Kraken

Revenue share on eligible trading fees, "up to 50%" (rates negotiated per partner). Applications are reviewed and tracking rules apply.

Kraken’s affiliate program pays a share of the trading fees your referred users generate, and the rate is set partner by partner. It can suit a crypto or personal-finance publisher with real content about trading, but it is not a banner you can drop on any page. Our view: apply if you already explain exchanges, fees or order types, and judge the offer on the commissions credited to your account, not on “up to 50%”.

Kraken affiliate program at a glance

• Model: revenue share on trading fees. Kraken says it is also open to CPA, fixed placement fees or a hybrid deal.
• Headline rate: “up to 50%” on Kraken Pro, the Kraken app and Kraken DEX, and 25% on Kraken Prop. Final terms are negotiated with each partner.
• Duration: commissions apply to referred users’ ongoing activity, not only their first deposit. Kraken publishes no lifetime promise and no cutoff, so ask before you build a project on it.
• Payouts: through Impact (fiat or USDC) for content sites, and in USDC to a Kraken account for the in-house creator program. Kraken’s help page says Impact revenue is available around the 15th of the following month and paid about 14 days later, while the affiliate agreement mentions a weekly fee: check which schedule applies to you.
• Approval: every application is reviewed, usually within about five business days.

What Kraken actually pays on

You earn on fees, not on deposits or trading volume. According to Kraken’s help page, spot and futures trading fees count, and so do spot margin opening and rollover fees. Futures funding payments and conversion fees do not. Hypothetical example: your referred users generate $200 in eligible fees in a month and your agreed rate is 30%. The theoretical commission is $60. That figure only illustrates the mechanism: it is not our earnings and not a rate Kraken has promised.

Two routes: creators or content sites

Kraken runs two tracks. The in-house program targets YouTubers, podcasters, newsletter authors and trading communities, and pays in USDC to your Kraken account, monthly by default or on demand once a threshold is reached. The Impact track is meant for media buyers, content sites and traditional affiliates. Kraken says sites and apps need pre-approval, and that the program is mainly for businesses: individuals are pointed to its separate referral program. The application asks for your social profiles and the countries you target, so choose the route that matches how your audience actually finds you.

Tracking rules that can cost you commissions

• Links do not work with browsers or extensions that block analytics or cookies, such as Brave or Adblock Plus.
• The visitor must click your link and sign up on the same device and browser. Kraken says it will not attribute those users by hand.
• Existing Kraken customers are excluded, and Kraken’s attribution decisions are final except for manifest error.
• A new referral can take up to 72 hours to appear in your dashboard.

Write your calls to action with this in mind: a tutorial that tells readers to open an account later, from another device, will leak referrals.

What can take a commission away

The affiliate agreement renews automatically every year, and Kraken may end it for convenience with immediate effect. It can also withhold, delay or claw back fees for invalid referrals, errors or fraud. You may not charge readers any fee or make misleading claims, and you must follow the financial-promotion rules that apply to you. In practice: keep your claims careful, and do not count on income that has not been paid yet.

Which content fits

Pages that explain one concrete step suit a trading platform best: how maker and taker fees work, how to read a fee schedule, how order types differ, or how to export transaction history for bookkeeping. A generic “best exchanges” list may bring clicks without telling readers why Kraken fits them. Commissions for Krak and Kraken Earn are listed as “coming soon”, so do not build pages around them yet.

Who should apply, and who should wait

Apply if you run a finance or crypto site, newsletter or channel with an active, relevant audience in markets where Kraken offers its services. Kraken’s program pages do not list restricted countries but warn that geographic restrictions may apply, and the application asks which countries you target. Check that your readers’ country is covered and that crypto promotion is allowed there. Kraken says it rejects applications from private social accounts, inactive sites and unrelated content.

Our view

Kraken is a serious option for a specialist crypto publisher: commissions follow ongoing trading activity, and the tools are those of an established platform. The weak points are the rate, which is negotiated rather than published, the absence of a stated duration, and strict tracking rules. Ask for the rate and its duration in writing, test with one well-targeted article, and compare credited commissions after a few months before adding more pages. Nothing here is investment advice, and publisher commissions are never evidence that readers will make money trading.

Public terms checked October 8, 2026. Hypothetical calculations illustrate the model; they are not our earnings.