The PPS vs. Revshare debate has been going on for many years and, like JustMe mentioned in his post, for the most part, PPS sites dont make money by keeping the surfer on their site, they make their money by sending the surfer to a variety of upsells both in and, outside of the members areas.

In essence, when utilizing a PPS business model, the sponsor actually loses money for the first month or two upon opening their program and it is only once they start to see a good 'flow' of traffic that they actually start to make a profit. Mark Tiarra posted an analysis of the figures he had seen over the past 8 or so years of working with PPS and Revshare sponsors on another board a month or two ago and those figures were quite simply amazing.

The PPS business model does make a webmaster more money in the short term however, the same can also be said for revshare model paysites especially if their members area arent up to scratch.

My own experience has taught me that running a revshare program is definately the way to go for the start of an affiliate program, you get to judge how much traffic your affiliates are sending you and, you also get to see what happens INSIDE the members area and how you can successfully play with them to make the best surfing experience for your paid members.

After several months of running a revshare program, you may have also noticed that many sponsors start to raise their payouts, this is because they have either spent the time to build an impressive members area or, they need more traffic to build on the existing members area.

You might also have noticed that many of these programs once they raise their revshare percentage within a month or two tend to turn to both a revshare and a PPS business model, using the revshare funds they keep to supplement the payouts on the PPS affiliates in addition to using it to further improve not only on their members areas but also in their marketing presence.

Personally, we use a mixture of revshare, pps and PPC sponsors, the PPS sponsors get used on 'shitty' sources of traffic for a quick 'hit' of funds whilst the revshare sponsors get utilized on more 'quality' traffic where most of the time, signups generated to our revshare affiliate program often surpass the payouts on the PPS sponsors beause their members areas retain, giving us long term revenues.

Ultimately however, it will all depend on how you decide to profit from your traffic, if you make more on revshare, use revshare, if you make more on pps, use pps, if you make more on CPM or CPC use those payout models.

Regards,

Lee