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How We Calculate Your Savings

A transparent breakdown of the numbers behind your "Commissions Protected" estimate.

The Formula

When AffilGuard catches a broken or redirected affiliate link, we estimate how much commission revenue that catch protected. The formula is straightforward:

(Your Monthly Earnings ÷ Your Total Links ÷ 30 days) × 14 days × Issues Caught

Every number in this formula comes from either your own data or our detection system. Nothing is assumed or inflated.

Where Each Number Comes From

Your Monthly Earnings

This is the estimate you provide in your dashboard settings. We use the midpoint of the range you select. We never guess this number — if you haven't provided it, we don't show a dollar estimate at all.

Your Total Links

The number of affiliate links you're currently monitoring with AffilGuard. We divide your earnings evenly across all links. This is an approximation — in reality, some links earn more than others — but it's the most honest assumption we can make without knowing the performance of each individual link.

14-Day Detection Window

This represents how long a broken affiliate link would typically go unnoticed without automated monitoring. Every source we reviewed — from link monitoring companies to publisher case studies — describes the typical detection time as "weeks to months" for publishers who check links manually. We use 14 days as a conservative estimate at the low end of that range.

Issues Caught

The total number of unique links where AffilGuard detected a problem — broken links (404s), unexpected redirects, slow responses, or missing tracking parameters. This is a lifetime count from when you first started monitoring. Each link is counted once, regardless of how many times it was checked.

The Research Behind the Numbers

The scale of the affiliate link rot problem is well documented. The most comprehensive study comes from Trackonomics (now part of impact.com), who scanned over 7,000 web pages across 25 major publishing sites.

3–10% of live affiliate links have link rot issues at any given time

Source: impact.com — Link Rot: A Marketing Challenge That Deserves Attention

~50% of pages with affiliate links are affected by some form of link rot

Source: Trackonomics — Link Rot Study

27% of link rot issues are 404 errors — the most common type

Same source as above

Link rot costs the affiliate industry an estimated $160 million per year

Source: Trackonomics/impact.com industry estimate

What We Don't Estimate

We believe in showing you useful numbers, not impressive-looking ones. Here's what our calculation does not account for:

  • Uneven link performance. Some of your links likely earn significantly more than others. Our formula treats all links equally because we don't have per-link revenue data. This means the savings estimate for any single caught issue may be higher or lower than the real amount.
  • Traffic fluctuations. Your earnings likely vary month to month. We use your static estimate, not a rolling average.
  • Prevention value. We only count issues we actually detected. We don't speculate about issues we may have prevented by monitoring — only problems we concretely caught.

Your Data Is Private

The earnings estimate you provide is stored securely and used only to personalize your dashboard savings calculation. It is never shared, sold, or used for any other purpose. You can update or remove it at any time in your settings.