Awin For UK Brands: Costs And Setup
Category
Affiliates
Published by
Tom Emmanuel
Read Time
6 Minutes
Awin is one of the largest affiliate networks, and it publishes its pricing. Its Access plan costs £99 plus VAT a month plus 3.5% per transaction, and Accelerate starts at £199 plus VAT a month plus 2.5%. Partner commission is on top and set by you. Awin is a good fit for a UK DTC brand that wants content, cashback and creator partners in one place, as long as you control commission and vouchers from day one. Here is how it works, what it costs and how to set it up.
Tom Emmanuel
Founder, Furnace Commerce
Awin for UK brands: how it works and what it costs
What Awin is
Awin is an affiliate network: a platform that connects brands with partners who promote them and get paid commission on the sales they drive. Partners include content sites, review and comparison sites, cashback and loyalty sites, voucher sites and creators. Awin tracks the sales, handles the reporting and pays the partners. It is large. Awin says it works with more than a million partners worldwide and 30,000 advertisers, and it is part of Axel Springer. In the US it has absorbed ShareASale, which it bought in 2017; Awin said in August 2025 that ShareASale customers had moved across and that the old platform would close that October.
What Awin costs
Awin publishes three advertiser plans on its UK pricing page. Access costs £99 plus VAT a month plus a 3.5% tracking fee per transaction, with the first month free and a three-month minimum term. It includes up to three commission groups. Awin's own example: on a £100 sale paying 6% commission, the partner gets £6 and Awin gets £3.50. Accelerate starts at £199 plus VAT a month plus 2.5% per transaction, with a choice of running it yourself or with Awin's help. It adds unlimited commission groups, APIs, a private network, customer journey analysis and managed partner payments. Advanced is custom-priced and adds benchmarks and attribution-based commission rules. Work out your real cost per sale before you start. On a £60 order paying 8% commission on Access, you pay £4.80 to the partner and £2.10 to Awin, so £6.90 in total, or 11.5% of the order, before the monthly fee and any discount the partner's audience used. Awin does not publish a set-up fee or minimum deposit on its pricing pages, so ask before you sign. Compare that with what you would pay elsewhere for the same customer. If a new customer from paid social costs you £25 and an affiliate partner brings one for £7, affiliates are cheap. If the partner's customer was already on your checkout page, you have paid £7 for nothing. The fee is only good value when the sale is new.
Setting Awin up on Shopify
Awin has a Shopify app, Awin - Affiliate Marketing, which is free to install, with Awin's platform fees billed separately. Awin says the app adds its MasterTag to every page, records sales server to server and reads Shopify's Customer Privacy API so cookies are only read with consent. It can also sync your product feed and automatically decline cancelled orders. Its reviews on the Shopify App Store are poor, so test the tracking carefully after you install it. Tracking needs to be right. Awin's tracking standard is that advertisers use both the MasterTag and server-to-server tracking. Server-to-server records the sale without relying on cookies in the browser. Check your consent banner too, because Awin says its cookies may need adding to the list your consent tool allows. Then set the commercial rules before you invite anyone. Decide your commission groups, for example new versus existing customers, or content partners versus cashback. Write clear terms on vouchers, brand bidding and what counts as a valid sale. Decide how you will validate sales each month, declining returns and cancellations before they are paid. Recruit partners deliberately. Awin's network is large, so the work is in choosing. Start with a short list of content sites, creators and loyalty partners who already talk to your customer, approve applicants against clear criteria, and brief each one on your products, your best sellers and what they can and cannot say. A small group of active partners is worth more than hundreds who never post.
When Awin is the right choice
Awin suits a UK or European ecommerce brand that wants a broad mix of partners, published pricing and a Shopify integration, and has someone to run it. It is not a channel you switch on and leave. Partners need recruiting, briefing and paying, codes need controlling, and every month's sales need checking. It is less suited to a brand that only wants a handful of creators. If that is you, TikTok Shop's affiliate programme or a direct creator arrangement may be simpler. The biggest risk is paying commission on sales you would have made anyway: existing customers using a cashback site at checkout, or a code meant for one creator ending up on a voucher site. Set lower rates for existing customers and brand-led partners, control which partners get codes, and watch the voucher code report.
Awin's fees are easy to read. The real cost of an affiliate programme is the commission you pay on sales that were already yours.
Questions brands ask about Awin
How much does Awin cost in the UK?
Awin's Access plan is £99 plus VAT a month plus 3.5% per transaction. Accelerate starts at £199 plus VAT a month plus 2.5% per transaction. Advanced is custom-priced. Partner commission is set by you and paid on top.
Does Awin work with Shopify?
Yes. The Awin - Affiliate Marketing app is free to install on the Shopify App Store, with Awin's fees billed separately. It adds Awin's tracking, records sales server to server, respects customer consent and can sync your product feed.
What happened to ShareASale?
Awin bought ShareASale in 2017 and has now moved its customers onto the Awin platform. Awin said in August 2025 that the upgrade was complete and that the ShareASale platform would close in October 2025.
What commission should I pay Awin partners?
Start from your margin, not from what competitors offer. Work out what you can pay per order after product cost, delivery, Awin's fee and any discount, then set different rates for different partner types and for new and existing customers. Review them after the first three months of data.
Let's work together
Thinking about Awin?
Tell us your category, your average order value and your margin, and we will tell you whether Awin is worth it and how we would set it up.