Pay per sale affiliate programs are the most common type you’ll find on the Internet because there are so many e-tailers. The programs are based around you referring visitors (potential buyers) to a merchants website and being paid a commission when the visitor buys a product or a service from the merchant. Commissions can be earned as a flat fee (mostly related to the sale of services) or as a percentage of a sale. Commissions based on sales percentages are much more common and can range anywhere from 1% to up of 75%. What you’ll find is that most of the big e-tailors that have affiliate programs with a lot of affiliates, like Amazon or Dell for example, will pay out low percentage commissions because of the volume that they deal with. In contrast, there are a lot of smaller companies that sell information products, community subscriptions and downloadable software where commissions are much higher per sale. E-Harmony is a great example of an affiliate program that pays huge commissions for each sign up - the last time I checked they awarded their affiliates 100% of the sign up fee, which comes to around $100 a sign up….that’s a great payout just for someone clicking through! You can see how the numbers would add up quickly for high performing affiliates who have sites that draw thousands of visitors a day. Of course, that’s a double edged sword - really great affiliate programs draw a LOT of affiliates and competition can be fierce, so chose your programs wisely and spend time developing sites where you can stack up to the competition. Here are some quick tips for finding good pay per sale affiliate programs.