, dated)
- [RelayWonder vs Rewardful](https://www.relaywonder.com/compare/rewardful): Rewardful is the simplest way to run a Stripe affiliate program and sets the standard RelayWonder's tracking follows. RelayWonder adds a partner network, recruiting and AI-search content campaigns, and starts free.
- [RelayWonder vs FirstPromoter](https://www.relaywonder.com/compare/firstpromoter): FirstPromoter and RelayWonder price the same way: by the revenue partners bring, never a cut. FirstPromoter has a longer feature list for established programs; RelayWonder is built around finding partners and AI-search content.
- [RelayWonder vs Partnero](https://www.relaywonder.com/compare/partnero): Partnero and RelayWonder both treat finding partners as software, not a service. Partnero's discovery is included on paid plans from $59/month; RelayWonder adds a cross-brand partner network, AI-search campaigns and a free tier.
- [RelayWonder vs PartnerStack](https://www.relaywonder.com/compare/partnerstack): PartnerStack serves established B2B SaaS with sales teams, quote-based pricing and a large partner marketplace. RelayWonder publishes its prices, starts free and is built for teams that run the program themselves.

## Glossary terms
- Affiliate program: An arrangement where partners earn a commission for customers they send to a business. In RelayWonder a program carries the commission rule, cookie window, hold period and minimum payout.
- Recurring commission: A percentage of every renewal payment a referred customer makes, for a set number of months. The standard for subscription products.
- Bounty: A fixed amount paid once, usually on the first real payment or on a delivered piece of content, independent of order value.
- Cookie window: How many days after a click a purchase is still attributed to the partner. 30 to 90 days is common; RelayWonder defaults to 60.
- Last-touch attribution: When several partners touched the same customer, the last click before purchase gets the credit. First-touch gives it to the first click. A coupon code used at checkout beats both.
- Coupon code attribution: Assigning a sale to a partner because the customer used that partner's personal promotion code, even without a tracking link or cookie.
- Hold period: The time commission stays pending before it can be paid, so refunds inside the window reverse it first. Typically 30 days.
- Clawback (reversal): A negative commission record created when a payment is refunded or disputed. Records are never edited; balances are sums.
- Minimum payout: The available balance a partner must reach before being included in a payout batch. Usually $50.
- Mass payout: Paying many partners in one upload to PayPal or Wise from a CSV the platform generates. The business pays from its own account.
- Self-referral: A partner buying through their own link. Blocked by matching the checkout email to the partner's account, with Gmail dot and plus variants normalised.
- Partner types: Creators (video and audio), affiliates (review sites and blogs), publishers and media (newsletters, industry sites) and communities (forums, groups). One partner can be several.
- Content campaign: A brief asking partners to publish content on a topic, paying a bounty per delivered piece plus commission on sales from it.
- Generative engine optimization (GEO): Getting a product recommended in AI assistant answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini) by making sure trusted pages that answer buyer questions mention it.
- AI citation: When an AI answer names a page as its source. A delivered content URL that gets cited moves an AI-search gap from open to resolved.
- MCP (Model Context Protocol): An open protocol that lets AI assistants call tools on a service. RelayWonder exposes program terms, partner search, campaigns and the ledger through an MCP endpoint with scoped keys.
- W-9 and W-8BEN: US tax forms a payer collects from partners: W-9 from US persons, W-8BEN from non-US persons. Collected once, kept on file by the business that pays.

## Chinese
Every page above is also available in Simplified Chinese under https://www.relaywonder.com/zh.