Best affiliate solution for freemium/free trial web apps?

Most affiliate solutions are not designed to work with freemium or free trial business models.

Have you seen an affiliate app that can:

• Make it simple to manage affiliate relationships
• Can deal with upgrades/downgrades/cancellations
• Can track delayed purchasing (for freemium/free trial)

I've looked high and low for something that can do this right but haven't found anything other than the standard affiliate programs like cj and linkshare.

And if this doesn't exist, doesn't it seem like there could be a great market for it?

I evaluated all affiliate scripts and programs before launching our affliate program for a FREE/PAID subscription service...

my advice,, build it yourself.

When you build it yourself you can credit affiliates based on transactions. We pay our affiliates a reccuring amount, (hard to find in any software or program)

with these scripts you usually end up wasting lots of time cutting and peicing code together. The concept of an affilaite is very simple to program.

Our service gives our affiliates tracking tools, banner and ad choices, url shorteners, marketing tools, and a 3 tiered structure that promotes our affiliates signing up their friends as affiliates.

We are soon going to join the Google Affiliate Network, and Linkshare. Both will allow us to keep our own (BETTER) affiliate software. We are using Google and LInkshare to gain better exposure to new affiliates. Our google and llinkshare plans will pay a 95% commission on the first months transaction, whereas our own product pays 25%. (300% per year). The reason for this is to attract and convert those affiliates from other networks..

Post Affiliate Pro 4 can do all of that* and is also very affordable.

Can deal with upgrades/downgrades/cancellations --> "Deal with" might not be 100% automated, but the newest version could possibly handle it easily (need to check)

Can track delayed purchasing (for freemium/free trial) --> Can be done with long-lasting cookies and /or a Paypal subscription which is $0 the first _# of months.

• PAP is a pretty solid solution with a modern API included:

Here is the link with my affiliate ID
http://www.qualityunit.com/postaffiliatepro/#cbb6db9f

I've been using Amember for several years and it's terrific. I have a subscription service with a Freemium plan as well as a membership site that also offers a Freemium plan and Amember can handle it all. Not only does it allow easy affiliate network management, but also coupon codes, autoresponders, upgrades, downgrades, cancellations, trial prices, one time purchases. Take a look at it, you'll love it!

Have you looked at cloudomatic?

It is also important to be able to test-drive the software before you commit to using it. Most out-of-the-box solutions have a pretty hefty up front fee.

EDIT updated : Our custom affiliate and referral software -- zferral.com -- is now fully functional. We have an open API to easily integrate our "incentive engine" into your own html and css. We fully support recurring revenue commissions, perfect for web apps and SaaS products.

Best of all, it is free-to-start!

Haven’t used it but thought that some of the digital river solutions contained some cookies that would go out for a month for affiliates. Program seemed expensive and wasn’t sure of the value to cost at the time (2003). I think that anything that expands methods of getting revenue from software products is a good thing because only a few seem to really figure it out.

I’d say that there is a market for it but it’s a market based on built up trust. So a firm that shows that it pays the affiliate, tracks fairly and gets good value adding affiliates may have something.