White-label vs reseller vs affiliate programmes: which suits an ecommerce agency?

Affiliate, referral, reseller and white-label programmes all pay agencies for bringing clients to a platform, but they differ in whose brand the client sees, who sets the price and who owns the relationship. Here is how to tell them apart and choose.

Why the names get mixed up

Platforms use “partner”, “reseller”, “affiliate” and “white label” loosely, and one programme can mix several of them. So the label on a programme tells you little. What matters is how the money flows and whose name the client sees.

This article defines each model precisely and gives you five questions to sort any programme into the right box. If you are new to the idea of running stores under your own brand, start with our guide to what white-label ecommerce is and how agencies use it. For short definitions of the other terms you will meet, see the white-label ecommerce glossary.

What is an affiliate programme?

An affiliate programme pays you for sending people to a platform through a tracked link. You do not build the shop, you do not support it and you have no ongoing relationship with the person who signs up. You are paid once, or for a short period, when the sign-up turns into a paying customer.

Shopify’s Affiliate Program is a clear example. Shopify describes it as being for entrepreneurs, educators, influencers and content creators, and pays a commission when someone signs up to a paid plan through the affiliate’s link: up to $150 USD per qualified referral at the time of writing, varying by the referred merchant’s location. It is built for audiences, not for client work.

What is a referral or partner programme?

A referral programme, often called a partner programme, pays an agency for bringing clients onto the platform and often for building their shops. The client signs up with the platform, under the platform’s brand, and pays the platform. The agency receives a share of that money, on terms the platform sets.

Shopify’s Partner Program works this way. A partner who builds a store and transfers it to a client earns, at the time of writing, 20% of the merchant’s monthly subscription fee plus 0.1% of eligible sales, for four years. Shopify says the earnings are calculated on the fees the merchant pays Shopify, and payouts are at its discretion. After the transfer, Shopify says, “the merchant owns the store and it leaves your organization”. We compare that programme with white label in detail in Shopify Partner Program vs a white-label platform.

What is a reseller programme?

A reseller buys the platform’s product, often at a discount or with a revenue share, and sells it on to the client. The agency may hand the client the bill, but the product the client logs in to still carries the platform’s name.

Some programmes sit between referral and reselling. Wix Studio’s partner programme, for example, offers a revenue share of 20% or more on every Wix Studio Premium site the partner buys and publishes for a client. The site still runs on Wix, under the Wix name.

What is a white-label programme?

A white-label partner sells the platform’s product as its own. The client sees the agency’s product name, logo and colours, signs the agency’s terms and pays the agency’s price. The platform charges the agency a wholesale fee and stays in the background, running the software. The client usually never deals with the platform directly.

Because you set the retail price and pay a fixed wholesale fee, the difference is yours every month the client stays. How to work that out is covered in agency margin maths.

Five questions that sort any programme

Ask these about any programme you are offered. The answers place it in one of the four boxes, whatever it is called.

1. Whose brand does the client see when they sign in? The platform’s means affiliate, referral or reseller. Yours means white label.
2. Who sets the price the client pays? If the platform sets it, your income is a share of someone else’s price.
3. Who bills the client? This decides who the client feels they are buying from. See who pays whom on Shopify, Wix and white-label platforms.
4. Who does the client call for help? If it is the platform, the relationship slowly moves away from you.
5. What do you keep if the programme changes or you leave? A commission stops when the terms change. A client who signs your terms and knows your brand stays your client.

The four models side by side

These are typical patterns, not rules. Always read the programme’s own terms: who owns the account, who can change the price, and what happens to your income if you stop working with a client.

Which model suits your agency?

Choose affiliate if you have an audience, not clients

If you write, teach or make videos about selling online and do not want to build or support shops, affiliate links are the simplest way to earn from that audience.

Choose referral if you build a few shops a year

If ecommerce is a small part of your work and you are happy for the client to belong to the platform, a referral programme pays you for builds without adding support work. Expect the platform, not you, to decide prices and terms.

Choose reseller if you want to bill but not to brand

Reselling suits agencies that already bundle software into a monthly invoice and are comfortable with the platform’s name on the product.

Choose white label if online stores are part of your service

If you build shops regularly, want monthly income you control and want clients to see your agency as their platform, white label fits. You take on front-line support, and in return you own the price and the relationship. Our article on white-label SaaS for agencies explains who does what between you, the platform and your clients, and is white-label ecommerce right for your agency? lists the signs it fits.

Many agencies mix models: an affiliate link for small enquiries they don’t want to take on, and white label for the clients they keep. Your choice also shapes your wider ecommerce agency business model.

How DripFunnel’s partner programme fits

DripFunnel’s partner programme is a white-label programme, and more than 75 partners across the globe run stores on it. Measured against the five questions:

• Brand: your clients sign in to a merchant portal with your product name, logos, colours and font, on your own address. Whether a small “Powered by DripFunnel” line shows is set in your contract (read more in “Powered by” branding).
• Price: you build your own plans and set monthly and yearly prices in each currency your contract allows. For every price, the console shows DripFunnel’s fee and what you keep, and warns you below the fee. See Create your plans and prices.
• Your cost: a wholesale fee per store per month, set per plan in your contract. DripFunnel takes no fee on your clients’ orders.
• Support: you are the first contact. Your support email, help centre and legal pages appear in the portal, and with the client’s permission you can open a read-only support session to see what they see.
• What you keep: your clients sign up at your portal, on your plans, under your terms. Their store data stays theirs; we explain the details in who owns a client’s store on a white-label platform.

If white label sounds right, tell us about the shops you run. We agree your wholesale fee and contract, then invite you to the partner console.

Questions