Tips & Guides — 17 Feb 2021
The Best Affiliate Programs in 2021
One of the essential ingredients for success in affiliate marketing is choosing the best programs. Suppose an affiliate marketer gets the same results with equal effort from every possible affiliate program out there. In that case, a high ticket affiliate program will bring him much more money than a program with low payouts. But in the real world of affiliate business, things are not that simple.
Unleash thousands of ad campaigns and exclusive offers from trustworthy advertisers and brands
Learn more →In fact, there is no golden rule that suits everyone for finding best affiliate programs. With time affiliate marketers figure out the unique and working criteria for themselves.
We compiled the list with some of the best affiliate programs in 2021 when it comes to their commissions, payment terms and cookie time. But before you rush to sign up for any of these programs because of their commission rate, we want to remind you about an important point. To succeed in affiliate marketing you need to clearly understand the affiliate program conditions. Do not neglect this fact.
Usually, commission refers to the percentage of an affiliate’s product sale that the affiliate receives. In some cases, affiliate payments are based on a fixed amount of money.
The commission rate may differ even within the same affiliate program. Therefore, the maximum commission rates and payouts are often indicated in the description of a program. Also, the affiliate commission rate can increase during a period of one partnership for achieving individual goals by affiliate.
The best affiliates always find a balance between different types of affiliate programs. For example, Amazon Associates pays a maximum of 10% of a sale. And let’s say an affiliate program with a 40% commission will cover many sales under the Amazon program with one deal. Thus, for affiliate marketing to become your daily job, you need to find something in between regarding the affiliate programs’ commission structure.
It’s even better when you receive some payouts during all customer’s activities. Recurring lifetime commissions earn you money for every purchase one of your referrals makes, not just a commission on their first purchase alone. So pay attention to it.
Another equally important criteria for choosing the best affiliate program is cookie lifetime. It’s a technical term that defines a time duration within which you can receive a commission for purchase from an affiliate link.
Basically, you don’t want someone to make a purchase using your referral link after its lifetime expires as it means that you receive nothing for this sale. Almost all affiliate programs on our list have a cookie window of at least 30 days.
Last but not least is when and how affiliates get their payouts. Today, the most common frequency of payment that affiliate programs offer in order to stand out from competition are daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly payments.
Another condition that can directly affect the timing of affiliate payments is the money threshold, in other words the minimum amount you need to achieve in order to get paid. For example, an affiliate program can withhold monthly payment to an affiliate marketer if the accumulated amount of money hasn’t reached the threshold of $100.
It may also be important through which payment system money transfers are made. Paypal is perhaps the most demanded financial service, but it doesn’t operate in all countries. In general, always find out the details about the payment terms of the affiliate program you’re about to join.
When compiling our list, we paid attention to all mentioned above terms and conditions of affiliate programs. So let’s jump into the best affiliate programs for 2021!
Wix is a website builder that allows people to create a website for business or personal interests, even without basic programming knowledge. With over 100 million users, Wix is a strong competitor to alternatives like WordPress.
The Wix affiliate program stands out favorably against the background of competitors. The payout for each premium user an affiliate brings is $100. The cookie lifetime is 30 days. Probably the only drawback of this affiliate program is the monthly payout threshold of $300.
Semrush is a collection of different SEO tools that make digital marketers’ life significantly easier. By using Semrush keyword research, you can markedly improve the search engine rankings of your website. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this SEO platform has to offer.
The Semrush affiliate program offers a decent commission of 40% and cookie durations up to 90 days. But what makes this program really attractive is a large amount of promotional material provided and the monthly BeRush Contest with a $100 prize for the best content.
Shopify is a well-known eCommerce platform for creating websites. They provide everything to help any seller or blogger to build their online store.
As for the Shopify affiliate program, everything is pretty attractive here too. The company provides a commission of 200% for beginners. If you become their premium affiliate, you can receive payments up to $2,000 per month.
Everyone knows Apple. It is one of the company’s that doesn’t require any introduction. And yet, not everyone knows about Apple affiliate programs. Referral sales of movies, TV shows, books, audiobooks through Apple apps can earn you up to 400% commission with a fair cookie duration of 30 days.
Bluehost is one of the top web hosting companies in the world. They provide a free domain name, easy WordPress setup, and quality support.
The payment of $65 for each qualified referral offered by Bluehost affiliate program may seem like a small deal to someone. However, you will not have a lack of sales. It’s the characteristic of promoting popular services. Besides, Bluehost has a sister company, Constant Contact, which is engaged in email services. It also has its affiliate program with a commission of $105 per sale.
ClickFunnels is a software company that gives you tools to create landing pages and sales funnels.
You can join the ClickFunnel affiliate program for free and earn a recurring commission of 40% on all sales. Considering that their product is priced in the range of $100 to $300 per month and is in good demand by email marketing experts, this is not bad. The company also provides free training on marketing promotion.
Convertkit is a set of email marketing tools that best suit the needs of bloggers, podcasters, and creatives.
If you are comfortable working with this niche, Convertkit has an excellent offer for you. Their affiliate program offers recurring 30% commission, monthly payments without threshold, and 60 days cookies lifetime.
WP Engine is one more web hosting company on our list with a really nice affiliate program. The hallmark about WP Engine is that their web hosting services are quite expensive. Respectively, the affiliate commission is also very high.
The WP affiliate program offers a $200 commission for the sale or 100% from the customer pay for the first month of web hosting. Cookies’ life is up to 6 months, and they have commission tiers with bonuses from $100 for every five sales. It’s definitely worth a try.
Aweber is a simple tool for automated email marketing with design templates and technologies to improve interactions with your direct messages.
With the Aweber affiliate program, marketers earn 30% recurring commission, and the cookie lifetime is an incredible 365 days.
Due to the infamous events of 2020, many are still forced to work remotely. Fiverr platform helps such people and freelancers to find jobs. Fiverr users offer their online services, and such opportunity has now become in demand more than ever.
The Fiverr affiliate program is also quite popular among affiliate marketers. The commission for every first-time buyer of the Pro Services package is $150, and you can get up to a $1000 through Fiverr hybrid commission plan (CPA + Revshare).
GetResponse helps with various marketing activities. The company offers a range of tools for email marketing, creating landing pages, conversion funnels, hosting webinars, and more.
GetResponse provides a choice of two affiliate programs. Affiliate Bounty Program gives a one-time commission of $100 per sale, and Affiliate Recurring Program is about a long-term income of 33% of sales. The company also provides promotional materials, and tracking includes a 120-day cookie life.
Kinsta is a WordPress hosting platform. It’s well-known for a high level of service and support. Obviously, it’s not cheap, which is at the same time a nice bonus for affiliate marketers as the Kinsta affiliate program pays $500 per sale. As if this is not enough, the offer includes a 10% recurring commission for the customer’s lifetime. The cookie duration is 60 days.
Coursera is the largest online courses platform. There are many famous universities among the partners of the company.
Coursera has one of the best educational affiliate programs out there. They offer up to a 45% commission rate on 4,000+ courses and specializations.
Liquid Web has been selling managed WordPress hosting and cloud hosting for enterprises for over 23 years now. This company also boasts perhaps one of the most expensive affiliate programs.
Liquid Web offers its partners a 150% commission per sale. Considering their services’ prices, payouts to affiliates can be up to $7,000 for a single sale. The cookie lifetime is also quite good – 90 days.
StrongVPN, for many years, established itself as a reliable VPN service provider. They are also known for their affiliate program with a 200% commission rate, the largest in the industry. Another good reason for joining the StrongVPN affiliate program is that it’s absolutely free.
Grammarly’s primary goal is to improve your writing. You can detect errors and adjust the style and tone of your text with this tool’s help.
The Grammarly affiliate program pays $20 from each purchase of the premium plan. It also stimulates affiliates with tiny money rewards for each free registered referral. If your audience might be interested in improving their writing, joining the Grammarly program might be the right decision.
HubSpot is an all-in-one SaaS marketing platform that combines marketing, customer service, and CRM tools. We’ve already mentioned a wide range of HubSpot partner programs in one of our previous blog articles. Their in-house affiliate program also has three different plans. Starter/Basic plan offers $250 payment, Professional/CMS pays $500 per sale, and Enterprise can earn you up to $1,000 for one deal. The HubSpot affiliate program has a generous 90-day cookie window.
Canva is a free graphic design platform that makes it much easier to create social media banners, posters, newsletters, and presentations.
Although the Canva affiliate programs offer only $36 for purchasing their pro versions, it’s a trendy tool among designers. Therefore, choosing such an affiliate program can also be very profitable due to its conversion rate.
Of course, this is far from the entire list of worthy affiliate programs that existed out there. Still, we believe you can successfully push your affiliate career forward with these top picks.
Are you hesitant to make affiliate marketing your part-time or main job? Look at our research on how much you can earn in affiliate marketing in 2021. Perhaps this information will help you make the final decision.
Suppose you don’t want to advertise but rather promote your own online business using affiliate marketing. In that case, you can first see our step-by-step guide on creating your successful affiliate program.
Written by
Content Manager
Edgar is a Content Marketer obsessed with analytics & performance statistics. Edgar loves leveling up professionally and search for new effective ways to deliver quality content. After that, he’ll take every opportunity to take on exciting adventures with his GF.
See all articles →
