What “pending” means in AffiliateWP, and how to stop “where’s my commission?” emails

What does “pending” mean in AffiliateWP?

It means the referral has been recorded but not confirmed. AffiliateWP’s documentation describes it as a referral that “has been generated but is not yet confirmed”. Every referral starts there. It stays pending until the order or signup it came from is marked complete in your shop or membership plugin.

The four statuses, in order:

• Pending: recorded, not confirmed yet.
• Unpaid: confirmed and waiting for the next payout.
• Paid: included in a payout that has been sent.
• Rejected: won’t be paid, for example because the order was refunded.

Why can’t affiliates see their pending referrals?

Because AffiliateWP only shows them to admins. Its documentation is explicit that pending referrals don’t appear in the affiliate’s dashboard and don’t count towards their earnings or conversion figures until they’re accepted.

The reasoning is sound: a pending referral might still be refunded, so showing it as earnings would overpromise. The side effect is what drives the emails. An affiliate knows they sent a customer today. The customer bought something. The affiliate opens their area and sees nothing at all. From their side, it looks like the sale wasn’t tracked.

Why does a referral stay pending?

Almost always because the order behind it isn’t complete yet. Common reasons:

• The order is still processing. In WooCommerce, a physical order usually sits in Processing until it ships. The referral waits with it.
• The payment isn’t confirmed. Bank transfers and cheques leave orders on hold until someone marks them paid.
• You hold referrals on purpose. Some programmes keep referrals pending through a return window, so a refunded order never becomes a commission. AffiliateWP’s Force Pending Referrals add-on does exactly this, and those referrals only move when you approve them.
• Something needs a manual check. An unusually large order, or a pattern you want to look at before paying.

Rejections are different. If automatic rejection is switched on under AffiliateWP → Settings → Commissions, a referral is rejected when its order is refunded, cancelled or deleted.

What are affiliates actually asking when they email?

Read a month of these emails and they boil down to three questions: did you record my sale, why isn’t it counted yet, and when will I be paid for it. None of them needs a person to answer. They need information the affiliate can’t see.

So the fix isn’t faster replies. It’s putting the answer where the affiliate already looks.

Step 1: write the rules down where affiliates will read them

Before any tool, decide and publish three things in your affiliate terms and welcome email:

1. How long referrals stay pending, and why. “Referrals stay pending for 30 days after the order, our return window” is an answer. “Referrals are reviewed” isn’t.
2. When payouts happen. A fixed day of the month, and the minimum balance if you have one.
3. What gets a referral rejected. Refunds, self-referrals, coupon abuse. Name them.

This alone removes a share of the emails, because affiliates who know the rules stop worrying about normal delays. It doesn’t help the affiliate who wants to know about one specific sale, though. For that, they need to see it.

Step 2: show pending referrals to affiliates, with the reason

AffiliateWP doesn’t do this on its own, which is the gap we built WP Referral Clarity for. It adds a panel to the top of the affiliate’s Referrals tab with their approved-but-unpaid total and each pending referral, the reason it’s pending and, where you’ve set a rule, an expected date.

Their referral history also gets a Why column, so a rejected referral carries its reason instead of just the word “Rejected”.

The wording is yours (the Referral Clarity user guide covers every setting). Under Referral Clarity → Status Explanations, each status has a card: Pending, Unpaid, Paid, Rejected and Forced Pending. Each card has separate admin and affiliate wording, plus context variants, such as pending for a return window versus pending for a manual check. Name your real return window and payout day there.

Step 3: give affiliates a date, not just a status

“Pending” with no date is what makes people email. In Referral Clarity, a status explanation can carry an estimated resolution rule, such as order_date + return_window_days. The affiliate then sees when the referral should move on, and doesn’t have to ask.

Keep the rule honest. If your payout run happens on the 15th and referrals clear after a 30-day window, the date the affiliate sees should reflect both, not the most optimistic one.

What should the welcome email say about pending?

Something short and specific. Here’s wording you can adapt, written for a shop with a 30-day return window and payouts on the 15th:

“When someone buys through your link, the sale shows up as pending straight away on our side. It stays pending for 30 days, our return window, so a refunded order never turns into a commission you’d have to pay back. After that it moves to unpaid, and unpaid referrals are paid on the 15th of the next month, once your balance is over $50. If an order is refunded or cancelled, the referral is rejected and you’ll see why.”

Change the numbers to your own. Don’t promise a date you can’t keep: if payouts sometimes slip because you batch them by hand, say “around the 15th”.

Can affiliates get updates without logging in?

Yes, if you allow it. In Referral Clarity’s settings, Allow affiliates to opt into their own performance digest adds an opt-in to each affiliate’s Settings tab. Affiliates who tick it get their own performance digest by email.

That matters for the affiliates who email most, the ones checking daily after a promotion. A digest answers “anything new?” before they think to ask. Leave the setting off if you’d rather keep all communication in the dashboard.

What should admins check first when an affiliate asks?

1. Find the referral under AffiliateWP → Referrals and note its status.
2. If it’s pending, open the order it belongs to. Is it still processing, on hold, or awaiting payment?
3. If it’s rejected, check whether the order was refunded or cancelled, and whether a fraud rule rejected it. Our guide on spotting affiliate fraud in AffiliateWP explains those rules.
4. If there’s no referral at all, check the affiliate’s visits. No visit recorded usually means the customer didn’t arrive through the affiliate’s link, or their browser blocked the tracking cookie.

That last case is the hardest conversation, because there’s nothing to show. Having the rules written down (step 1) helps a lot here.

What won’t fix the emails

• Marking referrals unpaid early. It makes the number appear, but you’ll be claiming money back when orders are refunded, and that’s a worse email.
• Turning off pending altogether. Pending exists so refunds don’t become commissions. Keep it and explain it instead.
• Replying with a screenshot of your admin screen. It answers this sale. The next sale brings the same email, from the same affiliate.
• A longer FAQ nobody reads. Affiliates look at their own dashboard, not your help pages. The answer has to be where the referral is.