How to Use Tapfiliate to Pay Commission by Product Category

The short answer: if your WooCommerce categories earn different margins, Tapfiliate can pay a different affiliate rate per category through its plugin, but the feature sits on Scale at $179 a month, or $149 a month billed annually, or is sold to Launch as an add-on quoted on request (checked on 26 October 2026 on the pricing page). The steps: work out the rates from your margins, install the plugin, rename the default commission, create one extra commission type per rate, enter its identifier on each WooCommerce category, approve by hand for a month, test a tagged order, and read the results through the MCP server.

Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.

One rate for the whole catalogue pays the same share on a product you make money on and a product you barely break even on. Tapfiliate's extra commission types fix the rate per product or category, and the WooCommerce plugin applies them without a developer, per its extra commissions article. What the product is and costs overall is in the Tapfiliate glossary entry.

Set the rates on paper first:

1. Margin left after commission. For example, take a category at 60% gross margin and one at 25%. A flat 15% commission leaves 60 - 15 = 45 points on the first and 25 - 15 = 10 on the second. Paying 20% and 8% instead leaves 60 - 20 = 40 and 25 - 8 = 17: the thin line stops being a loss risk, the strong line still pays partners more.
2. The category tree you already have. Map rates to existing WooCommerce categories rather than inventing new ones; product-level fields exist for the exceptions.
3. A month of data to compare against. Export last month's affiliate revenue and commissions. After the change, the same report split by commission type shows whether partners moved toward the better lines.

What you need

• A WordPress site running WooCommerce with a standard checkout, and admin rights to install plugins, per the WooCommerce guide.
• A Tapfiliate account on Scale, or Launch with the add-on. Scale's trial is 14 days, and billing details are taken at registration, per the trial billing article.
• Margin per category from finance, as a number, not a range.

Step 1: Install and connect the plugin

In WordPress, go to Plugins, Add New, search for Tapfiliate, then Install and Activate. Under Settings, Tapfiliate, enter your Account ID, tick Enable WooCommerce and Save. From then on the plugin tracks orders, coupons and, with WooCommerce Subscriptions, recurring payments, per the WooCommerce guide. The plugin covers one store per Tapfiliate account.

Step 2: Rename the default commission

Every program starts with a Standard commission at 10%, a placeholder the system sets, according to the commission guide. Affiliates see its name in their portal, so rename it to something they understand, such as "Sale commission, all other products", and set the rate you want for anything not mapped later.

Step 3: Create one extra commission type per rate

Go to Settings, Commission Structure, and find Extra commissions at the bottom. For each rate, enter a title, which affiliates will see, a short identifier such as HIGH-MARGIN, and the commission as a percentage or fixed amount, per the extra commissions article. Keep identifiers short and in capitals: you will type them into WooCommerce next.

Step 4: Put the identifier on each category

Open a category's edit page in WooCommerce, find the field labelled Tapfiliate Commission Type, paste the identifier and save. Do the same on a product page where one item needs its own rate. The plugin passes the identifier with each conversion, so no tracking code changes, per the WooCommerce guide.

Step 5: Approve by hand for the first month

Tapfiliate can approve commissions automatically, but its commission guide notes that many companies approve manually at first to account for refunds and fraud. With new rates in play, manual approval also shows you each commission type on each order before money is owed.

Step 6: Test one order per rate

Create a test affiliate, open the store through their link, and buy one product from each mapped category. In Tapfiliate, check that the click was captured, the conversion is attributed, and the amount, order ID, currency and commission type are right, per the testing section of the WooCommerce guide. Then refund one order and confirm the commission is adjusted or voided.

An agent step: ask, then decide

Connect Claude to https://mcp.tapfiliate.com/mcp as a custom connector and approve access on the OAuth screen; the connection needs Admin permissions and API access on the account, per the MCP article. After a month, ask "Is my commission plan working?" and "Which affiliates send clicks but no sales?". The article describes the server as read-only and built for analytics: it explains and suggests, it cannot edit a rate. A person reads the answer against the margin table from the top of this guide and makes any change in the dashboard.

What Tapfiliate's guides warn about

• Custom checkouts. The plugin is unreliable with a separate checkout plugin such as Cartflows, and FunnelKit needs extra code in the theme's functions file, per the WooCommerce guide.
• Shops on other builders. Squarespace and Wix stores cannot track commission types at all, per the extra commissions article.
• Caching and blockers. If conversions do not arrive, check caching, header blockers and plugin conflicts first, as the WooCommerce guide advises.

Before the trial runs out

Tapfiliate collects the card at registration and charges it the day after the trial ends, per the billing cycle article; on Scale that is day 15, and the 14-day money-back guarantee only applies if you ask support for it. Put the end date in your calendar the day you start, and run Steps 1 to 6 inside the first week, because the decision to pay $179 a month (checked on 26 October 2026) should rest on a tested order, not on a promise.

FAQ

Does this work with Shopify instead of WooCommerce?

Not through the Shopify app. Commission types on Shopify need the custom pixel, with the identifier added to the conversion call in code, per the Shopify guide.

Can I pay only on certain categories and nothing on the rest?

Yes. Set the standard commission to 0% and create extra commission types for the categories you want to reward, a setup the extra commissions article describes.

Do affiliates see the different rates?

They see the title of the commission they earned in their portal, which is why the titles in Steps 2 and 3 should say what each rate is for.