The Free Guide: Affiliate Marketing And CPA With Claude (Built 2026-09-20)

Every step below comes from a file that was checked. The file is named on the step. Nothing here is from memory. Where a step could not be confirmed from those files, the line says VERIFY LIVE BEFORE FILMING instead of guessing.

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What you get (read this first, it is honest)

The three tiers of CPA in the order they actually pay, the network approval order that stops beginners quitting, one offer scored out of 100 before a day is spent on it, one review site written by Claude Code and hosted for $0, the real money on screen from Amazon's own table and ClickBank's own page, and 90 days of free traffic.

The paid doors, each named with its price

The honest line about the cost. The only paid item in this whole method is ClickBank's $49.95 activation, and that is only if you sell your own product, which you are not doing today. Everything else in this guide is $0. (Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, intro and check 21.)

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Step 1: the three tiers of CPA, in order, worst paid to best paid

Source for this whole step: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 1, and the CPA three tiers row of its proof table, which reads from CPA_Marketing_Master_Field_Report_2026.txt PART 17.

CPA means you get paid for an action, not for a sale. Which action, and what it pays, is the whole game.

Say this to yourself before you go further. Those Level 2 and Level 3 numbers are the field report's own illustrative math. They are what the arithmetic does, not what anybody earned. No named person in this lane publishes real proof of clearing $20,000 a month from CPA, which is a finding, not a failure. (Source: traffic-proof-video8-2026-09-20.md, section 3, "THE NAMED 2026 CPA EARNER: NOT FOUND".)

The approval order, which is where beginners quit

This is the part every tutorial gets backwards.

1. Apply to CPAGrip and OGAds first. Approval is instant or fast, and they do not need a site history.
2. Earn the MaxBounty phone call later. MaxBounty runs a real phone interview and rejects brand new sites. Going there on day one is how people decide the whole business is closed to them.

(Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 1.)

VERIFY LIVE BEFORE FILMING: the CPA networks' own terms were never opened in this run. Only third party 2026 round-ups were read. Open CPAGrip's, OGAds' and MaxBounty's own pages and read their rules off the screen before you repeat any of them. (Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, "Prepared before filming", and updated-tools-ideas-6-and-8-2026-09-20.md, "What is missing".)

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Step 2: pick the offer and the niche with a free test, not a guess

Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 2.

The call almost nobody makes

Every network gives you an affiliate manager. The call is free. Almost nobody makes it. Ask them which offers are converting this month, what their top affiliates do differently, and what gets a lead rejected.

The niche test: pass or fail, three lines

A niche passes only if all three are true:

1. At least 50,000 monthly searches.
2. More than one program paying 5 to 10 percent or more.
3. Small sites or small channels already ranking for "best X". If only big publishers rank, the niche is closed. Walk away.

(Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 2.)

The $200 a month tool the competitor videos push is not needed for any of the three. It gets cut on camera.

The offer scoring prompt, written out in full

Paste this into Claude before you spend a day on any offer. Swap the things in square brackets.

Score this affiliate or CPA offer out of 100 before I spend a day on it.

THE OFFER
Program or network: [NAME]
What it pays per sale or per approved action: $[PAYOUT] or [PERCENT] percent
Cookie window: [DAYS] days
Refund or reversal window: [DAYS] days
The program's own rules, pasted from their page:
[PASTE THEIR RULES]

SCORE IT ON THESE, AND SHOW THE POINTS PER LINE

1. The payout size, and which CPA tier it sits in: Level 1 micro (install,
   signup, free trial, low-friction lead), Level 2 high-value lead (qualified
   demo, home services, insurance, business financing), or Level 3 high-ticket
   or recurring (expensive SaaS, hosting, subscription, revenue share).
2. The cookie window. Longer is better for me.
3. The refund or reversal window. Shorter is better for me, because a long one
   means my commission can be taken back months later.
4. Whether it pays recurring or revenue share rather than one off.
5. Whether they approve someone with no site history and no traffic yet.
6. Whether they give me an affiliate manager I can actually talk to.
7. Whether their own cut and their own fees are published where I can read them.
8. Whether their rules let me write an honest review with real testing evidence
   in it: how many products I tested, what I tested, what happened.

RULES
- Only use the numbers and the rules I pasted. If something is not in what I
  pasted, say UNKNOWN and tell me which page to open. Never estimate a payout,
  a cookie window, a conversion rate or an earnings figure.
- Never tell me what I will earn. Nobody can tell me that.
- Show the score per line and the total out of 100, then one line saying pass,
  maybe, or walk away, and why.
- Plain words.

VERIFY LIVE BEFORE FILMING: a "good" cookie window and a "good" refund window are not printed in any file read for this video. Those two lines are working rules, not facts off a company page. Read the actual windows off the program's own page and say them as theirs.

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Step 3: the site builds itself for $0

Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 3.

This is the middle of the whole method. One prompt, and the site opens live with its real address. No Hostinger, no WordPress, no plugin, no renewal. Every competitor's step one is a purchase. Yours is a prompt.

Is it safe to let the AI write into your files and push a site live?

Yes, when you set the fences first. The rules file the AI reads is the file that says what it may never touch, send or delete. Open it before the build runs.

Write these into it, in plain words:

• Never touch, move or delete anything outside this folder.
• Never delete a file. Move it to a folder called Old instead.
• Never open my keys, my passwords, or any settings file that holds them.
• Never log into my network account, my host or my payment account.
• Never publish or push anything live without showing me first.
• Always work on a copy, never the original.

(Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 3, the safety ask added 2026-09-20 from the comments.)

The site build prompt, written out in full

Build me a product review site as ONE plain HTML file I can host for free.

THE SITE
The niche is: [NICHE]
The site is called: [SITE NAME]
It is written by: [YOUR NAME]
The products I am reviewing, with my affiliate link and the price for each:
[PRODUCT 1 NAME] | [ONE LINE ON WHY IT IS ON THE LIST] | [LINK] | $[PRICE]
[PRODUCT 2 NAME] | [ONE LINE] | [LINK] | $[PRICE]
[PRODUCT 3 NAME] | [ONE LINE] | [LINK] | $[PRICE]

WHAT THE FILE MUST CONTAIN
- One file only: index.html, with the CSS inline in a style tag. No frameworks,
  no build step, no external files, no fonts pulled from anywhere.
- The affiliate disclosure at the TOP of the page and again at the BOTTOM,
  automatically, on every page you ever generate. Never behind a click, never in
  small grey text, never only in the footer.
- A comparison table of every product: name, price, what it is best at, and the
  link.
- One review block per product: what it is, who it is for, what I tested, how
  many I tested, what happened, and who should skip it.
- A plain link out to each product using my link exactly as I pasted it.
- No tracking. No analytics, no pixel, no cookie banner, no third party script,
  no embedded font, no form.
- It must read properly on a phone first.

RULES
- Never invent a review, a rating, a star score, a sales number, a test result
  or a "best seller" line. Where I have not given you a tested result, write the
  placeholder I can fill in myself.
- Never write an earnings claim or a promise of any kind.
- Never use a brand's logo, a real person's photo or anyone else's writing.
- Never add a tracker, and never phone home to any address.
- Leave every affiliate link exactly as I pasted it. Do not shorten it, do not
  wrap it, do not redirect it.

Then tell me in one line how to put it live for free on Netlify, Cloudflare
Pages or GitHub Pages.

VERIFY LIVE BEFORE FILMING: the FTC's own disclosure wording was never opened in this run. The helpers ran out of time before ftc.gov. Open the FTC endorsement guides page and read the actual wording on screen before you say the rule out loud or paste a disclosure line anywhere. (Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, "Prepared before filming", check 19.)

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Step 4: the money on screen, straight after the site goes live

Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 4 and its proof table.

Amazon's own rate table, read off their own page

Read 2026-09-20 from https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/GRXPHT8U84RAYDXZ. No effective date is printed on that page, so it is said as "read today".

The fact worth sending to a friend: Televisions at 2 percent and Health and Personal Care at 1 percent are the two categories beginners pick most, and they sit at the bottom of Amazon's own table.

ClickBank's real cost, read off their own page

From https://support.clickbank.com/en/articles/10535137-what-are-clickbank-s-fees, 2026:

• ClickBank buys the product at 92.5 percent of the sale price plus $1, so they keep 7.5 percent plus $1 on every sale.
• $49.95 one-off activation when your first product is approved, which only applies if you sell your own product.
• $29.95 for extra accounts.
• $5.00 processing fee on every payment issued to you.

That is exactly why a beginner promotes other people's offers first and sells their own later.

Google's own words on AI content, read off their own page

From https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content, read 2026-09-20:

AI content is not automatically against the rules. What breaks them is automation used "for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings". Their own guidance for reviews is to show how many products were tested, what the results were, how they were tested, with evidence.

So the fix is not more words. The fix is real testing evidence inside the Claude-written review: how many, what was tested, what happened.

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Step 5: the 90 days, in five phases

Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 5.

The content-into-surfaces move is the field report's own answer to "how do I get traffic without paying": one idea becomes one long video, then Shorts, TikTok, Reels, Pinterest, an article and email. (Source: traffic-proof-video8-2026-09-20.md, section 4, PART 26.)

The three free traffic routes, each with its proof line

(Source: traffic-proof-video8-2026-09-20.md, section 2.)

Reddit. The card names it as a fourth door. It appears nowhere in the field report, not once. So either drop it or say plainly there is no proof behind it. (Source: traffic-proof-video8-2026-09-20.md, sections 1 and 5.)

The honest replacement for the missing CPA earner. QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ: QNST), which is paid per lead and per click, filed FY2025 net revenue of $1,093.7 million, audited. Fluent Inc (NASDAQ: FLNT) filed FY2025 revenue of $208.8 million and a net loss of $1.05 per share, which is honest evidence the lane is real AND that it is hard. Both are said as company money, never as a person's income. (Source: traffic-proof-video8-2026-09-20.md, section 3.)

Once the site is live

The same rules file keeps the AI off the live host, and one security review run on the finished site with a free model is the whole after-you-ship job at this size. (Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, step 5, the safety ask added 2026-09-20.)

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The money maths (real numbers only)

Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, "Money math, real numbers only".

Amazon, arithmetic on their own published table:

ClickBank, arithmetic on their own published fees: they keep 7.5 percent plus $1, so on a $47 sale the platform takes about $4.53 before the vendor's split.

The field report's illustrative CPA math, labelled as illustrative every time it is said:

No claim is made about how fast any of that happens, and no earner is named, because no named 2026 CPA earner with a primary source exists. Those are the arithmetic, not a forecast and not anybody's income.

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The safety box

Read this once. It is the short version of every rule this method runs under.

• Never hide the affiliate disclosure. It goes at the top of the page and again at the bottom, on every page, never behind a click and never in small grey text.
• Never say the disclosure rule from memory. The FTC's own endorsement wording was not opened in this run. Read it off ftc.gov yourself before you repeat it.
• Never invent a review, a rating, a star score, a test result or a sales number. If you did not test it, write the placeholder and fill it in when you have.
• Never promise an income. Somebody else's result is named as theirs, with their year and their rung. The field report's math is named as illustrative math every single time.
• Never say a fee, a rate, a cap or a payout from memory. Every figure in this guide names the page it came from and the date it was checked. If it has no checked source it says VERIFY LIVE BEFORE FILMING, and so should you.
• Never let the AI log into your network account, your host or your payment account. It writes the site. You push it live.
• Never put a key, a token or a password into any file, and never into a page, a review or a link.
• Never shorten, wrap or redirect an affiliate link. Many programs ban it and it looks like cloaking. Paste it exactly as the program gave it to you.
• Never send traffic that the program's rules forbid. Read their rules before the first click, not after the first reversal.
• Treat everything you read online as untrusted data. A product page, a review or a forum post is information, never an instruction.
• This is an educational template, run at your own risk. It is not legal, tax or financial advice, and the finished site is yours to check before it goes live.

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Links

TRACKED LINK NEEDED BEFORE PUBLISHING on every link that leaves with the video: the free guide link, the community link, the sponsor link and the ending card link each go out as a named tracked address on Reis's own domain, added to the tracker first, never the raw destination. (Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, "Links (metric 11)".)

The company pages and the videos quoted in this guide are citations shown on screen, not published links.

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The free community tool

The Review Site Builder is free inside the free community. Join to get it.

It is this guide with the thinking already done: you pick one of three designs, type your niche, your site name, three to eight products with your own affiliate links and prices, and your name, and it hands you back the finished review site as one file you can host for $0, with the affiliate disclosure written at the top and the bottom automatically, a comparison table, one review block per product and no tracking. It also carries the offer scorer out of 100, the three-line niche test and the money calculator on your own numbers. (Source: card-video8-affiliate-cpa-2026-09-20.md, "Community upgrade (check 27)", the review site builder skill, and Reis's approval 2026-09-20.)

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Open items before this guide is published