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Multi-Level Affiliates – Overview

Updated October 23, 2026

Explainer video and tutorial:

With the Multi-Level Affiliates module, your existing affiliates can invite new users to register as an affiliate on your website. As the parent affiliate, they will then earn a percentage of extra commission for all sales that their sub-affiliates refer to you.

Quicklinks: Getting Started / MLA Dashboard / MLA Settings & Tiers / Related MLA Guides

Getting Started

To get started with multi-level affiliates, you will first need to enable the “Multi-Level Affiliates” module in the plugin settings. A new tab will appear to customise the MLA module settings.

Next, you will need to create the MLA dashboard, add this shortcode to a new page: [couponaffiliates-mla]

Once that’s done, your existing affiliates can view this page to access the MLA dashboard.

MLA Dashboard

On the Multi-Level Affiliate Dashboard (MLA Dashboard) your parent affiliates will be able to:

  • View all their sub-affiliate’s coupons, with a link to visit the affiliate dashboard for them.
  • View a tree diagram of their full network.
  • View all the orders referred by their sub-affiliates, and see how much commission they earned.
  • Enter an email address to easily invite someone to their network, or they can share their unique referral link with someone directly.
  • See the MLA commission rates that apply to them, in the “Rates” tab.
  • Review sub-affiliate registrations submitted through their invite link.
  • Manage and request payouts for the commission that they have earned from their sub-affiliate referrals.

Here is an example of the MLA dashboard:

The MLA dashboard also supports the affiliate portal option if enabled, which looks something like this:

If you have changed the word “Affiliate” in the Custom Terminology settings, that wording is also used throughout the MLA dashboard and portal.

MLA Settings & Tiers

There are several settings available to customise the MLA functionality to your requirements.

However, the main options you will want to customise are the “Multi-Level Affiliate Tiers”. The “Number of Tiers” setting controls how many tiers there are (5 by default), and you set the commission rates for each one. The tier settings below it update as soon as you change the number.

You can set commission rates for each tier via any of the following methods:

  • Percentage of affiliates earnings: This calculates the commission based on a percentage of what the main affiliate earned. For example if this is set to 10% for “tier 1” and 5% for “tier 2” and the affiliate earns $200, then “tier 1” would earn $20, and tier 2 would earn $10.
  • Percentage of order total: This simply calculates the commission earned for the tier based on a percentage of the total for the order that was referred by the main affiliate.
  • Fixed amount: This grants a fixed amount of commission to each tier whenever the main sub-affiliate refers a customer.

This is NOT deducted from the main affiliates’ earnings by default, however there is an option you can enable to do this (see Deducting parent commission from the sub-affiliate below).

The tier rates set here are the defaults. You can also override them for a specific affiliate group or individual affiliate, see Per-Group & Per-User MLA Commission Rates.

Here’s an example of how the network tiers would work:

We’ll assume a base commission rate of 25% for the main affiliate, with the multi-level tier rates set to 20% for tier 1, and 10% for tier 2.

  • Firstly, John invites Fred to become an affiliate.
  • Fred is now a tier 1 affiliate in John‘s network.
  • Fred then invites Sally and Tom to become an affiliate.
  • Sally and Tom are now a tier 1 affiliate in Fred‘s network, and a tier 2 affiliate in John’s network.
  • Sally refers a new sale at $200 and gets 25% commission, which is: $50.00
  • Fred‘s earnings are based on 20% of Sally‘s commission, which is: $10.00
  • John‘s earnings are based on 10% of Sally‘s commission, which is: $5.00
  • Therefore, the total commission paid out for this sale is $65.00

Deducting parent commission from the sub-affiliate

Turn on Deduct parent affiliate commission from sub-affiliate commission. in the MLA settings tab if the parents’ commission should come out of the sub-affiliate’s own commission, rather than being paid on top of it.

The “Percentage of Affiliates Earnings” rates are then worked out from what the sub-affiliate keeps after the deduction, so the order costs you no more than the sub-affiliate’s commission on its own. Using the example above, with the option turned on:

  • Sally’s commission before the deduction is $50.00.
  • Sally keeps $38.46.
  • Fred earns 20% of what Sally keeps: $7.69.
  • John earns 10% of what Sally keeps: $3.85.
  • The total commission paid out for this sale is $50.00.

“Percentage of Order Total” and “Fixed Amount” rates are taken from the sub-affiliate’s commission in full. If those come to more than the sub-affiliate’s commission, the sub-affiliate keeps nothing for that order, and the parents are still paid in full.

A few things to know about this option:

  • Before version 8.7.0, this option had no effect. It only applies to orders placed after you updated to 8.7.0 or later, so older orders are never changed by it.
  • Once an order’s commission has been granted, that order keeps the result it was granted with. Changing the option or the tier rates later only affects new orders.
  • The deduction shows as an “Adjustments” row in the commission breakdown on the order screen.

When parents are paid, and refunds

Parents earn their MLA commission at the same time as the sub-affiliate. If you use “Delay Commission (Number of Days)” in the Payouts settings, the parents’ commission is also added once the delay has passed. A parent is only paid once for each order, and is not paid at all if their account has been deleted.

If commission is taken back, for example after a partial refund or with the “Deduct” button on the order, each parent loses exactly what they were paid for that order. The MLA earnings totals on the dashboard, the admin MLA pages and the order screen show the commission that was paid.

Note: The term “Multi-Level Affiliates Marketing” is sometimes referred to as MLA, MLM or MLAM.

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