Methodology
How We Score
Two questions every affiliate asks before committing traffic to a program — and how we answer them.
House Grade
Asafety / terms auditEarning Potential
01
Two questions, two scores
When you evaluate an affiliate program, you're really asking two separate questions: how much can I earn here, and is my money safe?
Most directories collapse this into a single rating. We think that's a mistake. A program with great financial terms but predatory clauses in its T&Cs would score in the middle of a single scale and look unremarkable — when in reality, those are the most dangerous programs in the market.
So we publish two independent scores for every program in our directory.
Earning Potential
Very High to Low
Measures the financial and technical quality of the deal. How attractive is the RevShare after hidden fees? How reliable are the payouts? Does the tracking actually work? Is there real market demand for the brand?
House Grade
A+ to F
Measures the safety of the relationship. Are the T&Cs fair, or do they contain clauses that put the affiliate's earnings at risk? Does the operator have a track record of paying on time and honouring commitments?
The two scores never influence each other. A program with High Earning Potential and a Grade of C is telling you something specific: the deal is financially attractive, but the terms carry confirmed risk. That conflict is the signal — and it's exactly what a single combined rating would hide.
02
What Earning Potential measures
Earning Potential is built from four groups of factors. Each one answers a different part of "how much can I actually earn here?"
Financial Value of the Deal
The true rate after deductions — not the headline number. Most programs advertise a RevShare that bears little relation to what actually lands in the affiliate's account once admin fees, platform costs, and other deductions are subtracted. We work out the effective rate and score it on that basis. We also look at whether a CPA option exists and whether the program is transparent about it.
Payment Reliability
How fast and how reliably affiliates get paid. Weekly payouts beat monthly. Multiple payment methods beat wire-only. A demonstrated track record of paying on time — verified through industry forums and certifications — beats silence. Money in your hand this week is worth more than money promised next month.
Tracking Technology
The technical infrastructure that decides whether your conversions get counted properly. Programs with proper Server-to-Server tracking preserve attribution that browser-based tracking loses to ad-blockers. Programs with documented APIs save large affiliates hours of manual reporting. Real-time dashboards let paid-traffic affiliates optimise campaigns; daily batch updates make optimisation impossible.
Market Strength
The underlying demand for the operator's brand in the markets that matter to the affiliate. Brands with strong organic search volume convert traffic at higher rates and at lower acquisition costs. Brands that nobody searches for require the affiliate to do all the work of demand generation themselves.
03
The Earning Potential scale
Earning Potential is expressed as one of four word bands — never a raw number — so a program's commercial strength reads at a glance.
Very High
Top-tier deal economics — a strong effective rate, fast and reliable payouts, a full tracking stack, and proven brand demand in the markets that matter.
High
A strong commercial deal. Good effective rate and payout reliability, backed by solid tracking and real market pull.
Medium
A workable deal with trade-offs — a softer rate, slower payouts, thinner tracking, or weaker brand demand in one or more areas.
Low
Weak deal economics. The headline rate, payout terms, tracking, or brand demand fall short of what most affiliates need to run profitably.
Not yet scored
We haven't evaluated this program's financials yet. Neutral signal — not negative. You can request scoring directly from the program's listing.
04
What House Grade measures
The Grade is built from two groups of factors. Each one answers a different part of "is my money safe with this operator?"
Risk Factors in the Terms
The specific clauses in the program's T&Cs that determine whether the affiliate carries financial risk that should sit with the operator. We look at three: whether negative balances carry over from month to month, whether the operator bundles multiple brands together for commission purposes, and whether there are minimum activity quotas that can void lifetime player attribution.
These aren't theoretical concerns. Each of these clauses, when present, materially changes the economics of the deal — usually in ways that aren't visible until the affiliate is already committed.
Trust & Reputation
The program's standing in the affiliate community, the credibility of its licensing, the recoverability of disputes when something goes wrong, and the demonstrated history of the people running the program. Forums like GPWA and AffiliateGuardDog are where the things T&Cs can't capture get documented — shaving, retroactive term changes, ghosted account managers, non-payment.
A program with a clean T&C and a history of complaints scores differently from a program with a tougher T&C and a spotless forum record.
05
The grade scale
The House Grade uses five active letters plus N/A for unscored programs.
Exceptional
Clean terms, top-tier reputation, fully verified track record. Promote with confidence.
Great
No predatory clauses, no confirmed integrity issues. Solid program. Promote with confidence.
Good with drawbacks
Solid overall, but with one or two concerns worth verifying — softer terms, limited public data, or a borderline factor that didn't quite clear A.
Risk factors confirmed
Documented predatory T&C clauses or significant terms-based risk. The deal may still work for you — but negotiate before committing.
Verified harm
Confirmed shaving, blacklisted by major forums, systematic non-payment, or retroactive manipulation. Avoid unless you have direct evidence the situation has resolved.
Not yet scored
We haven't evaluated this program yet. Neutral signal — not negative. You can request scoring directly from the program's listing.
06
Why NCO is not the same as fraud
This is the most important editorial line we draw
Negative Carryover is an unfavourable financial term that puts the affiliate on the hook for player wins. It shifts risk to the wrong party, so it's something every affiliate should know about before committing traffic. It's one of the factors that feeds into a program's score — and because it matters so much, we also surface it directly: programs with confirmed Negative Carryover carry a dedicated NCO badge on their card, so you can spot it at a glance without reading the fine print.
But NCO isn't fraud. A program that publishes NCO in its T&Cs and applies it consistently is being upfront about an unfavourable deal structure. A program that secretly steals player data, manipulates attribution, or simply stops paying is doing something categorically different.
If we conflated the two, the worst designation would become so common it would lose its meaning, and genuinely dangerous programs would escape it by pointing to their clean T&Cs. So we keep them separate: NCO is a known, disclosed term we flag clearly; confirmed harm to affiliates is treated as a different and more serious category. The distinction is deliberate.
07
How we collect the data
Every score is sourced from documents and records we can point to.
Terms & Conditions
Read in full, clause by clause, for every program we score. The risk factors that determine House Grade are sourced from specific paragraphs in the published T&Cs.
Industry forums
GPWA, AffiliateGuardDog, AffiliateLift. We read the threads. Payment confirmations, shaving complaints, dispute resolutions — the operational record that T&Cs can't capture.
Regulatory registries
License validators for MGA, UKGC, Curacao, and other jurisdictions. We confirm that the license claimed actually exists and is current.
Affiliate Manager outreach
For factors that public data can't verify — exact CPA rates by traffic tier, confirmation of S2S postback setup, payout schedule specifics — we reach out directly to program managers.
Every published score links back to the sources that produced it. If a program disputes a grade, we can show them exactly which clause, which forum thread, which registry record drove each factor.
08
When scores are Provisional
Some programs we can score with high confidence on every factor. Others have public data on some factors and gaps on others.
When three or more factors fall back on lower-confidence inference rather than verified sources, the program's listing carries a Provisional flag — like this:
The flag tells you the score is based on limited public data and is pending further verification.
Provisional grades are not penalised. A Provisional A is still an A. We're just transparent about which scores are fully sourced and which still need additional data.
09
How often we re-score
Scores are perishable. A program that was clean six months ago can introduce predatory clauses; a program with payment problems last year can resolve them. The directory needs to reflect current reality, not historical snapshots.
Every 90 days
We re-scan every published program — checking for T&C changes and new forum activity.
Event-driven
Re-reviews happen whenever a significant industry thread, regulatory action, or operator change crosses our monitoring. A program's grade can move materially within weeks if the underlying situation does.
Every score on the directory shows when it was last verified. If you're looking at a card from three months ago, you'll see that timestamp clearly.
10
Disputes and appeals
Programs that disagree with their score can appeal. Here's how that works.
A valid dispute is a specific counter-source — a T&C clause, a forum post, a regulatory record — that directly contradicts the evidence we used. A general objection without a counter-source isn't a valid dispute.
We respond to dispute submissions within five business days. If the counter-source is valid, the score is updated and the change is logged publicly. If not, the original score stands and we explain which specific evidence we're keeping.
Our methodology is the primary defence against grade disputes — because every score is traceable, most disputes resolve at the methodology stage. That's the point of publishing it.
For program owners
How to understand or improve your score
If you operate a program in our directory and you want to understand or improve your score, here's where to start.
Every factor that influences your score is described above. If your House Grade is below where you'd like, the path to improvement is clear and specific: remove predatory clauses from your T&Cs, participate in industry forums, maintain your AGD certification, respond to affiliate disputes promptly.
If your Earning Potential band is lower than you'd like, the path runs through your deal structure: published CPA rates, weekly payouts, documented S2S support, transparent fee schedules.
If you'd like your program evaluated and it isn't yet scored, you can request evaluation from your program's listing. Scoring is free and the inbound process from program managers is part of how we collect data.