I have long been under the impression that affiliates would prefer to receive any and all money that they’ve earned.
Whether it be $1 or $5 that’s sitting in their balance – for those that have not met the payment threshold after a certain period of time, I’d usually clean out the books and cut checks for everybody that had a balance.
But now I’ve learned that the small checks seem to be a burden, and affiliates would just assume not receive them.
Today, I heard from the CFO for a company where I manage the affiliate program. He said, “Remember when we did that special affiliate payroll where you paid affiliates who earned less than the normal $25 threshold? Our payroll vendor just sent us a list of 70 checks, the bulk of which are < $5, that have never been cashed." He continued on... "Unfortunately, the payroll vendor wants to charge us $12.50/check to electronically give the money back to us. I thought you might want to be aware that it appears that nearly 40% of the people you paid < $5 didn't even bother to cash the checks." These were checks from about six months ago. That will teach me for assuming affiliates want all their commission. 😉