WordPress is pretty much the default setting for most new websites.
That’s because currently there’s around 455 million websites powered by WordPress.
Or roughly 62% of the market share, placing it so far ahead of its competitors that any comparison is moot.
There’s ongoing potential here, too, because the WordPress “industry” grows at around 30% per year.
And it’s worth an estimated US$140 billion.
It’s also made up of a whole host of different sectors, including web hosting, plugins, WordPress themes, etc.
Any of which can lead to a very lucrative income from affiliate marketing.
Like what we’ve achieved.
You can get your own slice of this pie by promoting the best WordPress affiliate programs out there.
So we put together a list of them for you because we wanted to give you a head start.
WordPress Affiliate Programs
- SiteGround Affiliate Program
- WP Engine Affiliate Program
- Kinsta Affiliate Program
- MaxCDN Affiliate Program
- Sucuri Affiliate Program
- ThemeIsle Affiliate Program
- Elegant Themes Affiliate Program
- Elementor Affiliate Program
- Depositphotos Affiliate Program
- WP Rocket Affiliate Program
- UpdraftPlus Affiliate Program
- CSS Hero Affiliate Program
- WPForms Affiliate Program
- Udemy Affiliate Program
- CartFlows Affiliate Program
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SiteGround
We’re featuring three web hosting options for WordPress in this roundup of WordPress affiliate programs, and the first of these is SiteGround.
The reason for providing you with multiple options is so you have something to offer visitors who need everything from entry-level WordPress hosting to the more advanced stuff.
SiteGround is the host we recommend for students of our TASS course simply because it’s a marriage of ease-of-use, performance, and customer support.
Plus they’re entirely affordable with entry-level, single-site WordPress hosting costing just $9.95 per month, but as little as $4.95 per month if you pay for 36 months upfront.
You can refer your customers to SiteGround for their hosting needs with your hand placed squarely over your heart i.e. with confidence.
SiteGround manages its affiliate program in-house, so publically available data is a little thin on the ground.
But with that said, we’ve seen credible affiliates claim to have earned $120,000 per year just promoting SiteGround.
That’s an insane amount of money to make from a single program, but they do pay up to $75 for each new customer you refer through your affiliate link.
And believe it or not, that $120k per year was all based on making 4 sales per day, so we’d suggest adding this to your list of potential WordPress affiliate programs to promote.
URL: SiteGround affiliate program
Commission: Up to $75 per sale
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 60 days
WP Engine
Next up we have WP Engine, one of the most popular WordPress hosting services out there.
They have packages suitable for affiliates running a small business all the way up to enterprise solutions.
And they’re very affordable too, with prices starting at just $30 per month for a ‘Startup’ plan, or $25 per month when you pay in advance.
But that’s not necessarily why we included them here.
The added perk for you as an affiliate marketer is that this is also the company behind the Studio Press WordPress themes and the WordPress Genesis Framework.
Both of which come as part of even their most basic hosting plans
So that’s a really easy way to get people clicking on your affiliate link.
Plus, affiliates promoting this program will earn an average of $140 per customer transaction.
Two successful referrals per day would net you over $100k in affiliate commissions within 12 months.
Just in case you were wondering if you can actually make money promoting affiliate marketing offers.
URL: WP Engine affiliate program
Commission: Up to 200%
EPC: $100.42
Cookie duration: 180 days
Kinsta
And finally, we have Kinsta – the top tier of hosting companies for affiliate marketers.
Or at least, that’s been our experience because we use them to power the Authority Hacker site.
What Kinsta does to set them apart from every other web host is their obsession with performance – a singular goal to be the best WordPress hosting platform in the world.
Put simply, they can process a volume of traffic to an affiliate site that would crash the servers of smaller web hosts.
So your visitors get incredible performance, scalability, great support and free migration for their existing blog.
And affiliates don’t fare too badly either.
Kinsta pays a commission rate of anywhere up to $500 per signup, depending on the type of plan selected.
Their base commission rate is $50 for a basic plan, but there’s every possibility that one of your referrals could put $500 in your pocket.
Plus they also have a monthly recurring commission structure where you earn 10% for the lifetime of every referral you send them.
This is quite possibly the best affiliate program listed here.
Commission: Up to $500 per sale
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 60 days
MaxCDN
MaxCDN was recently acquired by StackPath –just in case the above image confused you.
Basically, this means that new MaxCDN customers can benefit from the power of StackPath’s CDN.
A typical delivery result for MaxCDN was 80ms but is now 20ms with StackPath.
This represents a speed improvement of up to 75%.
And the neat thing is that your audience won’t pay a ridiculous premium for this because StackPath plans start at just $10 per month for their CDN.
So that all sounds great, but can you actually make money by adding StackPath referral links to your content?
As an affiliate, you’ll earn at least $20 per signup for their most basic CDN product, and up to $600 per signup for their Edge Delivery services.
CDNs are becoming the norm for WordPress publishers, so this should be a relatively easy program to promote.
URL: StackPath CDN affiliate program
Commission: $20 – $600
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 180 days
Sucuri
Now, this is a service that not every WordPress user or developer will need straight away – to protect their site from hacking or malware.
But based on the fact that 30,000 websites are hacked every single day, successful sites are eventually left with no other choice than to use some kind of security service.
Like Sucuri, for example.
Because when your site starts to take traffic away from your competitors some of them won’t think twice about paying a hacker to attack your site.
Yes, really.
So you need to use one of the best (if not the best) site security companies out there.
And your visitors even get a site speed boost as part of the deal thanks to Sucuri’s CDN.
The commission structure for this affiliate program is as confusing AF, at face value.
But what it comes down to is this – if you sell their most basic package you’ll make $29.97 per sale, $49.99 for their ‘Basic Platform’ package and then anywhere up to $209 for selling a ‘Firewall Business’ package.
This is one of our favorite WordPress affiliate programs, plus we actually use their services.
Commission: Up to $200 per sale
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 30 days
ThemeIsle
ThemeIsle is the company behind a number of very popular themes in the form of Neve, Hestia and Zelle.
Their themes form the foundation of many WordPress affiliate sites, especially Hestia.
Anyone interested in building a WordPress blog will need a good WordPress theme, and Theme Isle has at least three they can choose from.
And anyone making that choice can generate extra income for you.
Promoting this WP affiliate program will earn you 55% of every WordPress theme you sell.
And with an average order value of $78 per transaction, you’ll earn roughly $43 in affiliate commission.
For just showing people where to buy some good WordPress themes.
URL: ThemeIsle affiliate program
Commission: 55% per sale
EPC: $8.87
Cookie duration: 90 days
Elegant Themes
Divi is one of the most popular themes among WordPress website owners at all levels.
And it’s the result of the hard work of the people at Elegant Themes.
Divi is a little bit different from most other themes in that it’s a WordPress theme and a page builder at the same time.
But that flexibility has made it a popular choice among site creators, developers, and affiliate marketers.
That’s why Divi sits behind over 640,000 websites and blogs.
The neat thing about purchasing Divi is that you pay once and you can install it on an unlimited number of sites.
Which is the exact opposite of what many premium themes do.
So you could be doing your audience a big financial favor by pointing them in the direction of Divi.
Affiliates will receive 50% commission for every sale they refer to the Elegant Themes affiliate program.
That’s a nice slice of the pie.
But well does this affiliate program actually perform?
Well, they paid out over US$3 million in affiliate commissions last year, to over 30,000 affiliates promoting their WordPress affiliate program.
URL: Elegant Themes affiliate program
Commission: 50% per sale
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 180 days
Elementor
If you know anything at all about Authority Hacker, you’ll know we’re big fans of Elementor.
Elementor is a page builder for WordPress, using the same “building blocks” approach as most of the other page builders out there.
But what makes Elementor so unique is the focus on making their product genuinely easy to use while also being very versatile.
Even a completely rookie can put together a WordPress website in a day or so using nothing but Elementor.
And that’s because Elementor includes its own base theme for you to build around.
As an affiliate, you’ll receive 50% commission for every referral you make to this WordPress affiliate program.
And based on their ‘Expert’ plan that would mean earning $99 per transaction, although you’re more likely to be able to “sell” their ‘Plus’ plan for $49.50 in commission.
All told, this is an excellent product to promote.
URL: Elementor affiliate program
Commission: 50% per sale
Cookie duration: 90 days
Depositphotos
You’ll need to add photos to your WordPress website at some stage during its development.
There are lots of stock photography sites to choose from, but the majority of them are ludicrously expensive.
And most of the time their images genuinely aren’t worth the money.
Depositphotos, on the other hand, offers a balance of image quality and variety with affordable pricing.
Your visitors also won’t be stuck for a choice of images – they have over 155 million images in stock (no pun intended) at the time of writing.
And fortunately for you, they have an affiliate program.
One that pays you 40% commission on the first purchase your referral makes.
But then also up to 20% commission on every stock image they purchase after that.
So there’s the opportunity here for monthly recurring income, which builds up slowly but can be worth a lot of money within 12 months.
URL: Depositphotos affiliate program
Commission: Up to 40%
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 60 days
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a caching and optimization plugin for WordPress users.
It fits into that middle ground between free caching plugins and using a full-blown CDN as part of your site setup.
And the neat thing about it is that even the most technophobic person can use this tool.
WP Rocket also recently introduced its own CDN, which costs $7.99 per month and integrates directly into the plugin.
This plugin costs $49 per year per site – you can check out our review of WP Rocket if you need or want to know more about its inner workings.
What’s surprising is that although you might think of WP Rocket as a niche product, it has a very healthy EPC on ShareASale.
It’s also one of the most popular programs on the network, so their affiliates are moving a lot of product.
Your affiliate marketing efforts will result in you getting paid 20% for each referral, with an average affiliate payment of $12.64 per sale.
URL: WP Rocket affiliate program
Commission: 20% per sale
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 30 days
Updraft Plus
You really only appreciate the value of a WordPress backup plugin after you’ve made a change to a site that completely breaks it.
I’ve been that soldier.
So being able to roll back a “site update” with Updraft Plus has saved my bacon on more than one occasion.
Updraft Plus actually does more than just back up your WordPress website – it’s also a site cloning and migration tool.
This makes it far more versatile than static WordPress plugins that only backup your data.
But the above features are only available with the premium version of the plugin.
Your visitors will get quite a lot for their money though, including lots of additional add-ons, a cloud-based control panel, enhanced support, and 1GB of remote storage for your files.
Prices for Updraft Plus start at $67 per year for a personal account, which covers two websites.
This is another in-house affiliate program, so you’ll be working with a custom affiliate dashboard.
In terms of payment, you’ll receive a 30% cut of every sale they refer through your affiliate links.
So if one of your visitors buys a ‘Personal’ license you’ll earn $20 in commission, but if they sign up for a ‘Gold’ license instead then you’ll earn $114.
A WordPress backup tool or plugin isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity, so it will be more effective to pitch it that way.
URL: Updraft Plus affiliate program
Commission: 30%
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: TBC
CSS Hero
You don’t need us to tell you that WordPress is immensely popular.
The problem is that it can be difficult for non-nerds to tweak it to get their WordPress site looking exactly as they would like it.
Sure, you can dive into the WordPress theme editor and go poking around in CSS files…if you know what you’re doing.
Or you can get CSS Hero instead to perform safe and non-destructive editing of your WordPress website’s source files.
This plugin allows you to change the look and feel of your site without committing to making them live until you know you haven’t accidentally broken something.
But even if you do, you can revert to a stored “snapshot” of your site before you got all artistic and screwed things up.
CSS Hero is also remarkably affordable when compared to similar WordPress plugins.
And it also has an affiliate program and one that performs very well.
They do a remarkably good job at converting affiliate traffic into sales – and that’s speaking from firsthand experience.
A single site license for CSS Hero costs $19 per year and you earn 40% of that in commission
URL: CSS Hero affiliate program
Commission: 40%
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 90 days
WPForms
Yes, there are lots of contact form WordPress plugins out there, like Contact Form 7, Gravity and Ninja Forms, among many others.
But there’s something very attractive about how easy WPForms makes it to set up a contact form.
The entire interface is drag-and-drop, so there’s no more fiddling with data fields and cryptic lines of code.
The free version of this WordPress plugin is extremely powerful, but the premium version adds lots of additional features like being able to create an unlimited number of forms, create surveys and polls, integration with Stripe and PayPal, etc.
The added bonus here is obviously their affiliate program, which pays 20% commission on sales referred through your affiliate links.
This results in a typical affiliate payment of $11 for their ‘Basic’ premium package, but up to $60 per sale if one of your visitors buys their ‘Elite’ plugin package.
And the fact that their program has a very respectable EPC of $50.19 means their affiliates are making consistent income.
URL: WPForms affiliate program
Commission: 20%
EPC: $50.19
Cookie duration: 45 days
Udemy
And now for something a little different.
This is not a WordPress product or service as such, but a source for training courses on WordPress.
And that source is Udemy.
Basically, your visitors can find courses on pretty much any aspect of installing, working with, tweaking or optimizing WordPress here.
Some of their more popular courses include:
- WordPress for Beginners
- The Complete WordPress Website Business Course
- WordPress for Beginners – Master WordPress Quickly
But you can also find courses covering subjects like developing WordPress themes using BootStrap, SEO for WordPress, and even guides to blogging with WordPress.
Each course is made up of a series of instructional videos that you follow, learning as you go.
And you can take your learning mobile with the Udemy app if you want to.
Udemy courses don’t have a huge price tag associated with them but that works in your favor because their price point is right at “impulse buy” level.
It’s just far easier to sell courses for $11.99 each, then $399 each.
One effective affiliate marketing technique you can use is to put together a “best of” roundup of Udemy courses on a specific subject.
So you could list the “Top x Udemy WordPress courses for digital marketers”, giving a quick overview of each one.
I know one guy who does exactly this every January with an email broadcast to his subscribers.
And it earns him silly money, every single time.
You’ll need an account with Rakuten Linkshare to sign up for this program.
Commission: 15%
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 7 days
Cartflows
CartFlows is a sales funnel builder for WordPress.
It was set up to fix a very real problem – cart systems that made it difficult for customers to actually complete their purchase and leave.
Not sure what a sales funnel is or how to set one up?
That’s the beauty of CartFlows – it does all the hard work for you, so understanding is kinda secondary to just following the steps they provide.
It’s compatible with any page builder, so it comes with templates for Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi, Thrive, etc.
It also has all the usual functionality you’d expect to find, including adding up-sells and down-sells, order bumps, cart abandonment tracking, dynamic linking and custom fields for the checkout process.
The reason CartFlows made this list is because firstly, it’s an excellent product designed by two guys who understand WordPress inside out and upside down.
Then secondly, because it converts so well – you send qualified traffic to this offer and it converts at a very high rate.
And you’ll earn $69 in affiliate commission for every single successful referral you make.
This is one of our favorite WordPress affiliate programs.
URL: CartFlows affiliate program
Commission: 20%
EPC: TBC
Cookie duration: 60 days
Over to You
The end.
Or is it?
Well, not really because now you have 15 solid WordPress affiliate programs to promote.
And, as you can see, it’s a mixture of popular WordPress plugins, combined with a number of other services that would appeal directly to a blog building audience.
Didn’t see a WordPress affiliate plugin you were expecting to?
That’s probably because it doesn’t generate a lot of income for affiliates promoting it.
So it’s now time to get out there and make some money with your affiliate marketing skills.
Unless you don’t have those skills?
The truth is, neither did we when we started building authority sites – we learned the hard way.
And it cost us a shitload of money to make those mistakes.
That’s why we’d like to invite you to attend our free training on how you actually make money with affiliate marketing.
While avoiding all the pitfalls.
And this is not some sleazy, guru, pitch-fest.
This is the real deal, with information you can take away and use today.
Free of charge.
Sound good?
