Amazon has quietly restructured its Associates program over the past several months, slashing commission rates by as much as 50%, eliminating the milestone-based bonuses that rewarded high-performing publishers, and degrading the reporting tools that affiliates relied on to optimize their campaigns, according to seven publishers and partners with direct knowledge of the changes.
The changes, which began rolling out in Asia-Pacific markets in late 2025 before landing in the U.S. around March 9, were never publicly announced.
Publishers learned of them in individual conversations with their Amazon account managers and have spent the past two months absorbing the impact and weighing how aggressively to pivot to competing platforms.
