The calculator Estimated vs settled commission
the product's price the buyer pays
the seller sets this per product — it varies widely
the share of orders returned or refunded — commission on those is clawed back
Your commission
What returns take out of the headline
The whole bar is the commission your sales earn on paper; the part on the right is what returns take back before it settles. Hover a segment for its figure, or open the table under the chart.
Counting the settled number, never the estimate, is the money discipline in TikTok Shop Affiliate: Basics →
How to read it The number that survives the return window
When a sale lands, TikTok shows you an estimated commission straight away — and it feels like money. It isn't yet. Orders can be returned or refunded for weeks afterward, and when they are, the commission on them is taken back. So the figure worth planning on isn't the estimate — it's the settled commission, what's left once the return window closes.
This tool projects that settled figure from a return rate you enter, and shows it beside the estimate so the gap is impossible to ignore. It's a projection, not your exact payout — real settlement depends on which specific orders come back (and can include partial refunds), and settling is a step before the money reaches your bank. But planned against the settled projection a wave of returns is an annoyance; treated as if the estimate were income, the same wave is a shortfall you already spent.
The formula, in full
Commission per sale = sale price × (rate ÷ 100). Estimated monthly = that per-sale commission × the number of sales you drive. Projected settled monthly = estimated × (1 − return rate ÷ 100) — the share of orders that don't come back. What returns take is simply the difference between the two.
A worked example
A $28 product at a 15% commission pays $4.20 a sale. Drive 40 sales in a month and the app cheerfully shows an estimated $168. But if 12% of those orders are returned, the commission on them gets clawed back — so the projected settled amount is $168 × 0.88 = $147.84, and returns quietly took $20.16. The estimate wasn't fake — it just counted money that returns can still take back before it's yours.
Edge cases the calculator handles
- A 100% return rate settles to $0 — every order came back, so no commission stays.
- A 0% return rate makes settled equal estimated. Real products rarely sit there; the point of the box is to make you enter your rate, from your own tracker, not a hopeful guess.
Common questions
What commission rate should I use?
The seller sets it, per product, and it ranges from low single digits up to a large slice — there is no standard. Use the actual rate on the product you're promoting, which you'll see in the affiliate marketplace. Current ranges, with dates, sit on the TikTok Shop Affiliate resources page.
Where do I find my return rate?
From your own settled history, not a number off a hype video. The free settled-commission tracker logs each order as it matures, so your real return rate falls out of your own data.
Is this financial advice or a guarantee?
No. It's arithmetic on numbers you enter. What you actually earn depends on the products, the platform, and buyers — none of which this box controls. It just stops you counting money that hasn't survived the return window yet.
It's one tool from TikTok Shop Affiliate — Basics, which takes someone with a phone and no following to their first real, settled commission — counted honestly, net of clawbacks.
See the TikTok Shop Affiliate series →