How Affiliate-Supported Review Sites Actually Make Money
How This Site Makes Money
PornSites.co earns revenue through affiliate links. When you click a link on this site and sign up for a service or make a purchase, we may receive a commission from the company you signed up with. This commission comes from the company's marketing budget — it doesn't add to your cost. You pay the same price whether you use our link or go directly.
We're telling you this because transparency about the business model is the foundation of editorial credibility. Most adult review sites don't explain this, which makes it harder for you to evaluate their recommendations critically. We'd rather you understand our incentives and trust our recommendations because they're genuinely useful, not because they seemed objective.
How Affiliate Commissions Work
The basic model: a company (say, a cam site or studio) offers an affiliate program that pays referrers when someone signs up through their unique tracking link. Commission structures vary:
Pay per signup (PPS): A flat fee when you create an account or complete a specific action. The amount varies from $1 to $80+ depending on the platform and the action required.
Revenue share (revshare): An ongoing percentage of what you spend on the platform for as long as you remain a customer. Typical rates range from 20% to 60% of the platform's revenue from your account.
Hybrid: A combination of an upfront payment plus ongoing revenue share.
The commission structure creates incentives. A revshare model incentivizes us to recommend platforms you'll actually use and enjoy (because we earn more if you stay). A PPS model incentivizes volume — get as many signups as possible regardless of whether users stick around. We're transparent about which model applies where, because it matters for how you should evaluate our recommendation.
How This Affects What We Review
We only review platforms where we have a confirmed affiliate relationship — this is a business, and we don't write content that can't generate revenue. That's an honest limitation: we're not reviewing every platform that exists, only the ones we can monetize.
Within that set, our ratings and recommendations are based on the criteria published in our methodology. A platform paying a higher commission doesn't get a higher rating. A platform paying a lower commission doesn't get buried. Our ratings are based on pricing transparency, content quality, user experience, privacy practices, and billing honesty — not on our margin.
The reason is pragmatic, not saintly: if our recommendations are bad, you stop trusting us, and the affiliate revenue disappears. Honest recommendations are the business model, not an obstacle to it.
How to Read Any Affiliate Content Critically
Some things to watch for on this site and any other affiliate-supported review site:
Check for disclosure. Legitimate affiliate sites disclose the relationship. If a review site doesn't tell you they earn commissions, that's a red flag — not because the reviews are necessarily bad, but because the lack of transparency suggests they'd rather you didn't know.
Compare across sources. Don't make decisions based on a single review site. Our reviews are one data point. Cross-reference with other sources, user forums, and the platform's own terms of service.
Notice what isn't reviewed. If a site only reviews platforms that happen to have high-commission affiliate programs, the editorial selection is being driven by revenue rather than comprehensiveness. We're upfront about this limitation in our own coverage.
Read the cons. A review site that only lists positives isn't reviewing — it's advertising. Every platform has real downsides, and a credible review names them specifically.