Starting an Affiliate Program

I'm in the process planning an affliate program for my webhosting company- is it better to purchase an affiliate program software to install on the server, or use a third party affiliate program like shareasale.com?

I would love to hear any personal experiences in this area! :)

Well this is a little hard to tell.

On the one side if you buy an affiliate program and install it to your server, you have the advantage of customization. This way you will be able to do whatever you want to the script in order to make it work better with your site.

On the other hand automated hosted solutions like shareasale.com and others will give you affiiates as you are about to use their affiliates. Something I don't like about them is that :

1) You don't actually own the affiliates
2) Your clients may dislike this and won't take you seriously.

Thanks for your input! :)

I was thinking the exact same thing about hosted affiliate solutions- but the good thing is, they've already got an established member base.

But I think I'll go with buying an affiliate program.

then again, clients may see a third party system as more reliable

i know most people prefer a third party, to make sure they get their money on time! but it's a lot cheaper if you do it yourself!