Affiliate & partner program for Shopware 6

Your customers sell for you.

Customers, influencers and partners sign up to the partner program in your shop, promote it with a link and a voucher of their own and earn a commission for it. You set the rate, when an order counts and whether money is paid out or a voucher for your shop comes out of it.

  • 4.8 from over 10 reviews
  • live in over 250 shops
  • Gold certified
  • Premium Extension
You set the rules
Which order status counts and how old an order has to be is your decision
Three commission types
Percentage, per order or per item, and different for every partner if you want
Voucher or payout
The partner converts their balance or has it paid out, you allow what suits you
Costs only with revenue
No price per click and nothing paid upfront: it comes out of the revenue a partner brings
How it runs

From the shared link to the payout.

01
Referring
In their account the partner builds a link to any page of your shop, or passes their voucher on.
02
Visitor arrives
The code travels into the session and the cookie and attaches itself to the customer account on login or registration.
03
Order
Shopware stores the code on the customer and on the order, for a guest order as well.
04
Commission
How old an order has to be and which status it should sit in is up to you. Only then is it booked.
05
Reward
The partner turns their balance into a voucher or requests the payout.

The commission comes about at the reconciliation, not at the purchase: live when the partner account is opened, hourly as a scheduled task, or through a console command; each route can be switched off separately. Guest orders are assigned too.

The core idea

Two business cases, one plugin.

Whoever promotes you wants something for it. But a regular customer wants something different from an agency: for one of them a voucher is worth more than its cash equivalent, for the other it is worth nothing. The kind of reward is therefore the only setting that separates the two cases.

End customers

Customers refer customers

Your existing customers recommend you among the people they know. They are going to buy from you again anyway, so a voucher is not a consolation prize for them but the better deal: with the bonus they get more out of it than a bank transfer would be worth.

Business partners

Affiliate marketing

Influencers, blogs, comparison sites and agencies run advertising as a business. They send you an invoice and need money, not a discount on goods they do not buy. In return they bring reach that your own customer base does not have.

Customers refer customers
Affiliate marketing
Who promotes
private people, many
companies, few
Amounts
small, but often
large, but rarely
Where it flows
back into your shop
to their bank account
What it costs you
margin on a new order
money out of the till
Work for you
none, it runs by itself
check the request and transfer
Reward

Voucher or payout, per partner.

The one setting that separates the two cases. It applies shop-wide as a rule and can be switched over for every partner individually.

End customers · voucher

A voucher for your shop

The partner converts their balance into a real Shopware promotion for your shop. If you give them a bonus, the voucher is worth more than the commission they give up for it.

  • Five slots for tiers from your own vouchers, or a freely typed amount. Both at once does not exist, you decide on one of the two.
  • The percentage bonus per partner only increases the voucher value, it does not charge the balance.
  • The money stays in the shop. You are not buying revenue back, you are creating new revenue.
Business partners · payout

A payout to their bank account

The partner requests it, you confirm it in the administration. Number and receipt come about on their own, the transfer happens outside the shop.

  • Two kinds: the five tiered amounts, out of the box 10, 25, 50, 100 and 250 euros, or the whole balance in one go. There is no amount in between here.
  • The partner stores their bank details themselves. The processes stand at Open, Paid out or Cancelled.
  • Every process gets a consecutive number from a real number range and a receipt as a PDF.

Minimum amounts apply to the two routes separately. The kind of reward applies shop-wide as a rule and can be set for every partner individually to voucher, payout or both. A partner allowed both decides for themselves.

Signing up

A customer becomes a partner.

  • Two ways into the program. Either every customer is activated straight away, or they apply with a desired code and a message and you activate them one by one.
  • Conditions you set. Certain customer groups, a minimum turnover and, if you want, a mandatory tick at sign-up. A customer account is a prerequisite.
  • A starting balance. On request every new partner starts with a first entry on their account, so that spreading the word pays off immediately.
  • The code builds itself. The shop assembles it from the partner's name and appends a suffix if it is already taken. Whether partners may then change their code themselves, only after your confirmation, or not at all, is your decision.
  • Partners without a customer account. You also create partners yourself, for a blog or an agency, optionally partner and customer in one go.
Field sales and trade: partners who never order themselves →
Reach

One partner becomes a network.

One partner is a pleasant start. The real leverage appears when every referred customer can refer in turn and you end up not with one promoter but with many.

Your shopone partner program, many promoters
MMMax11 customers
LBLena6 customers
BNBlog Nordlicht7 customers
TSTeam Süd4 customers
JKJonas3 customers
+and morewith no upper limit
Referred together31 customers
  • Every customer can become a partner. Signing up sits in the customer account, and on request a qualified customer becomes a partner by themselves when they place an order. A referred customer thus turns into the next promoter.
  • No upper limit. The plugin limits neither the number of partners nor the number of referred customers. It only limits what you want limited.
  • Everyone on their own terms. Whoever brings a lot gets a higher rate, a separate rate for follow-up orders or a bonus on vouchers. All of it per partner, without you changing anything for the rest.
  • The assignment stays unambiguous. A referred customer stays with their first partner as long as you do not explicitly allow poaching. The network stays clean even when two partners share the same circle of acquaintances.
  • And across levels if you want. With the add-on plugin the partner who recruited a partner earns as well, across up to five levels.
A sales network: one example across several levels →
The same for both cases

The difference is the reward. Everything else is options.

Whether someone collects vouchers or receives money changes nothing about how they become a partner, what they earn and what they promote with. These settings apply to both cases, and each of them can be set differently per sales channel.

Who may become a partner

You set the conditions: certain customer groups, a minimum turnover from previous orders, and if you want a mandatory tick at sign-up. Guest accounts are always excluded.

Customer groupsMinimum turnoverMandatory tick

How someone becomes a partner

Either activated straight away or as an application with a desired code and a message that you approve one by one. On request qualified customers quietly become partners when they place an order, and you can also create partners yourself, with or without a customer account.

Straight awayApplicationAutomatic

What they earn

5 percent out of the box, as a percentage, absolute per order or absolute per item. Overridable per partner, with a separate rate for follow-up orders, plus a starting balance at the beginning if you like.

Three typesPer partnerStarting balance

What they promote with

Their partner link to any page of your shop, their own discount voucher for the people they know, and for flyers or word of mouth the partner code, which the customer types into the cart themselves.

LinkVoucherCode

What they may see

You decide how deep their account goes: how many orders and customers, whether there are extended statistics with a CSV export, whether they can download the receipt and see the status of a commission. Referred customers they only ever see anonymised.

StatisticsReceiptAnonymised

What stays in your hands

Manual entries upwards as well as downwards, with a private note and a comment for the partner. The Active switch pauses a partner without touching their history, and a referred customer stays with their first partner as long as you do not allow poaching.

EntriesPausingPoaching lock

Only a single setting separates the two cases: the kind of reward, shop-wide as a rule and switchable per partner to voucher, payout or both.

All 93 settings, card by card →
Commission

You decide the commission.

One rate for everything is rarely enough. Besides the rate per partner you attach separate rates to individual customers, to products, to whole categories and to dynamic product groups. And you define which of them wins.

  • Three types. A percentage of the net goods value excluding shipping, absolute per order or absolute per item. Foreign currencies are converted into your default currency.
  • 5 percent out of the box. Every new partner gets this rate, per partner you overwrite it, and for follow-up orders from the same customer a separate rate applies on request.
  • Four places for exceptions. A single switch releases all four together, and it is off out of the box. A rate on the range applies to every partner equally.
  • A fixed order, a clear rule. If several rates apply, you decide whether the first match, the highest or the lowest rate wins.
  • Every entry with its arithmetic. Every commission carries the log of its calculation, visible on the order in the administration. That answers any question a partner asks.
The calculation path: the log explained line by line →
Customer12 % A separate rate when a particular customer is referred.
Product3 % Less commission on articles where there is little room.
Category8 % One rate for a whole range, without touching every product.
Dynamic product group2 % The group fills itself by your rules, and the rate follows automatically.
The brakes

What does not earn a commission.

A partner program is only as good as its brakes. Three of them are active out of the box, one you switch on as needed.

Orders that are too young

Only once an order has reached the minimum age you set does an entry come about, and only in the order status you define for it. What can still be cancelled is not rewarded.

On request only orders from the customer groups you select count as well.

Active out of the box

Cancelled orders

When an order moves to the status Cancelled, a negative counter-entry with your note comes about automatically. Money already paid out is not reclaimed.

It is triggered by the order status itself, not by the payment or delivery status. The note is a template with the order number and the date, and the partner reads it on the entry in their account.

Active out of the box

The poaching lock

A referred customer stays with the partner they first came through, even if they later arrive in your shop through somebody else's link. Poaching only happens if you explicitly allow it.

Active out of the box

Own and follow-up orders

Out of the box the partner's own order counts too; a switch takes it out. The same goes for follow-up orders from customers already referred.

That is how you reward every referred customer with 5 euros, for instance: commission type absolute per order, follow-up orders switched off. How often and for how much they order afterwards changes nothing about it.

Switch

Because partial refunds and returns work differently in every shop, the plugin only books back on its own for a complete cancellation. Everything else you correct with a manual entry, which can be positive as well as negative.

Commission: every brake on its own, with its factory setting →
Advertising material

A link, a voucher or just the code.

The link brings the visitor, the voucher brings the incentive, and whoever has no link simply says their code. All of it belongs to the partner alone, and all of it is yours to control.

The partner link

In their account the partner builds a link of their own to any address in your shop. What the parameter is called is your decision, per sales channel. On request a logged-in partner sees their link directly on every product page. Every visit through the link counts as a click for the partner.

your-shop.com/product/espresso-machine?partner=espresso-max

The partner voucher

Every partner gets a discount code of their own for your shop, percentage or absolute, with a pattern for name and code, usage limits in total and per customer, and conditions from the Rule Builder. On request the shop puts the voucher into the cart automatically as soon as someone arrives through the partner link. Even without a link, the voucher assigns the customer.

espresso-max · 10 % discount

Without a link: the code in the cart

On request the customer can type the partner code into the cart or on the order confirmation themselves. That way word of mouth counts too, or the flyer, or the code from a video. Only the code of an active partner is accepted, and the field only appears while the customer does not yet belong to a partner. So the poaching lock applies here as well.

Partner code: espresso-max
A referral without a link: the code on a business card →
Partner account

What the partner sees.

  • Overview. Partner code, link builder and partner voucher to copy, plus four figures: referred customers, orders, total commission and available commission.
  • Payouts. Redeem a voucher, request a payout, and previous processes with a receipt to download.
  • Statistics. Two charts across the year, the most recent referred orders and manual entries, on request a yearly table with a CSV export.
  • Settings. Bank details and two switches for their notifications.
  • Customer data stays with you. The partner only ever sees their referred customers anonymised, with a first name, an initial and a town. The account gives up no more than that.
  • You decide the depth. How many orders and customers are visible, whether there are extended statistics and a CSV export, and whether the receipt may be downloaded. Plus two displays to switch on: the provisional commission and the status of every commission.
Reward and payout: what the partner requests and what they get →
Administration

What you see in the administration.

  • The partner list. Referred customers and orders, revenue in the month and in the year, and the available commission. Clicks stand next to it honestly as a plain counter; there is no evaluation over time. A red marker flags partners waiting for activation or for a decision on a requested code.
  • The partner file with six tabs. A separate rate, a separate reward type and a bonus per partner, plus manual entries positive as well as negative, with a private note and a comment the partner sees.
  • Pausing a partner. The Active switch stops new commissions. Entries, payouts and the assignment of the referred customers stay exactly as they are.
  • Why does this order not count? Check columns show per order with a tick or a cross whether age, customer group and order status fit, and through the context menu you open the calculation log. The Commissions tab on the order names the reason when a commission is missing.
  • Payouts as a section of their own. Every request with the status Open, Paid out or Cancelled, plus bank details and the orders that make up the amount. You confirm or decline; the transfer stays in the process you already have.
Managing partners: the complete operating guide →
Accounting

And what the tax advisor says about it.

Every payout leaves a record behind, and if your ERP wants a say, it gets a real order.

A receipt with a number

Every payout gets a number from a real number range and a receipt as a PDF. Every payout shows which orders make it up with which partial amounts.

An order for the ERP

On request every redemption produces a real order by the partner with a pseudo product, with separate tax rates for end customers and retailers, its own tag and its own shipping and payment method.

Partners with a VAT ID

For partners from Germany with a VAT identification number the redeemed amount can be calculated as a net figure, so that the partner's invoice and your receipt match up.

Payout and accounting: receipt, number range and ERP →
Data protection

Everything stays in your shop.

No external service, no account with us, nothing passed on. Partners, commissions and receipts live in your database.

No cloud

The plugin calls no outside service. The partner code lives in the fields Shopware keeps anyway, which means partner revenue can be evaluated with standard tools too.

The cookie registers itself properly

The cookie for the assignment appears in the consent banner, you set its group and lifetime, 30 days by default. It only takes effect once the visitor logs in, registers or orders as a guest.

Customer data stays with you

The partner only sees their referred customers as a first name, an initial and a town. You do not hand full customer data out.

Add-on plugin

Multi-level marketing across five levels.

Whoever recruited a partner earns on that partner's revenue too, across up to five levels. It gets interesting where partners recruit one another, in sales structures, teams or large communities. For most shops the partner program on its own is enough.

You set the rates shop-wide and per partner individually. It is a separate plugin that builds on the partner program.

Pricing

What does a partner program for Shopware cost?

One price, the full feature set. No scaling by partners, orders or revenue, and no fee on commissions paid out.

Affiliate & partner program
€699.00/ year
or €69.00 per month, cancellable monthly.
  • Partner link, partner voucher and code entry in the cart
  • Commission as a percentage, per order or per item, by partner, customer, product and category
  • Partner account in the storefront, payout with a consecutive receipt
  • Unlimited partners and orders
View in the Shopware Store
Multi-level marketing
€699.00/ year
or €69.00 per month, a separate plugin.
  • Commission across up to five levels
  • A separate rate per level, levels switchable individually
  • Network view for partners and in the administration
  • Only needed if partners are to recruit partners themselves
View MLM in the store

Both plugins start with a free trial month. Prices plus VAT; purchase and billing run through the Shopware Store.

Do I even need a plugin for this? The comparison →
Common questions

What shop owners want to know.

Common questions

What is a partner program in an online shop?

A partner program, also called an affiliate program or customer-refers-customer, pays people for bringing you customers. Every partner gets a code of their own, shares it as a link or a voucher, and every order that comes about through it earns a commission. Unlike paid advertising, you only pay once something has actually been bought.

How does an order reach the partner?

Through the partner code. It hangs on the link as a parameter, travels into the session and the cookie and is stored permanently on the customer when they log in, register or place a guest order. Shopware then keeps it on the order. Guest orders are assigned too.

When does the commission come about?

Not at the moment of purchase, but at the reconciliation. For that, an order has to reach a minimum age, 14 days out of the box, sit in the chosen order status and belong to a matching customer group. The reconciliation runs live when the partner account is opened, hourly as a scheduled task, or through a console command; each route can be switched off separately.

How high is the commission and who decides it?

You do. There are three types: a percentage of the net goods value excluding shipping, an absolute amount per order, or an absolute amount per item. Out of the box every new partner gets 5 percent; per partner you change the rate and optionally set a separate rate for follow-up orders. In addition, rates can be stored on the customer, the product, the category and the dynamic product group. If several apply, a setting decides whether the first match, the highest or the lowest rate wins.

What happens with a cancellation?

When an order moves to the status Cancelled, the plugin automatically books the commission back with a negative entry and a note you word yourself. Money already paid out is not reclaimed. Because partial refunds and returns work differently in every shop, the plugin only books back on its own for a complete cancellation. Everything else you correct with a manual entry.

Can partners sign up themselves?

Yes. The customer account carries a Partner program section. You decide whether someone is activated straight away or applies with a desired code and a message. As a condition you can require customer groups and a minimum turnover. On request the shop registers qualified customers automatically and credits them a starting balance. Guest accounts are always excluded.

Does the partner get money or a voucher?

Whatever you allow, shop-wide and per partner. With the voucher the partner converts their balance into a real Shopware promotion for your shop, optionally with a percentage bonus that only increases the voucher value. With a payout they request one of the tiered amounts, out of the box 10, 25, 50, 100 and 250 euros, or their whole balance at once. A freely typed amount in between exists only for the voucher.

What is the partner voucher?

The partner's advertising material, not their commission. Every partner gets a discount code of their own for your shop, percentage or absolute, with a pattern for name and code and usage limits in total and per customer. On request the shop puts this voucher into the cart automatically as soon as someone arrives through the partner link.

Can a customer enter the partner code without a link?

Yes, if you allow that entry. The customer then types the partner code themselves in the cart or on the order confirmation. That way a recommendation passed on without a link counts too, from a flyer, out of a video or from person to person.

Do I need an accounting integration for the payout?

No. Every payout gets a consecutive number and a receipt as a PDF, and the receipt shows which orders make it up with which partial amounts. Optionally the plugin creates a real order by the partner for every redemption, with separate tax rates for end customers and retailers and a tag of its own, so an ERP can pick the process up.

What is multi-level marketing and do I need it?

With multi-level marketing not only the referring partner earns, but also the partner who recruited them, across up to five levels. That is a separate plugin which builds on the partner program and is bought separately. For most shops the partner program on its own is enough. Worth knowing: an individual rate on the customer, product, category or product group beats the level rate on every level.

Is any data transferred to an external service?

No. Partners, commissions, payouts and receipts stay entirely in your shop; there is no cloud and no account with us. The partner code lives in the standard Shopware fields. The cookie for the assignment registers itself in the consent banner, you set its group and lifetime, and it only takes effect once the visitor logs in, registers or orders as a guest.

Glossary: the words from the plugin explained →

Your best salespeople have already bought from you.

Give them a reason to spread the word.