Let’s start off with some of Clickbank’s legalities. There are quite a few because of how massive Clickbank is. So it’s important to know what they are.

Pay Periods

Pay periods end at 12:00:01am Pacific time on the 1st and 16th of each month. For security reasons payment is made by check only. Checks are mailed within 15 days after the end of the pay period. Checks over $5,000 are sent at our expense by US Priority Mail (US) or Global Priority Mail (Europe, Canada, Australia, etc) wherever possible. US checks over $10,000 are sent overnight via FedEx wherever possible.

If you think that there are people who don’t have checks over $10,000 then you haven’t met many gurus online. Clickbank has many affiliates making large incomes online.

Payment Preference

Payment preference is a predetermined minimum amount of money you must have in your account before we cut you a check. You may select an amount from $10 to $10,000 as your payment preference amount. The default setting is $100. We hold your check until your payable balance reaches this amount. A $2.50 accounting charge is deducted from each check we issue. To change your payment preference login to your account, click the link to “access your account”, click the link to “modify your account”, select the desired amount from the drop down menu, and click the “save changes” button.

I hope you noticed the line I bolded. If you sign up with Clickbank and leave this as it is, you are going to have to make $100 in sales before you see your first check. As a starting affiliate, and speaking from my own experience, I can tell you that you may be waiting for a long time. My first paycheck was for $60 and some change. If I had left my account at $100, I would have had to wait until the next pay period, providing I finally broke $100, to receive my checks. I have lowered my balance to $25 to make sure that I get a check every pay period, or at least have the best chance of doing so.

In our next installment of this series on Clickbank, we’re going to continue with some of Clickbank’s policies, picking up with their policy on completed sales.

See you then.

“ClickBank is the Internet’s premier retailer for digitally delivered products. From ebooks to software, we offer customers a vast array of digital goods. ClickBank is the pioneer in selling digital products worldwide through the leverage of over 100,000 talented and proven affiliates. We provide a highly secure, scalable, and fraud resistant environment for e-commerce.”

“ClickBank has quickly become a global leader in the sale of digital goods online with more than 10,000 product publishers and over 100,000 registered affiliates. Each day, ClickBank completes nearly 20,000 orders from more than 200 countries around the world. ClickBank.com is consistently ranked as one of the most highly trafficked sites on the internet.”

Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say? And in spite of all the hype that flies around the Internet like bats out of hell, Clickbank really does live up to all the hype. Many affiliates have made fortunes because of the opportunities that Clickbank has provided for them. So naturally, people want to know as much about Clickbank and how it works as they can. After all, as big as Clickbank is and as successful as Clickbank has made many affiliates, you still don’t want to go into promoting their products blindly. Doing so will certainly lead to nothing but disaster.

In this article and the series of articles to follow, we’re going to reveal Clickbank’s policies and procedures. Believe me, there are enough of them to make your head spin. If you think affiliates have a lot of rules to follow, wait until you see all the requirements for vendors. Sometimes I think that you really need a good lawyer just to use them.
In addition to revealing Clickbank’s policies and procedures, we’re going to cover many tips for getting the most out of your Clickbank accounts, including making sure you get paid as often as possible. Not checking one little think in your Clickbank account could make it so that you might never get paid. Yes, there are a lot of pitfalls to using Clickbank that people need to be aware of. Hopefully, this series will make you aware of them.

A disclaimer before we get into the meat of this series. The information that follows is correct as of this writing. Clickbank has changed policies so often in nine years that by the time you read this, there is no telling what will be different. As we speak, they are working on new changes to their hoplink system.

Also, I make no guarantees about any income to be made with Clickbank. This is not a tutorial on Internet advertising and marketing. It’s just to familiarize you with Clickbank so that you have some idea of what you’re getting into before you get into it.

In our next installment, we’ll start getting into some of those Clickbank policies and procedures.