Binance vs Bybit Affiliate: Which Program Pays You More?

Binance and Bybit are the two exchange programs most affiliates shortlist first, and on paper they look almost identical: both pay a revenue shareRevShare You earn a percentage of the revenue a platform makes from your referred users — on exchanges, usually a share of their trading fees. More on the trading fees your referrals generate, both top out around 50%, and both pay in crypto every day. Underneath, they are built on opposite philosophies. Binance runs a transparent, rules-based ladder that re-scores you every quarter. Bybit runs a closed, negotiated deal where the rate depends on what you can show the affiliate team. This comparison goes term by term so you can work out which one suits your traffic before you apply. For the full details of each program, read our Binance affiliate review and Bybit affiliate review.

Entry requirements: published thresholds vs manual review

Binance tells you exactly what it wants. To become an affiliate (rather than a regular referrer), you need one of the following: 5,000+ followers or subscribers on a social channel, a crypto community of 3,000+ members, a website or market-analysis platform with 10,000+ users or 10,000+ daily visits, or Tier 1 in the Spot or Futures Commission Evaluation Program. You also need a verified Binance account. Sub-accounts, brokers, Binance Wealth users and users in restricted regions are excluded from evaluation. You apply through the “Become an affiliate” contact form on the Binance affiliate page.

Bybit publishes no minimum audience size at all. You apply at affiliates.bybit.com, answer a questionnaire about yourself, your audience and how you plan to promote the exchange, and wait for a manual review against criteria Bybit does not disclose. Approved partners get a dedicated affiliate managerAffiliate manager Your contact person at a program or network. They approve applications, answer rule questions and can negotiate better rates. More and a login to the Affiliate Portal.

In practice this means a small but focused site can try Bybit without hitting a hard number, while Binance gives a clear yes-or-no test. If you are below 3,000 community members and 5,000 followers, Binance’s affiliate tier is closed to you until you qualify through commission volume.

How the commission is structured: tiers vs an individually set rate

Binance’s Referral Pro uses four commission tiersCommission tier A level in a program's rate table. You move to a higher tier, and a higher percentage, by bringing more users, volume or revenue. More, re-evaluated every quarter:

You can hand part of your rate back to referees as a fee rebate (up to 20% on spot and margin), which helps conversion but comes out of your share. If Binance flags abusive referral activity, your rate can be cut to 20% spot and 10% futures.

Bybit takes the opposite route. Each affiliate’s rate is set individually and is not published anywhere. The official FAQ only confirms two boundaries: total rebates on VIP accounts are capped at 50%, and there is no cap on non-VIP accounts. The affiliate landing page claims rates “more than two times higher than industry standards”, but it gives no figure, and there is no public split between spot and futures. You find out your number when the account manager makes an offer.

Spot vs futures: where each program pays

This is where the two programs split most sharply, and where the “bybit vs binance affiliate commission” question usually gets decided.

On Binance, spotSpot trading Buying and selling crypto for immediate delivery — you actually own the coins you buy. The simplest kind of exchange trading. More and margin commissions have no stated time limit, but they stop once a referred user reaches VIP 3 or higher. That matters if you attract whales: your best traders can graduate out of your spot income. FuturesFutures Contracts that let traders bet on a coin's price, often with leverage, without owning the coin. They create high volume and high risk. More commissions at tier 0 last only one year after the referee opens a Futures account; from tier 1 upward they have no time limit. So a new affiliate stuck at tier 0 earns 10% on futures for twelve months per user, while a tier 1 affiliate earns 30% for as long as the user trades.

On Bybit, the commission is lifetime for the referred account and both maker and taker volume count. There is no published VIP cut-off; instead the 50% total-rebate cap applies to VIP clients. The catch is activity: if a referred user does not trade for 180 consecutive days, Bybit may end the relationship and that user is no longer yours, even if they come back later.

What each exchange counts as the commission base

Both programs pay on net fees, not gross. Binance calculates spot and futures commissions on net fees after market-maker rebates. Bybit uses “trading fee profit”: trading fees minus market-maker rebates minus bonuses and coupons used by the referee. The Bybit definition is slightly wider, because welcome bonuses and coupons your referees redeem reduce your base too. If you push Bybit’s promotional campaigns hard, expect the base to shrink accordingly. You can see the calculated base in the Affiliate Portal.

Sub-affiliate layers: Co-Inviter vs Master-Affiliate

Both exchanges let you recruit other promoters under you, which is useful if you run a network of channels or manage smaller creators. Our sub-affiliate programs guide covers the model in depth.

• Binance Co-Inviter Program. Once your spot or futures rate is 30% or higher, you can create up to 50 Co-Inviter links and give each Co-Inviter up to 40%. The Co-Inviter’s share plus the referee’s rebate is capped at 45% and can never exceed your own rate. In effect, what remains of your rate after those shares is your margin on that sub-affiliateSub-affiliate An affiliate you recruit into a program. You earn an extra commission on what they bring in, on top of your own direct referrals. More‘s traffic. An account manager can grant extra Co-Inviter links.
• Bybit Master-Affiliate. A master affiliate earns a 10% override of each sub-affiliate’s rebate. On VIP clients the combined rebate still cannot exceed 50%, so if a sub-affiliate is set at 50% on a VIP client, the master earns nothing on that client.

Binance’s layer is more flexible for building a team because you control the split per link. Bybit’s is simpler but gives you less margin to play with on high-value clients.

Payout timing and currency

Binance converts your commission every hour and deposits it to your Spot account in USDC within 6 hours. There is no minimum payout. Because the money lands on the exchange, you then withdraw or convert it yourself.

Bybit disburses daily by 4 AM UTC into the Affiliate Portal. Clicking “Withdraw” moves the balance instantly to your linked Bybit trading account, and from there you can withdraw it as crypto. The landing page says compensation is paid “in a cryptocurrency of your choice”; USDT is among the options. Bybit does not publish a minimum payout.

Either way, you are paid in crypto into an exchange account, so both suit affiliates who are comfortable holding stablecoins. If crypto payouts are a priority, our list of affiliate programs that pay in crypto has more options.

Restricted regions: who you cannot send

Binance.com does not serve the United States; Binance.US is a separate company with its own referral program. Binance also excludes Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, the Crimea region and other jurisdictions on its prohibited-countries list.

Bybit’s list is longer: the United States, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Crimea and Sevastopol, the non-government-controlled parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Sudan and Syria. Bybit has also wound down services in Japan. Regional entities such as Bybit EU and Bybit TR run their own affiliate terms.

If your audience is mostly in the United States, neither program works. For any other geo, check both lists — Binance’s full prohibited-countries list sits in its Terms of Use — before you build content around it.

Traffic rules and compliance pitfalls

Binance’s rules are written down. It bans posting referral links as ads on search engines (Google, Bing, Baidu), lookalike or phishing sites, impersonating social accounts, redirecting from unofficial third-party sites, bulk or fake registrations and self-referralSelf-referral Signing yourself, or extra accounts you control, up through your own affiliate link to earn commission. Almost every program bans it. More. Users in restricted regions do not count.

Bybit’s affiliate terms page could not be retrieved during research, so its brand biddingBrand bidding Buying search ads on a brand's own name, such as 'Bitget login'. Most crypto programs ban it and can void your commissions. More and spam rules are not confirmed. What is confirmed: you must not promote in excluded jurisdictions, and referred users who already receive rebates or incentives under another Bybit program do not count toward your commission.

Worked example: the same illustrative fee volume on both programs

The numbers below are illustrative fee volumes, not a forecast. Assume your referred users generate $4,000 in net spot fees and $6,000 in net futures fees in a month, and you share no rebate with them.

If you give referees a 10% spot rebate at tier 1, your spot share drops from 30% to 20%, cutting the spot line from $1,200 to $800.

Bybit cannot be filled into the same table because its rate is private. What you can do is set a target: on the same $10,000 base, every 10 percentage points of negotiated rate is worth $1,000. To match Binance tier 1, you need an offer of 30% or more; to match tier 3, you need 50%, which is also Bybit’s ceiling on VIP clients. Remember that Bybit’s base also deducts bonuses and coupons, so if $500 of that illustrative $10,000 were coupons, a 30% rate would pay $2,850 rather than $3,000.

Time changes the picture too. A tier 0 Binance affiliate loses futures income on each referee after one year, and spot income stops on any referee who reaches VIP 3. A Bybit affiliate keeps earning on active referees indefinitely but loses anyone who goes quiet for 180 days.

Which audience fits which program

Binance fits creators and communities who already clear its thresholds and want predictable, published economics. A Telegram channel with 3,000+ members, a YouTube channel with 5,000+ subscribers or a market-data site with 10,000+ daily visits can apply knowing the rate ladder in advance. The Co-Inviter layer also makes Binance a strong choice for agencies and KOLKOL Key opinion leader: an influencer with an engaged audience, such as a YouTuber, an X account or a Telegram channel owner. More managers who distribute links to smaller creators.

Bybit fits affiliates with a derivatives-heavy audience who can negotiate: futures signal groups, trading-tool developers and educators whose referees trade often. Lifetime commission rewards an active audience, and the dedicated account manager helps if you need creatives, which Bybit supplies as banners, videos and a marketing kit. It also suits sites below Binance’s thresholds that want to try a manual application.

Choose Binance if… / choose Bybit if…

Verdict

If you have the audience, Binance is the safer starting point: the rates are public, the tiers reward growth, and payouts arrive every hour. Its weak spots are the quarterly re-evaluation, the one-year limit on tier 0 futures and the VIP 3 cut-off on spot. Bybit is the better bet when your audience trades derivatives heavily and you have the numbers to negotiate, because a lifetime rate on active traders can outpace a fixed ladder. Get the offer in writing before you move traffic. Compare them with other exchanges in our crypto exchange affiliate programs category, read about choosing a payment model in CPA vs RevShare vs hybrid, or check the highest-paying crypto affiliate programs.