Are you thinking about using the Clickfunnels Backpack affiliate software for your online business?
Chances are, you want to offer an affiliate program for your sales funnel. You might even be a Clickfunnels Standard plan user.
In this Clickfunnels Backpack review, you’re going to learn everything you need to know before you invest in Backpack and if it’s worth it.
Table of Contents
What is Clickfunnels Backpack?
Backpack is an affiliate management platform that was made for Clickfunnels users.
Since Clickfunnels is an internet marketing funnel software that helps entrepreneurs sell their products and services, offering an affiliate marketing system wasn’t a stretch.
Clickfunels built its own affiliate management system, Backpack. If they hadn’t have done this, their users would have to resort to a 3rd party affiliate management system.
And they can’t have that! Clickfunnels loves keeping all their tools under one roof (Clickfunnels, Actionetics, and Backpack) – more on this in the pricing section.
With the Backpack Clickfunnels affiliate software, you’re able to create an affiliate program for your business, configure your commission plans, analyze your best performing affiliate partners, associate multiple affiliate commissions to your different sales funnels, and manage your affiliate referral payments.
Clickfunnels Backpack Features
In this section, I’m going to give you an inside look of Backpack’s core features. And just a heads up, you don’t have to be tech-savvy to set up your affiliate program with Backpack.
Russell Brunson, one of the founders of Clickfunnels, guides you through the setup process with a 7-minute Backpack tutorial before you get access to Clickfunnels Backpack.
The Dashboard
First up is the Backpack dashboard area. It’s your birds-eye view of your affiliate programs.
You’ll be able to see affiliate information (affiliate count, affiliate performance, affiliate payments, and more), at a glance.
Affiliate Area
The next section is your affiliates list. Here you’ll be able to see the number of affiliates as well as detailed information that they filled out when applying for your affiliate program.
You can drill more in-depth, by clicking on an affiliate’s name, and you’ll be able to view their individual performance.
Additionally, You can add new people to this list by clicking the Add Affiliate button and manually input the affiliate’s name, email, phone, password, etc.
Commissions Area
This is a section of the Backpack dashboard that’s recently been updated. It has a different look to the previous images you’ve seen thus far.
Here, you’ll be able to review commissions earned by your affiliates.
From this commissions section, you’ll be able to see your top-performing affiliates at a glance and when their affiliate payments are due.
Payments
The next section is a bit similar to the previous section, as it also has to do with your affiliate payouts due dates, past payment history, and when future commissions will be due.
An essential part of being a product or service owner is paying your affiliates! Being an affiliate for a few private vendors that use the Clickfunnel Backpack for their affiliate programs, I can tell you affiliates love working with vendors that manage their payout dates well!
Leaderboards
Leaderboards is a recent addition to Backpack that tracks and displays affiliates rank, commissions, and more for a promotion you’re running.
For instance, let’s say you’re running your yearly 2025 Spring Sale and want your affiliates to help during the promotional dates. Well, after the promotion is over, you’ll be able to check your Leaderboards dashboard to see which affiliate did the best during the promotional time period.
Leaderboards are common in the affiliate marketing world, and it’s great that Clickfunnels users get this type of feature because now they can run affiliate contests!
Commission Plans
Moving our way through the dashboard, next is your commission plan configurations. Here, you’ll be setting up the percentage your affiliates earn when selling your products and/or services.
In this section, you’ll also be able to add tiered commissions. Clickfunnels Backpack allows you to create two-tier type commission plans.
How does this work?
To give you an idea, let’s say your best affiliate in your affiliate program sells your flagship product (and assume you have multiple products and services). Now you have a new customer thanks to that “1st-tier affiliate.”
But a month later, this new customer wants to promote your product too. So, he joins your affiliate program, and now you have a new affiliate. This new affiliate is now called a “2nd-tier affiliate.”
When the 2nd-tier affiliate starts earning money from your affiliate program, the original 1st-tier affiliate gets a certain percentage from all the new commission the 2nd-tier affiliate makes (this is usually a smaller % from first-tier commissions).
That’s pretty cool, isn’t it? You can set this up in this section of your Clickfunnels Backpack dashboard.
Here’s a detailed Clickfunnels video on how to set up a two-tier commission plan.
Affiliate Types
An affiliate type is a label you can create to categorize your affiliates.
For example, you might have an affiliate type called “General Affiliates” that is set to default. And you might have another type called “VIP Affiliates” who get a different commission percentage than affiliates in the general category.
Affiliate Funnels
This Backpack affiliate area is where you’ll associate your affiliate programs with your sales funnels.
This is a quick video by Clickfunnels showing how this process works:
As you can see, Backpack works with the Clickfunnels funnel builder and the drag and drop page builder.
Settings
The last section of the Backpack dashboard is the settings tab. Here’s where you’ll configure how you want to handle taxes and your stick cookie duration.
What I Like and Dislike About the Backpack Affiliate System
The Backpack Clickfunnels affiliate system has its pros and cons. Let’s cover them before we conclude.
Sticky Cookies (Pro)
Affiliates love “sticky cookies!” Unlike a traditional affiliate cookie, sticky cookies work for every funnel across a business’s value ladder (a term from Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson)
For example, if you promote Clickfunnels as an affiliate, you can promote all of their funnels. If someone buys Russell Brunson’s latest Traffic Secrets book and a month later signs up for Clickfunnels, I’d get affiliate commissions for both the book and the Clickfunnels software!
This is a great incentive for affiliates to sign up for your affiliate program and it is unique to Clickfunnels Backpack.
Multiple Tier Commissions (Pro)
As we covered above, the multi-tier option commissions option Backpack offers is great if you want your affiliates also to get a percentage of the affiliate commissions their affiliates get.
Currency Limitation (Con)
Currently, Clickfunnels Backpack only supports USD currency. However, you’re able to do a currency exchange via Paypal.
Clickfunnels Backpack Pricing
Backpack, by Clickfunnels, is not sold separately. It’s only available via the Clickfunnels Platinum plan, which costs $297/month.
With the Clickfunnels Platinum plan (formerly known as the Etison Suite plan), you get access to Clickfunnels, Actionetics, Backpack, and fewer limitations than the Standard, $97/month plan.
Now, this is a costly Clickfunels plan, so you have to decide carefully if your business needs an affiliate system. If it does, then consider using Backpack. This is one of the few times I recommend going for the $297/month plan.
That said, if you’re looking for a Clickfunnels Backpack discount, I recommend you check out Clickfunnel’s bi-annual and annual pricing packages. These plans are only offered through Clickfunnel’s offer Funnel Builder Secrets.
You pay more upfront with this offer, but you save on Clickfunnels, and you also get additional resources, like 12 months of Funnel Scripts, free training programs via FunnelFlix (read our FunnelFlix review here), and other perks. I’ve covered this offer in our Funnel Builder Secrets review if you want to learn more.
Final Thoughts
So, Who Should Consider Using Clickfunnels Backpack?
Naturally, people who sell products and services at one point or another want to create an affiliate program so other people can sell their products.
Affiliate traffic is one of the best traffic sources around. If you have an excellent product/service and can offer a great commission plan, affiliates are usually happy to join your program and spread the word about your product.
It’s a win for both parties! The business owner scales their business, and the affiliate gets paid a commission for every sale they make via affiliate marketing.
The question is, should you consider Backpack?
Maybe, but it depends! If you’re a product or service vendor whose been in business for a while and have a funnel that is proven to convert year after year, then I say yes!
Give Backpack a shot.
However, if you’re struggling to generate a lot of revenue from your sales funnel, then you should probably hold off on paying for an affiliate marketing management platform like Backpack until it improves.
Simply because if you’re struggling to make your own sales, affiliate sales are going to struggle too.
