For a blogger or a website owner it is very essential to find the best affiliate programs to promote so that you will get the best returns on your hard work. Otherwise you may find all your efforts useless.
There are some Affiliate Programs which are not only hard to sell but also pays a very low commission.
The low conversion rate can be due to the lack of market reputation or it may lack brand awareness or may not have good features to attract customers.
Best Affiliate Programs are generally found in the niche of Hosting, Marketing Tools, Education and Health. Digital Products Affiliate Program are also best which offer good commission for affiliates.
Disclaimer: Some of the links in this guide are affiliate links and if you purchase any product or service through my link, I may earn some commission at no additional cost to you. I have recommended only those Affiliate Programs which I can vouch for being the best in terms of generating revenue for your affiliate blog. Our full affiliate disclosure can be read in the Privacy Policy Page.
Top 7 Highest Paying Affiliate Programs are
- ClickFunnels –You will earn affiliate commission from $38 to $798 and more.
- Hubspot – You can earn up to $1000 per sale.
- Thinkfic – Upto $675 which goes near about $950 with additional bonus.
- Kinsta – Affiliate Commission ranges from $50-$500.
- Bluehost – Commission of $65 for each sale.
- Liquid Web – Commission range $150-$7000
- WP Engine – Minimum commission $200
What are the important metrics while choosing Best Affiliate Programs?
Before you choose an Affiliate Program you should consider the following:
Market Reputation
It must have some market reputation and have been liked by its users. To weigh its reputation, you can check its reviews on the internet and see what the users are saying.
Brand Awareness
Apart from reputation it is easier to sell a product or a service if it has a brand awareness and is common among users. You are not required to stress more on its quality or its features.
Commission Amount
Focus on Commission Amount and not on Commission Rate.
Affiliate Commission Rate is the percentage of sale while the Affiliate Commission Amount is the total money which the company pays to the affiliate on each sale.
The Commission Rate may be more but if the price of the product is low it is not worth your time and effort promoting it. For example, the commission percentage of a product may be 50% but if the product’s value is 3% you will get only $1.5 as commission.
That is why I recommend you to go with a high commission amount.
I am not telling here that you only promote products or services which have a value of more than $1000 but at least it should be a substantial amount so that you can make some money out of it.
Average Order Value
You should focus on higher Average Order Value.
Average Order Value is the average amount spent each time when a customer orders a product or service on a website. It is calculated through dividing total revenue by the number of orders.
Average Order Value = Revenue/Number of Orders.
An important benefit of high Average Order Value is that you will earn more money on each sale.
Cookie Duration
Choose products which have a longer cookie duration as it helps in generating revenue even if a user purchases a product days after clicking on your affiliate link.
When a customer visits the company’s site through your affiliate link a value is stored on the customer’s computer which is defined as a cookie and the duration for which it remains in the customer’s computer is called the cookie duration.
Take this example:
Your blog’s visitor may click on one of your affiliate links but may not purchase the product at that moment.
It may happen that the visitor may again visit the company’s website after some time or even a few days later to purchase the product.
In such cases cookies help companies to identify that a particular sale has been generated through your affiliate link.
Cookie gets stored in the customer’s browser for its fixed duration.
Web Hosting Affiliate Programs
1. Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the most sought for hosting companies which host around 2 million websites worldwide and is among the top recommended hosting by WordPress.
Its basic plan starts just @$2.95/month and you will get a minimum commission of $65 per sale as a one-time payout which can go up to $130.
It has high conversion rates due to its low price and that can be seen from the fact that last year alone Bluehost paid around $5 million in commission.
The payment is made between the 16th and the end of each month.
Bluehost is popular among Affiliate Marketers as:
-It has high commission as well as high conversion due to its low cost.
-It’s free to join with reliable tracking with 45 days cookie life
-It provides access to attractive custom banners and links to promote.
2. Hostgator
You can earn high commission starting from $65 up to $100 by promoting Hostgator. The hosting costs are very low in the market which leads to high conversion.
You can also create custom coupons for your customers, embed tracking links, banners, and email templates.
It has a cookie life of 60 days and is free to join but it is advisable to join their Affiliate Program once you gain some traffic.
3. SiteGround
Siteground also offers good commissions but the reason for which most of their affiliates endorse them is their quality of service.
Commission rates range from $50 per sale to around $100 for sale and they also offer custom commissions for more than 21 sales per month.
SiteGround has a short hold period of 30 days after the sale and it pays commissions weekly even if you make only one sale i.e. no minimum payout.
It has a cookie life of 60 days and is free to join.
It is also one of the recommended hosting companies by WordPress and it’s a popular choice of WordPress users.
4. CloudWays
CloudWays is a managed cloud hosting provider with a pay-as-you-go model i.e. they have a No Lock policy.
You can choose from two ways to earn ‘Slab’ and ‘Hybrid’.
In the Slab model you can earn a minimum commission of $50 for 1-5 sales which goes up to 125$ per sale.
While in the Hybrid model you will receive a $30 commission per sale and a recurring 7% lifetime commission till the user is with CloudWays.
You have to make 250$ for your payout.
It is again a high paying hosting affiliate program which is free and easy to join.
You can create affiliate links with their promotional banners, seasonal campaigns and exclusive deals.
It has an affiliate friendly tracking system in place with a cookie life of 90 days.
5. WP Engine
Among the hosting companies WP Engine’s affiliate program is one of the best for bloggers and it pays affiliate commission of $200 per sale or 100% of a customer’s first month payment.
For 5 sales it pays you extra $100 in addition to your $1000 commission. Similarly, if you make 10 sales you will earn extra $250.
Its affiliate program is two-tiered which means even for referring affiliates you get $50 per sign-up.
It has custom and optimized funnels which assists its affiliate to maximize their revenue.
It has a longer cookie duration is 180 days.
For promoting Studio Press Theme, they pay you commission of 35% of sales and the cookie life is 60 days.
6. Kinsta
You can earn affiliate commission from $50 up to $500 for each sale and a 10% recurring user’s lifetime commissions each month and it depends on the plan purchased by the customer.
Kinsta has a churn rate of less than 4% which means once customers sign-up with Kinsta they rarely leave and you earn recurring commissions till they remain.
Kinsta’s hosting plan starts from $30 and goes up to $500.
It pays to its affiliates in 60 days after the user signs up.
It has a real time tracking system which enables you to track your affiliate links, see your total referred page views and your recent referral subscriptions.
It has 60 days tracking cookies for ensuring affiliates credit for the sale.
Themes Affiliate Programs
1. Studio Press
You can earn 35% affiliate commission on a purchase made through your link. Its product starts from $59.95-$499.95 with a payment threshold of $50.
Its cookie life is 60 days.
2. Elegant Themes
It is a theme library consisting of well-designed themes perfect for bloggers and online publications. It is among the high converting affiliate programs in WordPress.
You get a high commission payout of 50% for each sale with a payment threshold of $58.
Moreover, you will earn recurring commission when the customers renew their service as it works on a membership model.
After joining Elegant Themes, they will give you access to text links and banners for placing it in your website.
Elegant Theme pays out to its affiliates about $3million annually.
It has a cookie duration of 180 days.
3. Thrive Themes
Thrive Themes is a well-known brand and among the best players in the industry.
As an affiliate of Thrive Themes you get 35% commission per sale plus 25 % recurring commission.
As an affiliate you get access to their banner ads for all their products and services and it also provides analytics to track your traffic, sales and also the commission.
Along with Thrive Themes you can also promote their plugins individually as well as in a package through Thrive Membership.
Even on yearly renewals by the customers you will get commission.
Plugins Affiliate Programs
1. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a very popular cache plugin among bloggers and website owners making it the best rated premium caching plugin. This plugin boosts around 10 million websites.
WP Rocket pays 20% commission for every sale and earns up to $49.80 per sale.
You can join their Affiliate Program for free and you can join it on the affiliate ShareASale.
The cookie duration is 30 days.
2. WP Forms
It pays 20% commission per sale to its affiliates who can earn up to $59.90 per sale. You can promote WP Forms via your referral link on your blog or website.
It is one of the best WordPress contact form plugins with features like conditional logic, file uploads and multi-page forms.
Page Builder Affiliate Programs
1. Elementor
Elementor Page Builder is a revolutionary website builder tool which has helped about 5 million website owners to design their web pages.
By joining their affiliate program, you are shared with half of the sale price there is 50% commission for sale.
Due to its popularity and excellent market reputation it has high conversion rates.
Affiliate partners get exclusive access to their different logos and banners
It is a very popular page builder making it position among the top 15 WordPress plugins.
The minimum payout threshold for Elementor is $200 and the cookie duration is 30 days as they have a 30-day return policy.
2. Lead Pages
With Leadpages you can make beautiful websites without any coding knowledge and easily create landing pages from more than 200 high converting templates, alert bars and pop ups.
Its annual pricing starts from $25 per month and goes up to $199 per month.
You can earn up to 50% in recurring commissions till a referral remains a lead page customer and renew or upgrade their plan.
It has a 30 days cookie life and has an affiliate tracking software to track conversions through your affiliate link.
Email Marketing Affiliate Programs
1. Convert Kit
It is a famous email marketing tool which offers visual automation used by bloggers and creators.
As an affiliate of Convert Kit, you will earn a recurring commission of 30% for every customer you send to them.
Their price ranges from $29 per to $2000 per month giving a wide earning to its Affiliates.
You can join the program for free.
2. Aweber
Aweber is also a very popular email marketing tool used by bloggers, small businesses and entrepreneurs alike. It has amazing email templates and beautiful designs.
If you join Aweber’s Affiliate Program, you can earn 30% recurring affiliate commission.
Its plan ranges from $20 to $150 per month and through CJ Affiliate you can even earn up to $300 per account.
Referral payments are made on the first of every month which are earned up until 15 days before the payment.
For United States residents affiliates a minimum threshold of $30 is required and for non-US residents affiliates a minimum of $50 must be accrued before the payment.
It has a lengthy cookie life of 365 days but with CJ Affiliate it has a cookie life of 45 days.
3. Sendinblue
Send in blue is a digital marketing platform with multiple options helping businesses with their marketing and sales through their excellent tools for email marketing, SMS, marketing automation, CRM and landing pages among others.
Affiliates can earn in two ways: Free and Paid Sign-Ups
For each successful free Sign-Up Sendinblue pays 5€ to their affiliates and if that user purchases a subscription the affiliate receives an additional 100€.
The conversion rate is high once a user creates a free account.
It uses Tapfiliate for tracking affiliate commissions in real time.
Payments are made via PayPal or bank transfer.
It has a cookie duration of 90 days.
4. GetResponse
GetResponse provides multiple marketing solutions like email marketing, automation and landing pages.
It helps its users in boosting their sales with its effective marketing campaigns, integrated email marketing autoresponders and landing pages.
GetResponse also has two great affiliate programs to choose from- One is the Affiliate Bounty Program and another is Affiliate Recurring Program.
With the Affiliate Bounty Program you will get a one-time commission of $100 per sale and with the Affiliate Recurring Program you will be paid 33% of every sale.
It also provides free materials to its affiliates like banners and videos for promotion.
As an affiliate you can even get access to all the statistics of your earnings with GetResponse.
The cookie remains fresh for a lengthy period of 120 days.
The Affiliate Program is absolutely free to join and you don’t even have to be a GetResponse customer in order to promote it.
Blogging Tools Affiliate Programs
1. SEMRush-BeRush
SEMRush is one of the top online visibility management platforms with more than 45 tools in the industry and has around 6 million users.
You will earn $200 for each SEMRush paid subscription and for every new lead you will earn $10 i.e. for users who sign up for the free trial.
They have recurring commission of 40% for each of their monthly plan i.e. Pro($99.95), Guru($199.95) and Business($399.95).
Their affiliate program named as BeRush is now an invite only program and You can join their Affiliate Program via ShareASale.
SEMRush has changed its affiliate model from first-click attribution to last-click attribution, which means the affiliate commission will be given to the last link through which the user buys the subscription.
You are not required to be an SEMRush customer in order to promote its Affiliate Program.
It has an amazing cookie life of 10 years
2. Adobe
Adobe Creative Cloud is an excellent tool which is popular among bloggers, creators and business owners.
You can earn high commissions by joining the Adobe Affiliate Program and promote its awesome products like Adobe Creative Cloud on your website.
Creative Cloud provides updated versions of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.
Commission structure for Creative Cloud:
-For each monthly subscriber – 85% of the first month.
-For an annual subscriber paying monthly – 85% of the first month.
-For an annual subscriber making a one-time payment – 8.33% of the first year.
You can join their Affiliate Program as it has an excellent reputation in the market.
It is free to join their affiliate program and it gives you a Adobe Affiliate Dashboard.
It has a cookie life of 30 days.
3. Grammarly
Grammarly is an amazing tool which helps writers, bloggers and online content marketers to correct any grammatical or spelling mistakes in their content.
With the help of this tool you and its users create quality content for your readers. Grammarly also has Chrome and Firefox extensions.
Grammarly pays you twice:
$0.20 for every free registration through your affiliate link and if they purchase the plan you get an affiliate commission of $20.
At Least you can earn $0.20 for every free registration without a pushy sale.
It has a high conversion rate of 20 to 30% and around 20 million people use Grammarly to improve their writing.
Affiliates are given activation bonus and incentives for regular performance. Also special perks are given for top performers.
It has a cross device tracking system and a generous cookie window of 90 days.
4. Ninja Outreach
Ninja Outreach helps marketers in creating effective campaigns to promote their content by filtering millions of influencers insights.
With Ninja Outreach you can get access to millions of profiles with their email and promote your content.
They pay a commission of 20% to their Affiliates.
5. Buzzsprout
It is a podcast hosting platform which has helped more about 100,000 people to start their own podcast.
With their affiliate program you can choose either one-time payment of $25 for each paid referral or 20% recurring lifetime commission.
They also give a $20 Amazon Gift Card as a bonus for each person you refer to them.
Their attribution cookies don’t expire so you will get the credit even if the customer upgrades to a paid account after years.
They give access to reach out to their helpful affiliate team which provides ideas to the affiliates for promoting Buzzsprout with their audience.
6. ClickFunnels
About 140.1K entrepreneurs are actively using ClickFunnels which is the very popular website and sales funnel builder.
New affiliates will earn 20% commission on sale of ClickFunnel subscriptions.
After you start earning $1000 per month you can apply for an approved affiliate on approval and earn 30% monthly recurring commissions.
ClickFunnels pays up to 40% as monthly recurring commissions.
Freelancing Websites Affiliate Program
Fiverr
Fibre is one of the world’s largest online marketplace for freelancing services. It provides an easy to use dashboard for your campaigns management.
About 5.5 million people use this platform and their gig is purchased every 4 seconds.
It is one of the easiest affiliate programs to promote. Affiliates can go with Fiverr CPA or with Fiverr Hybrid Model.
You can earn upto $150 with Fiverr CPA or get $10 CPA and 10% revenue share with Fiverr.
It provides freelancing services suitable for most of the business. So if you’re into blogging your audience might need to hire freelancers and you can promote the Fiverr Platform to hire freelancers.
The cookie duration is for 30 days
Website Builder Affiliate Programs
1. Wix
Wix is one of the world’s leading website builder platforms with over 109 million users globally.
As an affiliate you will be provided with all the tools to promote Wix on your blog or any other platform.
You will be paid $100 for each sale as an affiliate and to boost conversions you are supplied with creative resources to use on your blog like banners and landing pages.
The minimum payout threshold for Wix Affiliates is $300 and the cookie is valid till 30 days.
2. Weebly
Weebly is a powerful website builder platform where users get access to different web page designs which are customizable. Various tools are provided to build your website easily.
It starts with a free plan which can upgrade up to $25 for websites and for online stores it starts with $12 and goes up to $38.
They pay a recurring commission of 30% to its affiliates and they have a lengthy 120 days cookie duration.
Weebly Affiliate Program is hosted in ShareASale which is an affiliate marketing network which helps affiliates in monitoring and tracking their affiliate links and commissions in real-time.
Commissions are paid by ShareASale to affiliates on the 28th of every month with a minimum payment threshold of $50 or more.
You can join the Weebly Affiliate Program for free.
Education Affiliate Programs
1. Thinkific
Thinkific is a platform for creating and selling courses online. If you have an audience of content writers or entrepreneurs who want to create courses and share their expertise online you can promote Thinkific with them.
Over 50,000 course creators are already selling their courses on this platform.
With Thinkific Affiliate Program you can earn up to $1100 per year for a single referral per year.
They also pay affiliates 20% recurring commission on their monthly and annual paid plans with an additional bonus for annual sign up. Payments are made on the 20th of every month.
You can join the Thinkific affiliate program for free.
2. Teachable
You can create an online course and sell them using Teachable platform.
Teachers, bloggers, website owners and many others use Teachable large platform to share their knowledge with students and earn a passive income.
They pay 30% ongoing monthly commissions which is one of the highest in the industry and provide various conversion optimized funnels to drive sales.
Affiliates can access their code easily in the affiliate portal and every page is tracked.
Cookie window is provided for 90 days.
Travel Affiliate Programs
1. TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is an online travel giant which is famous for providing valuable traveler reviews for a particular destination.
They have around 795 million traveler reviews on their platform and provide information on around 1.4 million places to stay.
You can work with TripAdvisor as an affiliate and earn a minimum commission of 50%.
When a traveler clicks your affiliate link and book a particular hotel via TripAdvisor you are at least paid a 50% commission.
Similarly, you can earn commissions on holiday packages and other activities booked through your affiliate link.
There is no minimum traffic requirement to join TripAdvisor’s Affiliate Program and you can apply even if you have just launched your travel blog or any other travel platform.
They offer a 14-day cookie window.
2. Travelpayouts
Travelpayouts is one of the best CPA travel affiliate networks. They have affiliate programs for flights, car rentals, hotels, tours and activities at one place.
The platform is home to around to 40,000 affiliates with 60 + travel affiliate programs.
It provides a dashboard with transparent statistics of your performance in detail.
Affiliates are paid on a monthly basis with different payout methods.
Commissions are different and depend upon the nature of the booking. In flight tickets you may earn commission ranging from 1.1% to 1.5 % of the ticket price and for hotel bookings you can earn up to 5% commission.
3. Skyscanner
Skyscanner is one of the leading global travel platforms for booking flights, hotels and car hire through instant comparison.
Skyscanner Affiliates receive commission starting at 20%.
It has a short payout window and you are paid even if the user applies a coupon code.
With the Skyscanner Affiliate Program you can get access to text links, banners and their search widgets showing travel insights.
4. Expedia
Expedia is one of the largest travel companies with a world-renowned affiliate team.
They have around 2,60,000 properties in their inventory and 400 plus Airlines which attracts over 60 million unique visitors per month.
It has a high conversion rate due to its high brand awareness and trust among travellers.
They provide full support to their affiliates with tools store fronts and data feeds to drive traffic.
You can join our affiliate program through CJ Affiliate with quick and easy steps.
The commission ranges from 2% to 6% and has a 7-day referral period on CJ Affiliate.
5. Booking.com
Booking.com has around 2 million properties listed in their site with over 29 million bookable rooms out of which approximately 1 million rooms are reserved daily.
The commission which is received by Booking.com is generally 15% and goes upto 20% out of which they share 4% commission with their affiliates.
They have an extensive network of 12500 + affiliates and have a dedicated team to support the affiliates.
A completely customisable solution is offered to choose which properties to display on your site with options to show availability of accommodation worldwide or even to a specific region.
You can track your earnings and analyse your performance easily with the platform.
Fitness Affiliate Programs
If you are running a blog or a website in the fitness niche, you can join Fitness Affiliate Programs and promote top fitness brands and their products through your blog or website and in the process generate good revenue.
The following are the best fitness Affiliate Programs are:
1. BodyBuilding.com
With bodybuilding.com affiliate program you can earn money in two ways, the first is the Store Affiliate in which you can promote sports nutrition supplies available at their online store.
The second program is Bodyfit Affiliate which is a subscription service giving access to their exclusive fitness plans.
You will get paid on each sign up. New affiliates earn 8% commission rate on completed orders.
They have a minimum payment threshold of $50.
2. Ace Fitness
With Ace Fitness users get access to the trending fitness insights from their wide network of about 90,000 certified fitness professionals.
As an affiliate of Ace Fitness you can receive a commission of 8% one each qualified transaction.
Affiliates can use their website, blog or their social media page and promote Ace Fitness by using web banners and text links.
Affiliate Networks
Affiliate Network are websites with a cluster of different Affiliate Program at one place. It means you do not have to search for different affiliate offers individually. Rather you can visit these Affiliate Network Platforms and based on your blogs category or niche you can choose different products or services and promote them by becoming their affiliate.
The primary benefit of joining an affiliate network is that everything is at one place and you can easily track your links and monitor your growth & earnings from one place.
The best Affiliate Networks are:
1. ShareASale
ShareASale is a leading Affiliate Marketing Network who have been providing marketing solutions for the last 20 years. They have amazing tools for successful affiliate marketing.
There are about 3,900 affiliate programs spreading over 40 different categories which are promoted by around 1 million affiliates.
The minimum payment threshold is $50 which is paid on the 20th of every month.
You can find different product categories like Home and Garden, Fashion, Health, Education among others and services including SAAS (software as a service).
When you join them as an affiliate you will get access to banners, text links to promote products and services. Coupons and Deals are also supplied by merchants to promote their products.
Promotional Videos are also available to tell about a product which you can embed in your blog or your website.
You can check your commissions on real-time with the help of their powerful reporting tool.
You can receive your commissions through their different payment options but they do not pay via PayPal.
ShareASale has a dedicated support team on weekdays.
The reason for ShareASale being my #1 choice is that it has a strong reputation and over 1000 merchants including SEMRush and WP Engine have their affiliate programs exclusively in ShareASale.
As a beginner instead of hopping here and there you can join ShareASale to kickstart your affiliate marketing career and moreover it is a reliable affiliate network offering a variety of marketing options saving your time as a beginner.
2. CJ Affiliate
CJ Affiliate is one of the largest and established Affiliate Marketing Networks which you can join and partner with the best brands. It was formerly known as Commission Junction.
You can earn commissions by choosing products from more than 3000 merchants. They have been in the industry for the last 20 years.
World’s largest brands trust CJ Affiliate which includes advertisers like GoPro and Priceline and publishers like CNN, Time and Buzzfeed.
They combine all your affiliate commissions in the form of one monthly payment.
CJ Affiliate offer best insights and analytics with real time monitoring activity and reporting.
They have remarkable tools and features helping you to grow your affiliate marketing career successfully.Similarly like ShareASale it doesn’t support PayPal.
It is not recommended for beginners but for those who have some established audience enabling them to showcase their authority and work with big brands.
Here are a few common questions which may be helpful in understanding affiliate programs better.
What is an Affiliate Program?
Affiliate Program can be understood as a process by which companies pay commissions to their affiliates for the sales they generate by promoting or referring the company’s product.
The process is very simple. You have to promote the company’s product through a unique affiliate link provided by the company and if somebody purchases that product from your unique link, you will get your commission from the company.
The commissions may be in the form of one-time payment or even a recurring payment in case of subscription or membership model as long as the customer takes the company’s service.
How to join an Affiliate Program?
There are two ways through which you can join an affiliate program, one is by joining an affiliate network and another is directly joining the company through its website.
For joining an affiliate network, you have to apply and once you get the approval you will get access to different companies’ products at one place which you can easily promote.
In case of individual companies, you have to approach them and apply individually and once you get approval you can promote their product.
As a beginner you can go with Affiliate Marketing Network like ShareASale.
What are the requirements before joining an Affiliate Program?
You should create your blog or a website if you want to build a successful affiliate marketing career as only with social media pages you are not going to get much success unless you are a social influencer.
Open a bank account and a PayPal Accounts so that you can receive affiliate commissions easily.
Final Tips and Summary on Best Affiliate Programs
Before we wrap up this guide you must understand the importance of choosing an Affiliate Program wisely.
As I have explained at the beginning of this post that while choosing an Affiliate Program you must apply some important metrics like its market reputation, brand awareness, commission amount, average order value and cookie duration.
All these things have been properly explained in the introductory paragraph of this guide.
You can follow these principles and apply it to make your business profitable without much effort.
But the first and foremost step towards a successful affiliate marketing career is to launch an affiliate website.
To get started you can go with the basic plan of Bluehost which is just 2.95/ month with a free domain for 1 (one) year.
If you are a beginner who wants to start a blog and looking to earn some money online you can check these in-depth articles on how to start a blog and genuine ways to make money online.
Also, as a beginner your focus should not be on the traffic volume but on the quality of traffic. Even if you have less but targeted visitors on your website you will be able to convert more and generate good affiliate commissions.
Have I have missed any important Affiliate Program which must be in this list?
Let me know in the comments section below.