Best Free Affiliate Programs - My 3 favorites
If you are new to affiliate marketing or even if you have much experience, it is best to know the best free affiliate programs.
Warning: In fact, you should not have to pay to be an affiliate of any program. You are selling for them, after all. If you have to pay to sell for them, it's probably a scam.
Now that I have that warning out of the way,
What are the best free affiliate programs?
I will share my 3 favorites and tell you why they are my favorites. Then you can share which you have found to be the best free affiliate programs below.
My #1 of the best free affiliate programs is the page you are on right now, Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate pays $4 for each paid signup, then $11.25 each month from the new user's second month. Unless they pay yearly, in which case you are paid $87.50 each year that they stay a paid member.*
This program sells itself. People search to learn how to do affiliate marketing and are offered up to 20 lessons free in order to check the program out for themselves.
Anyone who is serious about making money online (which is who you will be targeting) would be crazy not to sign up for a paid membership once they see all that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer.
And Wealthy Affiliate creates a residual income, because you will be paid for as long as your referral stays a paid member.
*If you become a paid member of Wealthy Affiliate, which I highly recommend if you want ensure you are fully trained and up to date as an affiliate marketer, these payouts are doubled.
But as I said, you should not pay to be a part of an affiliate program, so the only good reason to become a paid member is to educate yourself. Again, you should become a free member first and take the first 20 lessons to ensure it is for you before you pay anything.
My #2 of the best free affiliate programs is Shopify.
Shopify is my second favorite affiliate program. It too creates a residual income if you want it too. You can choose a $358 one time payout when you refer a new shop, or you can take 20% of your referrals' bills for the life of their store.
If you are selling to the right people, I say go for the 20% as this extends your income out into the future.
My #3 of the best free affiliate programs is Amazon.
While Amazon's payout rates are much smaller than the two above and selling Amazon products alone will not likely make you rich, they have more products than any other affiliate program in the world, which makes them easy to promote.
No matter what your niche, you will likely find something on Amazon you could promote for almost any article you write.
One tip if you do use Amazon: Rather than send your users to product pages, have them add the items to their carts. How to do so is explained here.
This helps protect against the most regular complaint affiliate marketers have about Amazon: Their cookies only last 24 hours.
However, you are credited for anything your referral adds to their cart over the next 24 hours as long as they purchase it within 90 days.
So, there you have it. The 3 best free affiliate programs according to Jeremy.
Thanks for reading my blog. If you aren't already a member of Wealthy Affiliate, it's free to join! Just click the green "Create Free Account" button on the top right.
My Wealthy Affiliate profile can always be found by clicking my View Profile button to the right. Please follow me and I'll follow you back. My websites are also listed on the bottom right of my profile if you want to have a look.
Please leave any questions or comments about which you think are the best free affiliate programs below. I'd love to hear from you!
Happy affiliating!
--Jeremy
Recent Comments
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Jeremy, I tried Amazon but my DJ site does not get enough traffic yet. SO, Amazon cancelled my affiliate ID's after 90 days of no sales. I am willing to try them again but maybe another alternative like shopify or something. Can we make money another way without traffic to our site? I'm the DJ guy in W.A. ? Scotty B ♪ ♫
Hi Scotty. If you're not getting traffic to your site I recommend two things:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/jeremywest/blog/install-yoast-wordpress-seo-plugin-seo-for-the-truly-lazy
and blogging here using the same SEO techniques. It's much easier to get to the top of the google rankings here than on a new site because this site already ranks quite well.
And anyone who happens upon the site through your content (other than when it was shared by another member with their affiliate ID) is your referral.
Thanks for that tip about Amazon. When I get to that point on my website, I will remember your advice.
Well, as a new member I am still humbled by the "shares" of more expert and experienced members who are so willing to post their wisdom and share the wealth of their experience. If affords those new members like myself an opportunity to grow and learn at an accelerated pace, as we are not forced to learn by trial and error. I truly appreciate your mentality and your spirit that is willing to contribute some of your time to benefit others. Thanks!
Thank you Jeremy. I did not know Amazon had the lowest payout rates. Good to know this. As usual, I find your post extremely useful. Blessings!
Hé Jeremy, just created my online store! I am so glad, and it looks so good! https://winkel.bol.com/winkel/what_the_bleep_do_we_know
Bol is a sistercompany of Amazon, greetings Loes
Nevermind. Just a ready made online store. Just thought you were referencing that when you mentioned you had a new store in a comment on this article.
No, I asked for an API code, and installed it en put the store on my site, and it's in the air to outside my site, I love it !
Did not had a clou how to start this up this morning, but I did it!
Great stuff Jeremy, short and sweet, and lucid! ..in my case just what the doctor ordered...more strength to your arms!
Kind regards,
~Arthur
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Hi Jeremy. Is Amazon actually paying their affiliates? I've read recently where they are not paying their affiliates. I'm starting to get better traffic and more clicks but no sales yet.
Also, thanks for the heads up on the Yoast plugin. I immediately saw an increase in traffic after using it.
For anyone on the fence about the Yoast plugin, It has helped me figure out what's wrong with my articles and content. The plugin told me that my articles were too short, didn't use my KW enough and it was in the wrong place, among other things. This has made a big difference to traffic on my site. My traffic has doubled in the last week.
Wow. That's fantastic to hear!
I have not had any trouble getting payment from Amazon and hadn't heard others had. Do you have a link to where you heard that?
Sent you a PM, Jeremy.
I started to use the SEO by yoast. But I don't understand how to use it compare to All - in - one SEO. I was afraid I was going to mess this up. I have an Amazon Affiliate website and I got one click. That's because I told a friend about it. And I can't find my site on google. This frustrating. But I can my WA affiliate website on google. So as of right not I don't have any traffic going to my amazon website.
Edwin, I'm not sure I can help you here but if you are using Yoast you should disable the All-in-1 SEO plugin. You shouldn't use both at the same time. It messes up the SEO function. In Yoast, you want to check your General tab and then your Page Analysis tab to see how your content rates. I'm only just learning how to use it myself. Hope this helps. Alanna
Ok I will try again.
Ok I reactivate the WordPress seo. I think I found the general settings but I don't see the page analysis.
Hi Edwin. I followed this tutorial. Maybe it will help you.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/setting-up-seo-base-with-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-plugin
Alanna
Oh ok thanks Alanna. I may stay with All - in - one SEO for now. The one by yoast is too advance for me. I just start building websites as of June 24. I just trying to understand why google won't index my amazon affiliate website. I can't find it on google at all.