Is ClickBank a Scam? The Truth Behind The Complaints
Quick verdict
ClickBank is not a scam. The company was founded in 1998, holds an A+ BBB rating, and has paid out over $6.7 billion to affiliates and vendors. The scam accusations come almost entirely from low-quality vendors hosted on its open marketplace – not from ClickBank itself. However, dormant account fees, high refund rates on certain offers, and subscription upsell confusion are real issues that new users routinely walk into unprepared.
Key takeaways
- ClickBank is a 28-year-old affiliate marketplace – not a scam – but its open vendor model means product quality is inconsistent and some offers are genuinely misleading.
- The company charges dormant account fees starting at $1 per pay period after 90 days of inactivity, scaling to $50 per pay period after a year – a policy that surprises many new affiliates.
- ClickBank has banned deepfake marketing from its platform and will issue refunds on vendor violations – but users must escalate directly to ClickBank, not the vendor, to trigger that process quickly.
- Refund rates on some ClickBank digital offers run between 10% and 34%, which reduces affiliate commissions retroactively when clawbacks occur.
- No FTC action has ever been filed against ClickBank as a company – the platform itself has a clean regulatory record across its 28-year operating history.
Type “ClickBank” into any search engine in 2026 and within seconds you will find forum posts, YouTube videos, and review articles calling it everything from a “total scam” to one of the best affiliate networks online. Both camps exist, and both have real examples to point to. The truth – as it usually is – sits somewhere more specific than either extreme.
If you are wondering whether ClickBank is a scam before signing up as an affiliate or making a purchase, this article works through the actual evidence methodically: what the accusations are, where they come from, and what they actually prove about the platform versus the individual products listed on it.
As of 2026, ClickBank has been operating for 28 years, has processed enough volume to have distributed more than $6.7 billion in commissions, and carries an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. That is the baseline. The rest of this review digs into why so many people still call it a scam – and whether those accusations hold up.
What is ClickBank and how does it actually make money?
ClickBank is an ecommerce platform and affiliate marketplace founded in 1998 and headquartered in Boise, Idaho. It operates as the payment processor and commission-tracking intermediary between three parties: vendors who create and list products, affiliates who promote those products for a share of revenue, and customers who buy. ClickBank does not create products. It provides the infrastructure and handles the money flow.
The company earns money in several ways. Vendors pay a one-time $49.95 activation fee when their first product is approved. ClickBank deducts a transaction processing margin from every sale – the platform acts as the retailer of record for each transaction and pays out the vendor and affiliate their respective shares.
There is also a $2.50 payment processing charge per pay period when accounts receive payouts, and a dormant account fee structure that kicks in when affiliate accounts hold a positive balance but generate no earnings. Understanding how ClickBank earns is important context for evaluating the scam accusations: the company makes money from transaction volume and vendor participation, not from hiding money or exploiting affiliates.
Is ClickBank a scam? What the evidence actually shows
The word “scam” gets applied to ClickBank in two very different contexts, and it matters which one you are looking at. The first is ClickBank as a company – the payment infrastructure, the commission payouts, the refund processing. The second is the behavior of individual vendors who list products on ClickBank’s marketplace. These are not the same thing, but they get conflated constantly in reviews and forum threads.
On the company level, the record is clear. ClickBank has paid affiliates and vendors continuously for 28 years. It has never been the subject of FTC enforcement action. Its BBB A+ rating requires demonstrated responsiveness to consumer complaints – not simply their absence. ScamAdviser gives clickbank.com a 100 out of 100 trust score. These are not the metrics of a scam operation.
On the vendor level, the picture is genuinely mixed. ClickBank’s open marketplace model means that any vendor willing to pay the $49.95 activation fee and clear a product approval process can list an offer. The approval process screens for obvious legal violations, but it does not guarantee that every sales page is honest, that every health supplement will work as claimed, or that every income projection is realistic.
In 2026, the BBB documents 202 ClickBank-linked complaints over the prior three years, the majority of which trace back to specific vendor behaviors – deepfake celebrity endorsements, unauthorized subscription charges, and products that underdeliver on what their sales videos promise.
The specific scam accusations – and what is actually going on
Rather than treating “ClickBank is a scam” as a single claim, it is more useful to examine the specific accusations that appear repeatedly in consumer complaints and forums, and assess each one against documented facts.
Accusation 1:
✕ “ClickBank stole my money / never paid me.”
✓ What is actually happening: ClickBank withholds a 10% return allowance from every payout for approximately 12 weeks to cover late refunds – this is documented policy, not theft. Dormant account fees ($1 to $50 per pay period depending on duration) also drain balances that affiliates forget about. Neither practice is hidden, but both are buried in policy documents that most new users do not read before signing up.
Accusation 2:
✕ “The product I bought through ClickBank was a scam and they would not refund me.”
✓ What is actually happening: When buyers contact the vendor first and the vendor stalls or ignores them, the 60-day refund window can run down. ClickBank’s own support will process refunds directly when contacted within that window – even if the vendor is unresponsive. BBB complaint records show ClickBank regularly issuing full refunds and removing non-compliant vendors from the platform when complaints are escalated correctly.
Accusation 3:
✕ “ClickBank promotes fake AI celebrity endorsements and scam supplements.”
✓ What is actually happening: Some vendors have used AI-generated deepfake content in their marketing. ClickBank’s stated policy prohibits this, and documented BBB responses show the platform removing non-compliant products and processing refunds when this is reported. This is a real and ongoing vendor compliance challenge – but it is a vendor-level problem that the platform actively works to address, not a platform-level strategy.
The pattern across all three is the same: the complaints are real and the frustration behind them is valid. But in each case, the failure point is either a specific vendor’s behavior or a platform policy that caught users off guard – not a systematic effort by ClickBank as a company to defraud people.
That distinction matters for how you protect yourself, because the mitigation strategies are completely different depending on which problem you are dealing with.
What do real users say about ClickBank?
Across Trustpilot, Reddit, and the Warrior Forum, the split in ClickBank user experiences tracks almost perfectly with whether someone went in with realistic expectations and a methodical product-selection approach, or whether they relied on a high-commission sales page and assumed income would follow automatically.
These two stories illustrate the two most common legitimate grievances – neither of which makes ClickBank a scam, but both of which represent real friction points that the platform could communicate far more clearly to new users. The refund system works when used correctly. The dormant fee structure is real and consequential. Both are problems of expectation management, not fraud.
How does ClickBank compare to alternatives that have fewer quality-control issues?
If the open marketplace model is the root cause of most ClickBank scam accusations, it is worth asking what alternatives exist and whether they solve the problem or just shift it. In 2026, several competing platforms address different aspects of what frustrates ClickBank users.
For users who want to earn online but are specifically frustrated by the unpredictability of promoting third-party vendor products, the comparison above illustrates why some people eventually move away from affiliate marketplaces entirely and toward owning their own ecommerce operation.
The tradeoff is different: you take on the responsibility of running a store, but you also eliminate the vendor-quality risk and the commission clawback mechanics that drive most of the “scam” complaints about ClickBank.
Is ClickBank a scam – the honest verdict
After examining every major category of complaint, the answer is no – ClickBank is not a scam. It is a real, regulated, long-running company with verifiable payments, consumer protections, and a clean regulatory track record.
The scam label gets applied to it because its marketplace hosts vendors who sometimes behave in ways that are genuinely deceptive, and because several of its own policies – the dormant account fee structure in particular – create real financial surprises for users who do not read the fine print.
The most honest framing is this: ClickBank is a marketplace tool, not an income stream on its own. The platform works as intended. Whether what you do on that platform works depends almost entirely on which products you choose to promote, whether you understand how the commission and refund mechanics operate before you start, and whether you have a real traffic strategy.
Calling the platform a scam because a specific vendor’s product underdelivered or because dormant fees drained a forgotten balance conflates platform responsibility with user preparation.
Not a scam – but it comes with real risks that the platform does not advertise loudly enough
ClickBank is a legitimate business with 28 years of operation, over $6.7 billion paid out, and an A+ BBB rating. The scam accusations stem from specific vendor behavior and from policy details – dormant fees, commission clawbacks on refunds, and 60-day escalation windows – that catch unprepared users off guard. For buyers, the platform’s refund process works when you escalate directly to ClickBank. For affiliates, success requires careful offer vetting and an understanding of the fee structure before you start.
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Is ClickBank a scam or legit?
Why do so many people say ClickBank is a scam?
The scam accusations against ClickBank come primarily from three sources. First, some vendors on the platform use deceptive marketing tactics – including AI-generated celebrity endorsements and exaggerated health claims – that mislead buyers before a purchase. Second, high refund rates on certain offers (up to 34% on some products) mean affiliates lose commissions retroactively, which feels like theft even though it is standard policy. Third, ClickBank charges dormant account fees – starting at 1 dollar per pay period after 90 days of inactivity and scaling to 50 dollars per pay period after a year – which surprise affiliates who pause their activity without first withdrawing their balance. None of these are scams by ClickBank as a company, but all three are real problems that the platform could communicate far more clearly to new users.
Is ClickBank safe for buyers?
ClickBank is safe for buyers in the sense that it processes payments securely over encrypted SSL connections and enforces a 60-day default refund policy that buyers can invoke directly with ClickBank support if a vendor is unresponsive. The BBB documents numerous cases where ClickBank issued full refunds and removed non-compliant vendors after buyer complaints were escalated. The main risk for buyers is at the product level, not the payment level. Some vendors use misleading sales pages or aggressive upsell flows. Reading order summaries carefully, avoiding sales pages with unverifiable celebrity endorsements, and going directly to ClickBank support within the 60-day window if a problem arises are the most effective protections.
What are ClickBank hidden fees that affiliates do not know about?
ClickBank has three fee categories that affiliates frequently discover after signing up. First, dormant account fees: if an affiliate account holds a positive balance but earns nothing for 90 days, ClickBank charges 1 dollar per pay period. After 180 days the charge rises to 5 dollars per pay period, and after 365 days it rises to 50 dollars per pay period. ClickBank does not notify users when their account becomes dormant. Second, a 2.50 dollar payment processing fee is deducted from each payout period. Third, ClickBank holds a 10% return allowance from every payout for approximately 12 weeks to cover potential late refunds. Affiliates should withdraw balances before pausing activity and factor the return allowance holding period into their cash flow expectations.
How do I avoid getting scammed on ClickBank?
The most effective ways to avoid problems on ClickBank are as follows. For affiliates: check a product gravity score alongside its average percentage per sale and refund rate before promoting it; avoid offers with refund rates above 15%; withdraw your account balance before any extended pause in activity to avoid dormant fees; and do not rely on paid ads for offers that Facebook or Google restrict, particularly in health and business opportunity categories. For buyers: read order summary pages in full before confirming a purchase to identify subscription or recurring charges; avoid sales pages that feature unverifiable celebrity endorsements or medical claims with no cited evidence; and contact ClickBank support directly within the 60-day window if a refund request is ignored by the vendor, as the platform will process the refund independently.
