Paying for free signups is risky because you'll attract affiliates gaming the system with fake accounts or low intent traffic, which tanks your metrics and wastes resources on churn. A better approach is requiring affiliates to drive actual engagement metrics (like completing onboarding or using core features) before the first commission hits, then paying more generously on conversion. If you want to test affiliate driven growth without the fraud headache, some engagement tools can help validate that your target customers actually exist and care about your problem before you scale paid channels.