Automatic Payouts

Automatic payouts remove the need to click "pay" for each affiliate one at a time. You save a card once, and Insert Affiliate runs a daily payout that pays every affiliate you owe, as a separate Stripe charge per affiliate and currency, exactly like paying them yourself.

Requirements

  • A saved card (added in your settings, stored securely by Stripe)
  • Affiliates who have completed their Stripe Connect setup. Affiliates without a connected Stripe account are skipped and can still be paid externally.

Your company does not need its own Stripe Connect account for automatic payouts. Each payout is a charge on your saved card, paid directly into the affiliate's Stripe account.

Setting Up

  1. Go to Settings, Payments & Payouts and find the Automatic payouts section
  2. Click Add a card and save the card you want payouts charged to. If your bank asks you to verify the card, complete the check; this is what allows future payouts to run without you present
  3. Switch Automatic payouts on
  4. Set your Minimum payout. An affiliate is only paid once they are owed at least this much (in USD). It saves as soon as you leave the field

Changes in this section apply immediately; the Save changes button at the bottom of the page is not needed here.

How the Daily Run Works

Once a day, Insert Affiliate:

  • Works out what each affiliate is owed, using exactly the same calculation as the manual payout buttons
  • Pays each affiliate who is owed at least your minimum and has a completed Stripe account. Rewards owed in different currencies are paid as separate charges in those currencies, at the amounts promised
  • Skips affiliates below your minimum, affiliates who have not finished Stripe onboarding, and all sandbox transactions
  • Marks the paid transactions, updates totals, and generates self-billing VAT invoices if you have them enabled
  • Emails you a summary of what was paid, what failed, and what was skipped

Each payout appears on your card statement individually. Standard Stripe processing fees apply (view current rates).

You can also trigger a run yourself at any time with Run now, and you can still pay any affiliate manually; manual and automatic payouts are aware of each other, so nothing is ever paid twice.

Run History

The Recent runs table in the same section lists your latest runs. Click View details on any run to see exactly which payouts were made, which failed and why, and which affiliates were held back. Clicking an affiliate takes you straight to their page.

When a Payout Fails

  • If an individual affiliate's payout fails (for example, their Stripe account is no longer valid), the rest of the run continues. The failed amount stays owed and is retried on the next run, and you can always pay it manually instead
  • If your card itself is the problem (declined, expired, or your bank insists on verification), automatic payouts pause so you are not charged repeatedly. The section shows a notice, the summary email tells you, and saving a new card or switching payouts back on resumes them

What Affiliates See

Affiliates have a How you get paid card in their own settings showing the terms you have set for them: their commission, whether renewals earn, that payouts are automatic and daily, and your minimum. If their Stripe account is not ready to receive payouts, it tells them what to do.