PayDotCom vs. ClickBank — a study in caveats
Posted by Antone Roundy under Affiliate , Premium Content32 Comments
I just started selling a product targeted at ClickBank sellers through PayDotCom. It doesn’t sell through ClickBank. That ’s nuts! Why don’t I sell it through ClickBank? I’ll start my comparison of ClickBank and PayDotCom there, but there’s more…
Product Approval
Every product that sells through ClickBank has to be submitted to them for review. They review the product, the sales page, the “thank you” page from which the product is downloaded, and, I discovered, even the members only area that buyers get access too.
How does a ClickBank affiliate get an advantage over competing affiliates? One way is to offer bonuses to people who buy through your link. Another is to have better data to choose products to promote (like finding up-and-coming products before they’ve been promoted to death). Instant Affiliate Accelerator offers an automated bonus delivery system, research data, and more.
One of their rules is that you can’t offer customers additional products for purchase once they’ve paid. That includes the download page and, unbelievably, your members only area. In short, that’s why my product isn’t selling through ClickBank — I wasn’t willing to remove a few informational pages from my members area that point to additional products.
So I went to PayDotCom. They don’t review your products, your sales pages, your download pages, your members area, or anything else, which makes getting started with them a lot easier.
Why the difference? I’m guessing that it’s because ClickBank handles payment processing and PayDotCom doesn’t (they just send the customer to your payment processor for you and provide tracking for affiliates). So while ClickBank has to deal with chargebacks, refund requests, etc. for payments made to their merchant accounts, PayDotCom doesn’t. Thus, PayDotCom isn’t as concerned about minimizing returns.
Ease of Setup
Both sites have their problems in this area. At ClickBank, there’s the problem of wrapping your brain around their braindead system where no matter how many products you sell through one account, all affiliate links to your products go to the same page. If you want to have multiple landing pages without having to do some extra coding and tell your affiliates how to link to specific products (which not all will do, since many will find your product through ClickBank’s marketplace rather than your site), you have to create and pay for multiple vendor accounts.
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Beyond that, basic setup with ClickBank is reasonably straightforward and well documented. If you want to protect your download page, that takes little more work, but they show you how to do it.
PayDotCom’s documentation is incomplete, a few years old, and some of it is out of date. As much as I respect Mike Filsaime, I’ve found this to be typical of his websites — once they’re built, they don’t seem to be maintained as well as one might hope. Without going too far off on this tangent, I’ll just point out that the text on many of his sites contains grammatical errors and sentences that don’t sound like they were written by a native English speaker. But enough on that.
After tracking down the documentation and reading through it, despite it’s shortcomings, I didn’t find it difficult to get my product pages ready to work with PayDotCom.
Fees
PayDotCom claims to have significanly lower fees than ClickBank, and technically it’s true, because they do charge lower fees. However, they gloss over the fact that with them, you also have to pay PayPal fees. I suppose if you were selling using a personal PayPal account, you wouldn’t, but then you’d be severly limited in how many sales you could processes, so that’s not very realistic.
Here’s a graphic that compares the fees you’ll pay when selling through PayDotCom versus ClickBank, along with differences in the commissions you’ll pay your affiliates, and your net profits.
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August 30th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
[...] Antone Roundy Filed under Blog by Permalink • Print [...]
August 30th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
One more thing: With PayDotCom, the money goes directly into your PayPal account. With ClickBank, two weeks after the two week period in which the sale was made, and check is sent to you with part of the money held back to cover returns. So it can take as much as a month to get part of your money, and it takes even longer to get the rest.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
If you search around the Warriors forum and other places you can find a coupon for Paydotcom. The coupon waives the $29 fee.
Good system and Mike talked before like he wanted to sell it to PayPal. But Yes… He neglects his sites.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm
PayDotCom could be bigger than CB if someone actually invested some time and money in it.
CB is too bureacratic and slow as an aging sauropod.
I would buy it if I had the money. I think it is a sure fire sleepin’ hit.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I just joined Paydotcom and was shocked to see an upsell page directly after sign up which shows 3 products and bonuses to purchase for $100 then after clicking ‘No Thanks’ what do you get but another similar page. Crazy stuff man, this is definitely going to kill paydotcom and lose credibility.
I think paydotcom is a system Mike set up to onsell some of his own products.
The system seems flawless for what I require but those upsell pages just made me feel sick and is a huge turn off.
I was thinking of selling a few products through paydotcom and promote a few products but i am now looking elsewhere.
Other than the upsell pages it could’ve been a great system that would easily be the place to sell and promote.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Adam, while I certainly understand what you’re saying, if you really think selling through PayDotCom would help your business, you should probably take another look at the tradeoff you’re making.
If it’s a matter of principle — that you refuse to in any way support a business that uses that kind of tactic — then I won’t argue with your principles.
But if it’s just a matter of having been irritated that one time, then refusing to use the site because of that is like (and I don’t say this to be critical — just to illustrate my point) hitting yourself over the head because somebody called you names.
Whatever you choose, do what’s right for you.
February 7th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I think PayDotCom is simply a PayPal wrapper. You should take a look at DClickz http://www.dclickz.com
April 9th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
But you’ll get less affiliate promoting your products at PDC compared to CB.
You see, if you search the PDC marketplace, you’ll find loads of crap (3 to 5 similar MRR products by different vendors).
That’s a waste of time for affiliate searching for a product to promote. Furthermore, affiliates prefer guaranteed payment. With CB, affiliates feel secured about their commission but with PDC, vendors decide when to release it to affiliates.
It takes a lot of troubles to get your affiliate program promoted to affiliate network. But with CB, it’s more likely that affiliates will find you with services like cbengine, cb alert etc.
Affiliates are your sales army that substitute your own marketing expenses. If you’re going to sell by your own then PDC is a good place. If you’re gonna rely on affiliates, then by all means go for CB.
You can solve the one account one product with CB by using software like easyclickmate or services like ebizac.
Juz my 2cents.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:06 am
I have just setup a paydotcom account and would like to sell my products through paydotcom. Earlier I had decided to setup a clickbank account. PDC is far more better
May 13th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I’m new to this forum, so I’m accepting everyone’s info. I would like know, from a user’s perspective, how many CB marketplace products are found on PDC marketplace? Would you say equal or they’ll completely different?
Thanks
June 21st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
The biggest pain for me is that Clickbank doesn’t allow registration from certain countries (Mine – Malaysia). In my case, I have to open a virtual office in neighbouring countries as a trick.
However great CB has to offer, forget about it. For starters in Malaysia and those unfortunate countries, use PayDotCom.
Let’s teach CB some lesson.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:29 am
I’d like to know if this work from home “Unique Marketing” is a legite way to really make money. Is this for real? I am a mother trying to pay down bills by working at home to make extra money, but from what I keep taking from everything that I’m reading is that there are fees all over the place and that whoever is supposed to be writing the cheques to us, are not paying for certain things or some don’t get paid at all, ClickBank and PayDotCom are both not good….one doesn’t upkeep the website, and the other charges hidden fees for things………does anybody actually make any money at this??????
July 13th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Colleen,
Most don’t. It’s a wild wild west out there and most of the money being made is being made by people selling products on how to make money on the internet. It’s quite sickening at times.
I created a small business selling wildlife figurines to the US using dropshippers (meaning I didn’t stock anything as I was the middle man). It made me about $150-200 month and it was on a topic I enjoyed. I sold the business for $3000 after two years.
My advice is to work on something that is passionate to you, this way you don’t get swept away by all the BS.
If you want to see how I built that little business visit
http://www.thedropshippingcourse.com
Dean
July 31st, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Both have it’s pros and cons. However, I’ll still say Clickbank is a better marketplace in terms of profitability potential.
It’s still the first choice for many internet marketing gurus anyway.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Clickbank is a scam!!!
My first clickbank check is Bounced its worth $875… The bank return my check with “Return Stop Payment Reason-C”..
August 25th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Roulgh,
Before saying that it’s a scam because there was a stop payment on your check (not the same as a “bounced” check), you probably ought to find out why that happened — there may very well be a legitimate reason.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Guys,
This information is so helpful to me.
I have been struggling to sell affiliate products for over two years now with ClickBank. And the only sells I have made were mine and I can’t get paid because I have the only charge card at ClickBank.
Now I will be using Pay Dot Com
Thank You, Thank You, And Thanks again
Darlene
September 1st, 2008 at 7:12 am
I’ve already email clickbank but still i don’t get response from them…
Clickbank terminated my account for no reason! Clicbank Suck!!!!!!!
September 10th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Hi all:
Can someone explain to me, or point me towards, a clear explanation that walks through the process of selling the same product at 2 different prices (e.g. discount special) and/or also with two different affiliate commission rates (e.g. JV). It’s kind of explained (and yes, unfortunately in ungrammatical and poor English) and I have no idea if I need one sales page or two, and what happens if an affiliate signs up to sell a product at one price and then sends a purchaser who ends up buying at the other discount price etc. Has anyone written the definitive tutorial yet?
Another item no one has mentioned is that customer service on PayDotCom is poor, I think they have one guy who checks emails every few days and answers the ones he feels like. Mike is obviously making more money elsewhere and is not worrying about PayDotCom.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
That was a very detailed and scientific analysis. It helped me decide to use paydotcom for my first product. Thanks a lot.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Paydot would be MUCH better if my affilliate link worked right after placing a million free and PAID ads all over the Internet. It’s been down two days now and I have no idea how much traffic/sales I have lost.
Mike should also check his email/trouble tickets/forum posts, etc.
Thanks a lot MIKE
April 15th, 2009 at 5:47 am
hi everyone, i just came across this site in google search engine. very interesting. i found all of this very confusing in the beginning, but after reading and sometimes rereading different material on the subject, it all started to make sense and sink in.
i suggest anyone who is getting confused or feels overwhelmed, keep investigating, keep reading, but most of all keep going. all of a sudden the pieces start to fall into place and begins to seem logical and a little simpler than first thought. good luck to everyone.
Sincerely,
Michelle
May 14th, 2009 at 2:35 am
CB sucks with their weird policy for aff’s you have to get your products sell thru 4 different payment systems i mean different CC thas sucks i hate CB but PDC is far better
Rimzan
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:52 pm
The very first time I went to Paydotcom was just to evaluate their product marketplace. I wasn’t on the site 15 minutes and some vendor’s squeeze page tried to hijack my machine with a trojan. Ain’t that some $h1T !! I was able to remove but I just saying…
June 5th, 2009 at 5:10 am
I have only registered with Paydotcom today, I have been faithful to Clickbank. However they payment policy sucks and I’m not keen on picking up checks so much. I’m from Europe so I have to wait way too long to receive checks to my home.
I will give Paydotcom a try now. Thanks for a detailed analysis!
June 18th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
This is really confusing! I am an affiliate I just want to know if PDC is right choice or not from someone who has tried it before?
is there a problem with merchant refusing to pay?
June 18th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Eugene, I’m sure there are some merchants who don’t pay. Promote products from sellers that look credible. If it looks like they’re making lots of sales, they have a lot to lose by trying to rip their affiliates off — no serious marketer would risk damaging their reputation and losing affiliates by doing that.
To those who’ve complained about ClickBank’s payment policy, I have two comments:
1) Yeah, it stinks. But what I think REALLY stinks about it is that the commissions they don’t pay out don’t go back to the merchant — ClickBank pockets them.
2) If you sell anything on ClickBank, you know by now that for a VERY high percentage of your sales, the buyer is also the affiliate. Customers are abusing ClickBank sellers just to get a discount, but never promoting a single thing.
I don’t think ClickBank should be profiting at the seller’s expense, but I have no qualms with buyers who never promote anything not getting the benefit.
August 30th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
This is a really great post. Thanks!
I am actively comparing software for shopping cart / affiliate management.
I understand that clickbank now offers a 1-click upsell, but only for vendors with a 6 month history and 5,000 prior sales!
How about PDC? When someone subscribes to my digital content, do they allow a 1-click upsell? Or do customers have to type in their credit card info a second time?
On another note, I have a yearlong micro-continuity program. If a member’s credit card is declined, or s/he cancels her subscription, will PDC alert membership software, so it can shut out that member?
If which membership software does it integrate with?
August 30th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I understand that PDC has a huge network of affiliates. But from the posts above, it sounds like affiliates involved with PDC might be lower quality affiliates than those with Clickbank. Any feedback on this?
August 31st, 2009 at 10:03 am
Trevor,
Since PayDotCom doesn’t actually do the payment processing (PayPal does), they’re limited to what you can do through PayPal, which doesn’t include 1-click upsells (at least not in ways that won’t kill a lot of sales).
As for the membership question, any membership software that works with ClickBank SHOULD handle declines and cancellations — presumably, they use PayPal IPN (instant payment notification) to credit payments to member accounts, so if they payment doesn’t go through, the account doesn’t get credited, so it expires.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Great Article!
Other charges not covered by the article include a $2.50 processing fee by Clickbank on every payment once your threshold has been reached. Also, for us non US citizens we have to cash US$ cheques that also generally incurs a processing fee – can Clickbank send out cheques in other currencies, eg. AUD$?
Also if there is no activity for 90 consecutive days on a Clickbank account you start incurring charges starting at $1 up to $50 after 365 days if your account is in credit. This can be a nightmare to check if you have a number of Clickbank accounts and some ‘older’ products with little traffic.
A positive with Clickbank though is that I do not have any tax concerns as Clickbank is making payments to affiliates and therefore has the audit related issues of knowing who they have paid. Mike tries to get around this by introducing his ‘new’ service http://www.paypeopleonline.com however this costs affiliates each time you pay them.
September 10th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Paydotcom needs to wake up. They’ve lost over 200 products in the last three months from their Marketplace. They’re in the 1,600-range now and if this continues, there won’t be anyone selling anything on that site. Of course, it doesn’t help that Filsaime is terrorizing sellers now into thinking the IRS is going to go after us for paying affiliates. Oh, what a coincidence, another Filsaime product for all of us to buy…
I’ve been with Paydotcom for two years. This was because Clickbank refused my first book. I just put out a second book, and because I feel obligated to Paydotcom for their previous support, I listed the book with them.
It’s been a month and only three affiliates have signed up. There is no listing of New items on the web-site which, of course, would greatly help sellers with new products; but, oh yeah, I can pay more money to have a listing on the main page. What a deal.
For two years the site has been the same. No updates nor improvements; even the same crappy grammar and misspelled words. The only new thing that comes to the site is when Filsaime has a new product he is trying to sell us. Honestly, I have a lot of respect for the guy and he’s made millions of off the Internet, which I haven’t; but if his books/products are a reflection of the Paydotcom site, then I hope he has a good return policy.
Anyway, I’m working on switching over to Clickbank, which I entirely hate to do, because I feel an allegiance with Paydotcom for listing me when Clickbank wouldn’t. I can keep my allegiance with Paydotcom and continue to lose money or break my allegiance and increase my financial success. It’s not that hard of a decision to make.
It’s a shame, really; Paydotcom had so much potential.