Amazon Associates vs ShopMy: commission rates, payout speed, and which one actually pays tech and software creators more

On headline commission, ShopMy pays more: creators typically see 10% to 30% on ShopMy brands against roughly 1% to 10% on Amazon, with the tech categories most software creators recommend sitting near 1% to 4%. On payout speed ShopMy also wins, paying weekly on Fridays against Amazon's approximately 60 days after the end of the month a sale is earned. Amazon wins on catalog breadth and on conversion, because the shopper already has an account and a saved card. For a creator recommending AI tools, SaaS or developer software, both lose to a program that pays recurring commission, because neither carries software at all.

That is the comparison in four sentences. The rest of this page is the part that changes the decision, and it starts with something most comparisons get wrong: Amazon and ShopMy are not the same kind of product, and for a large slice of your links they are not even mutually exclusive.

Amazon Associates vs ShopMy, side by side

Amazon figures marked OFFICIAL were read on an Amazon owned page on 8 September 2026. ShopMy figures are drawn from what the platform and its creators consistently report; ShopMy does not publish a machine readable rate or payout page, so nothing here is presented as quoted from one.

The comparison most creators think they are making is not the real one

The framing everywhere is Amazon or ShopMy, pick one. That framing is wrong for a meaningful share of your links, because ShopMy is reported to integrate directly with Amazon Associates: you connect your Amazon tag once, and Amazon products you add inside ShopMy credit your own Amazon account. If that is how you set it up, then for Amazon products the two are stacked rather than opposed. ShopMy is acting as the front end and Amazon is still the rate card underneath, so you earn the Amazon percentage on Amazon terms regardless of which link the reader clicked.

Once you see that, the genuine either or narrows to non-Amazon brands, and the question becomes much more concrete. For a brand that exists in both places, ShopMy's 10% to 30% against Amazon's 1% to 10% is a real and large difference. For a brand that exists only on Amazon, there is nothing to compare. And for the categories a tech or software creator actually recommends, the comparison collapses in a way neither platform advertises.

Why a tech creator loses this comparison whichever side wins

ShopMy's catalog is fashion, beauty and lifestyle. It is very good at that and makes no secret of it. Amazon's catalog contains nearly every physical product, including the cameras, keyboards, microphones and monitors a tech creator does recommend, but the schedule puts electronics and computers near the bottom at roughly 1% to 4%. So a software reviewer choosing between them is choosing between a platform that does not stock their category and a platform that stocks it at the worst rate on its own schedule.

Run the arithmetic on a normal month. Say your audience buys $4,000 of gear through your links. On Amazon at 3% that is $120, paid about 60 days after the month closes, on a 24 hour attribution window that discards anyone who thought about it overnight. There is no version of that month where a rate table fixes the problem, because the constraint is the category, not your posting.

Now put the same audience against one software recommendation. A creator who recommends an AI writing tool at $29 a month on a 20% recurring commission earns $5.80 a month per subscriber, every month that person stays subscribed. Twenty subscribers is $116 in month one, and roughly the same in month twelve without posting again, because the commission renews with the subscription. That is the structural difference: retail commission is an event, recurring software commission is an asset. It is also why recurring affiliate programs and tech affiliate programs matter more to a software creator than any Amazon versus ShopMy rate table.

Amazon's real risk is not the rate, it is who controls it

Something changed on the Amazon side in 2026 that belongs in this comparison. Amazon's per category fee schedule is no longer a public document: requesting it now returns a redirect to a sign in, and the page it is trying to reach is a per account custom rate card rather than a shared table. Amazon's operating agreement does not contain a single percentage either. It points to a separate Commission Income Statement, and sets the notice period for a change at no less than two business days, with increases explicitly carved out of even that floor.

Adweek reported during 2026 that Amazon had cut Associates rates for some publishers by as much as 50%, removed the milestone bonuses that rewarded high performing partners, and degraded the reporting tools affiliates used to optimise. The reporting is based on seven publishers and partners who said they were told individually by account managers and that the changes were never publicly announced. Treat 50% as the top of a reported range affecting some accounts rather than a universal cut, but the structure is the point: a number you cannot look up can move that far without a public statement. The full detail sits in Amazon affiliate commission rates by category.

ShopMy's exposure is different rather than absent. Rates are set per brand and shown to you inside the platform, so you can at least read them, but a brand can change or end a program and the curation means you do not control which brands you have access to in the first place.

Which one should you actually use

Use Amazon when your audience buys physical products across many categories and buys often. Conversion is the argument, not the rate. A 3% commission that converts at eight percent beats a 20% commission that converts at one, and Amazon converts because the account and the card already exist. Amazon also rewards click volume rather than individual link quality, which is why creators who do well on it publish the same recommendation across every channel they run rather than posting it once. If that is your model, the practical bottleneck is production, and turning one review into posts for every channel is a more useful lever than another hour spent on rate tables.

Use ShopMy when your audience buys from the fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands it curates, and when cash flow matters to you. Weekly Friday payouts at an eleven dollar threshold against Amazon's sixty day wait is a genuine quality of life difference for a creator running on affiliate income.

Use neither as your only line if what your audience actually acts on is software. That is not a criticism of either platform, it is a catalog fact. A storefront that carries AI tools, SaaS and gear together lets one page hold the Amazon links that convert, the retail links that pay well, and the software links that keep paying, with one set of numbers across all three. For the two platforms compared here on their own terms, ShopMy commission rates and Amazon Associates versus the Amazon Influencer Program go deeper than a side by side can.

Common questions

Does ShopMy pay more than Amazon?

On headline rate, usually yes. ShopMy creators typically see 10% to 30% against Amazon's 1% to 10%, and the ShopMy figure is already net of its reported 82/18 split. Whether it pays you more depends on conversion: Amazon converts unusually well because the shopper already has an account and a saved card, so a lower rate on far more completed purchases can still win.

Can you use ShopMy and Amazon Associates at the same time?

Yes, and it is the normal setup. ShopMy is reported to integrate with Amazon Associates so that you connect your Amazon tag once and Amazon products added inside ShopMy credit your own Amazon account. For Amazon products the two are stacked rather than competing, which means the real choice between them only applies to brands that are not on Amazon.

What is the Amazon affiliate commission rate in 2026?

Amazon still publishes a ceiling of up to 10%, varying by product category, but no longer publishes the per category schedule openly. The fee schedule path redirects to a sign in and resolves to a per account custom rate card, so two creators promoting the same product can be on different percentages. Electronics and computers have long sat near the bottom at roughly 1% to 4%.

How long does each one take to pay?

Amazon states commission income is paid approximately 60 days after the end of the month in which it was earned, so a sale on 3 January is typically paid at the end of March. ShopMy pays weekly on Fridays once your balance clears a threshold reported at about eleven dollars. That is the largest practical difference between the two platforms.

Is ShopMy worth it for a tech or software creator?

Rarely on its own. ShopMy's terms are good and its payout cadence is the best in the category, but its catalog is fashion, beauty and lifestyle, so a creator whose audience buys AI tools, SaaS or developer hardware will find little to link. The rate advantage is real and it is applied to products your audience is not buying.