JVZoo vs ClickBank comes down to who sells to your buyer. On JVZoo the fee is 5% per sale, there's no activation fee, and you approve every affiliate. ClickBank buys the product from you and resells it, keeps 7.5% + $1 of each sale, charges $49.95 once your first product is approved, and pays your affiliates itself.
Both run upsell funnels on their own order form, both send your server a notification for each sale, and neither one builds or tests your sales pages.
If I were launching a new digital product to marketers, I'd start on JVZoo for the fee and the control over affiliates.
Most "JVZoo vs ClickBank" posts are written for affiliates choosing what to promote. This one is for vendors choosing where to list. We make ElasticFunnels, which supports JVZoo and ClickBank as merchants, so every JVZoo and ClickBank fact below comes from JVZoo's and ClickBank's own help pages, opened on 19 October 2026. If you want the deeper look at one side first, there's a full JVZoo review and a step-by-step ClickBank funnel tutorial.
JVZoo vs ClickBank at a glance
The rows a vendor checks first, side by side.
| For vendors | JVZoo | ClickBank |
|---|---|---|
| Fee per sale | 5%, or 8.5% with JVZoo processing | 7.5% + $1 (Klarna sales 9.8% + $1.30) |
| One-time fee | None | $49.95 when the first product is approved |
| Who sells to the buyer | JVZoo's cart, paid into your processor or JVZoo's | ClickBank, as the reseller |
| Your payout | After the 30-day refund period, $100 first payout | Weekly or every two weeks, on Fridays, $5 per payment |
| Who pays affiliates | JVZooPay, every 3 days to 3 weeks by affiliate level | ClickBank, on its weekly or two-week schedule |
| Product approval | JVZoo Compliance Team, FTC-based guidelines | Business Services, results in 3 to 5 business days |
| Affiliate approval | You approve each one (auto-approve optional) | Instant for most offers, per ClickBank |
| Upsells | Funnel Builder, one-click upsells, up to 3 bumps | Pitch Flow, upsells charged to the first order's card |
| Sale notification | JVZIPN, signed with your secret key | Instant notification, encrypted with your secret key |
| Affiliate tracking ID | tid | tid |
JVZoo vs ClickBank fees
On price alone JVZoo is cheaper, and the gap is widest, as a share of the price, on cheap front ends, because of ClickBank's flat $1.
| Fee on one sale | JVZoo (5%) | ClickBank (7.5% + $1) |
|---|---|---|
| $27 front end | $1.35 | $3.03 |
| $47 front end | $2.35 | $4.53 |
| $100 sale | $5.00 | $8.50 |
| $297 upsell | $14.85 | $23.28 |
Illustrative prices, JVZoo or ClickBank fee only. On JVZoo, if you use your own processor, its fee comes on top. ClickBank is the processor, so its fee is the whole charge, and it adds $5 per payout, $0.50 or $1 per refund and the one-time $49.95 (ClickBank fees, JVZoo FAQ).
I wouldn't pick one on this table, though. A few points of fee is less than the difference one better upsell page makes, and that page is the part you control on either.
Payouts and who pays your affiliates
This is the real structural difference between the two.
- ClickBank is the seller of record. Its fee article says it "purchases the product from the seller at 92.5% of sale price + $1" and resells it. ClickBank collects, pays you, and pays every affiliate, weekly or every two weeks, on Fridays (ClickBank, when do I get paid).
- JVZoo runs the cart, and you pick who processes. With your own Stripe or PayPal the money arrives after the refund period. With JVZoo's processing, it's paid out on JVZoo's schedule. Your affiliates are paid through JVZooPay, every 3 days at its top level and every 3 weeks at its lowest, which also holds a 25% rolling reserve.
On ClickBank you never handle an affiliate payment. On JVZoo you choose who processes the payment, and that choice sets both your fee and when the money arrives.
Product and affiliate approval
Products
- JVZoo: the Compliance Team checks the sales page (a verified JVZoo buy button and tracking pixel), the delivery page and the copy against FTC-based guidelines: earnings claims, testimonials, timers that must do something, refund terms that match (JVZoo guidelines).
- ClickBank: Business Services reviews the product, usually within 3 to 5 business days. You need a pitch page and a thank-you page that meet its requirements, a Certificate of Insurance, and the $49.95 activation fee once approved (ClickBank, getting started).
Affiliates
On JVZoo, affiliates request each product and you approve or deny them, with optional auto-approval for affiliates you name and for JVZoo's "Premium Affiliates". On ClickBank, its own comparison page says affiliates get "instant signup for most offers" (ClickBank vs JVZoo). More reach on ClickBank, more control on JVZoo.
Upsell funnels on JVZoo and ClickBank
Both run the upsell sequence after their own order form, and both send the buyer to pages you host for each offer.
- JVZoo builds funnels in its Funnel Builder: a front end, upsell and downsell paths, and generated buy buttons and "No thanks" links for each page. One-click upsells are a switch on the funnel, and each product can carry up to 3 order bumps (JVZoo funnels).
- ClickBank uses a Pitch Flow: the list of products and the upsell and decline pages in one order. The upsell is charged to the card from the first order, and each page's accept and decline links tell ClickBank where the buyer goes next.
The trap is the same on both. Use a buy button from the wrong place (a JVZoo product's standalone button, a ClickBank link without the flow) and the front-end sale still goes through while the upsells silently never show.
IPN and tracking
Each one notifies your server about every sale, which is how a membership grants access or a funnel tool records the order.
| Sale notifications | JVZoo JVZIPN | ClickBank instant notification |
|---|---|---|
| Security | A cverify hash with your secret key | The message is encrypted with your secret key |
| Events | Sale, rebill, refund, chargeback, cancel (v1); sale, rebill, refund (v2) | Sale, rebill, refund, chargeback, cancellation |
| Retries and tests | v1 resends hourly for 72 hours; v2 does not retry | Test & Save in Advanced Tools sends a test notification |
For affiliates, both use tid on the affiliate link and hand it back in a server-to-server postback: JVZoo's {tid} with {affiliate_amount}, ClickBank's {tid} with {affiliate_earnings}. The affiliate guide explains tid and vtid on JVZoo links, and the postback URL guide walks through the round trip.
What neither notification tells you is which of your ads, headlines or pages sold. Both report the affiliate. The rest is tracking you do in front of their checkout.
Which should you choose?
- Pick JVZoo for a digital product aimed at marketers and launch affiliates, when you want the lower fee and to approve each affiliate yourself.
- Pick ClickBank when you want ClickBank to be the seller, take the payments and pay every affiliate, and you're fine with the higher fee for that.
- Run both when the product fits both crowds of affiliates and both approve it. The pages can be the same.
One funnel for JVZoo and ClickBank
If you sell through both, the funnel shouldn't care which one takes the order. In ElasticFunnels you add JVZoo and ClickBank as merchants; the pages, split tests and tracking sit on your domain, and the merchant is a setting on that domain.
- One buy tag, either cart. A
[BUY=]tag turns into the checkout link of the merchant on that domain, for the product you mapped. Point one domain at JVZoo and another at ClickBank, and the same page sells on both. - The upsell flow per domain: your JVZoo funnel ID or your ClickBank Pitch Flow ID on the funnel's domain row, and
[UPSELL=]tags on the offer pages. - Both notifications checked: ClickBank's decrypted with your key, JVZoo's verified with
cverify. Each sale, rebill, refund and chargeback lands on the click and page variant that sold it. - Split tests of up to 5 variants under one URL, judged on the JVZoo or ClickBank sales each variant brings in.
- Per-affiliate reports for affiliates on both: revenue, refunds and EPC.
Setup guides: the ClickBank funnel tutorial and the JVZoo merchant guide. Integration pages: the JVZoo IPN integration and the ClickBank vendor integration.
- Don't compare the two on fee alone. On a $47 front end the difference is about $2 a sale, and a single upsell that converts a few points better pays for that many times over.
- On JVZoo, decide who processes before launch: 5% with your own processor, 8.5% with JVZoo's, and a different payout timing for each.
- On either one, test the upsell path with a real low-price purchase before any affiliate mails. A broken flow still takes the front-end money, so nobody notices for days.
- Keep your pages on your own domain. Then adding the second merchant is a settings change instead of a rebuild.
JVZoo and ClickBank solve the same problem with a different split of the work. ClickBank does more of it for you and charges more. JVZoo charges less and leaves you more decisions. Either way, the page in front of the order form is still yours, and that's where most of the money is made or lost.
