BuyGoods vs ClickBank: which network should sell your offer?

ClickBank vs BuyGoods for a supplement

You have a supplement offer, a funnel that converts on paid traffic, and a shortlist of two. Both networks act as merchant of record, both run their own checkout, and both have media buyers who promote health offers. Where they part is the door. ClickBank lets any seller sign up, publishes a $49.95 one-time product approval fee and 7.5% + $1.00 per sale, and puts every product through a compliance review before it lists. BuyGoods describes itself as a curated platform for experienced affiliates and vendors only, with entry by recommendation, referral or proven track record, and it does not publish a vendor fee schedule on its own site.

So the clickbank vs buygoods question is less about which is better and more about where you are with the offer. A brand-new product with no sales history has one of these doors open to it. A product with proven numbers and a contact inside the health affiliate world has both.

This comparison is built from each network's seller pages, help center and terms, read in October 2026, plus public threads where vendors and affiliates discuss both. We did not list a product on either network; how we research network fees explains the method. Where a figure about BuyGoods comes from ClickBank's own comparison page, the page says so, because a competitor's description of a rival is a claim to weigh.

The differences that matter, in one table

*Product counts are ClickBank's figures from its BuyGoods comparison page. BuyGoods' own homepage cites more than 90,000 affiliates and vendors and does not give a product count.

Access and affiliates: who can get in, who finds you

ClickBank's door is open. Its comparison page contrasts its own instant signup with what it calls BuyGoods' "manual approval required, plus industry referrals". BuyGoods says much the same thing in its own words: entry is by recommendation, referral or proven track record, and every affiliate application is reviewed by hand with proof of past performance or a referral attached. For a vendor, that cuts both ways. A first product with no history may not get a BuyGoods account at all, and the affiliates who do get in have shown they can buy traffic profitably.

An open marketplace has its own problem. Vendors in a long-running r/Affiliatemarketing thread warn that a new ClickBank listing sits in the marketplace with no gravity or stats for affiliates to filter by, so few of them ever see it, and that traffic will not arrive just because the product is listed. ClickBank's larger catalog is part of that: around 3,000 products by its own count means more competition for an affiliate's attention, too. Either way the first affiliates come from your own outreach, a JV page and a commission that is worth a media buyer's test budget.

Among nutra affiliates, BuyGoods is one of the usual next stops after ClickBank. A commenter in an r/AffiliateMarket thread on ClickBank alternatives put it in a group with Digistore24 and MaxWeb as the networks affiliates move to next. That matches how ClickBank itself frames the pair: its comparison page says it often recommends that successful offer owners open a BuyGoods account as a second affiliate channel, but only after they have succeeded on ClickBank. ClickBank has a stake in that order, so take it as a sequencing suggestion from an interested party, though it is also the only route open to a vendor without a BuyGoods referral.

Pricing: buygoods or clickbank for nutra margins

ClickBank publishes its whole fee schedule. It charges $49.95 once, when the first product is approved, and then keeps 7.5% + $1.00 of each sale, or 9.8% + $1.30 on eligible Klarna transactions. Its help center describes the mechanics: ClickBank buys the product from the seller at 92.5% of the sale price minus $1, so the fee comes off the top before the affiliate commission is split. Each payout costs $5, and 10% of each pay period is held back for about 12 weeks as a return allowance. There is no monthly fee.

BuyGoods does not publish vendor pricing on its own domain. The only tiered schedule in public is on ClickBank's BuyGoods comparison page, which lists BuyGoods vendor fees starting at 10% for sellers doing up to $250,000 a month and falling to 6% + $1 at $1 million or more a month. Treat that as ClickBank's description of a competitor until a BuyGoods vendor agreement confirms it; your own terms are set when your application is accepted.

*BuyGoods column uses the 10% tier ClickBank attributes to it, with no flat fee. On ClickBank, the $97 sale loses $8.28 to the network and the remaining $88.72 is split, so a 50% commission leaves $44.36 each for the vendor and the affiliate. For BuyGoods the fee alone is about $9.70 at that tier, and because no BuyGoods page says whether commissions are paid on the gross price or after the fee, the vendor's share cannot be worked out from public information. At high volume the attributed schedule drops below ClickBank's rate, which is the scenario ClickBank's own sequencing advice points to. The ClickBank fee breakdown lists every published charge, and what BuyGoods publishes about costs covers the little that is on record for BuyGoods.

Payout timing has the same gap. BuyGoods' blog says it can pay affiliates three times a week rather than once a month, which helps recruit media buyers who need cash flow for ad spend. It does not say whether vendors are paid on the same cadence. ClickBank pays vendors weekly or biweekly on Fridays.

Compliance and chargeback exposure for supplements

ClickBank's review is the most documented part of either network. Before a product lists, the seller submits it for a complimentary FTC/FDA and ClickBank compliance review of the product materials, the sales funnel, the promotional copy and the price points. For FDA-regulated supplements the help center adds a physical product packet: manufacturer and fulfillment addresses, label artwork as PDFs, possibly product samples, the marketing copy files, and product liability insurance with Click Sales Inc. named as additional insured at limits of at least $1 million per occurrence and $2 million in aggregate. Some categories may be sent for third-party lab testing at the owner's expense. Budget for the insurance before you apply; it is the line item most first-time supplement sellers have not priced.

BuyGoods' homepage says vendors work with compliance experts, but it publishes no supplement checklist comparable to ClickBank's, so what it asks for is something you learn during onboarding. On the buyer side, BuyGoods' terms say purchases appear on the customer's card statement as "BUYGOODS 302-200-3480" and reference a 60-day return window. That descriptor is why so much of the search traffic for BuyGoods comes from shoppers asking whether a charge is legitimate. A buyer who does not recognise the name on the statement is a buyer who disputes it, so on either network, put the network's name on your thank-you page and order emails.

ClickBank's chargeback fees are published and rise with your rate, which makes the cost of a high-refund supplement easy to model in advance. If neither network fits the offer, ClickBank alternatives and BuyGoods alternatives sort the other options by the problem each solves, and ClickBank vs Digistore24 covers the other open merchant-of-record network that nutra vendors weigh.