Affiliate marketing is unlike any other marketing. You refer customers to an e-commerce or partner website and receive commissions when they check out an item.
Most of the time you only have one shot at it. The downside is, you get paid only when your references buy from your affiliate links.
In my honest opinion, affiliate marketing is one of the best methods of making easy money, but it can get difficult at times…given that you need to get it right at the very first time.
However, there are other affiliate programs that pay you recurring sums in the long run. It is a no-brainer that marketers call them “recurring affiliate programs”.
So, if you have a pretty decent product review website – or a blog – you can straight away start affiliate marketing.
But before you begin, let us get our facts correct, affiliate marketing isn’t as simple as it first seems. It isn’t very tough either.
Sooner or later – generally sooner – you would want to drive more revenue from your website. Which is why we have compiled the 11 best recurring affiliate programs.
How to get started with Recurring Affiliate programs?
With other affiliate programs, you get a fixed portion of what the businesses call “affiliate reward” and that is it. You aren’t paid over and over again but only once.
Moreover, if the customer that you referred chooses to buy directly, you receive literally nothing. In layman’s terms, you are eligible for “reward” as long as the purchase is made from your affiliate link.
Recurring programs are pretty straightforward. You pitch a referral program and partner with an online business.
The business will pay you every month or so for the same customer, primarily because the service needs monthly renewal.
Nutrition and Supplement Subscription
- Benefit Box Affiliate Program
Benefit Box runs a nutrition and supplement service for boxers, athletes and fitness freaks.
It also lets you create a box depending upon what you plan on accomplishing.
You can create your own box if you know what supplements are required, or have Benefit Box to create one for you.
Who should run an affiliate with Benefit Box?
If food, fitness, body-building, veganism or sports is your niche, you can effectively redirect visitors to Benefit Box and earn recurring rewards.
They also have a wide range of whey, so a blog with body-building as its niche is equally likely to convert visitors into sales.
Benefit Box has a pretty convincing UI. You just need to redirect interesting customers to the website, the UI does the remaining work.
Competitor Research Tools & Search Engine Optimization
- SpyFu
SpyFu is one of the best-known competitor research tools and among the few that support both SEO and PPC campaigns.
The membership starts at a meagre $33 per month and offers immense affiliate commissions.
I have successfully converted 20+ visitors on my blog into SpyFu members. In more than half the members who subscribed to SpyFu, I received commissions as high as 40% of the membership fee; and it is still recurring.
Most Lucrative Affiliate Program of All
SpyFu has the most lucrative affiliate program of all. It offers three types of plans – Basic, Professional, and Team – and you get 40% straight on all.
YouTube affiliate is becoming increasingly more popular. It is the second-largest search engine in itself with relatively low competition.
- TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy is the most popular stream optimization and channel management tool that helps ease video promotion, SEO, and bulk processing.
In affiliate programs, SEO tools offer the maximum benefits and are the most alluring among affiliate marketers.
Who can run affiliate for TubeBuddy
Although there is no hard-and-fast rule regarding who can and cannot run TubeBuddy affiliate, the odds of conversion are the highest when –
- You have a review-based blog
- SEO or SMO is your niche.
- You are a YouTuber who aims to help budding YouTubers grow.
How much commission will you earn?
Under normal circumstances, you should expect a recurring commission of 50% every month until the customer is paying.
Even though TubeBuddy offers 50% commission in comparison with SpyFu’s 40%, you’d still earn a lot more from SpyFu because the latter has a higher base price.
- SEMrush
Nothing comes even close to SEMrush when it comes to keyword research and competitor analysis.
SEMrush is versatile, powerful and has perhaps the biggest database among all SEO tools.
Ii packs not just SEO, but also PPC, social media and video advertising. It is the single, most comprehensive suite for every type of internet marketing.
SEMrush’s affiliate program is officially called BeRush. BeRush affiliates are paid as much as 40% of the revenue generated from the referred source.
Challenges with SEMrush
The high payout for affiliations might be luring but SEMrush is relatively difficult to sell. This is due to the fact that the application is way too expensive for an individual to afford.
Minimum Payout – $50
Commissions – 40% in each payment
Commissions mode – a fixed percentage of revenue generated
WordPress Recurring Affiliate Programs
WordPress in itself is a free tool, but there is a plethora of themes and extensions built around it.
- Elegant Themes
A WordPress site is only as powerful as its theme.
It is for this reason that web admins look for robust themes to configure with their WordPress site, regardless of the price they come at.
Elegant Themes has the single, biggest library of WordPress themes and equally big clientele.
Elegant Themes not only contains the most searched themes but also plugins that are the most rigorously marketed.
Who should apply for the affiliate?
Web development websites, WordPress tutorials, and review bloggers can collaborate with Elegant Themes for affiliate programs.
I have run affiliate programs from SEO blog as well. If your niche somehow aligns with WordPress, you too are good to go.
How much can you earn from Elegant Themes?
I did not enjoy as much success with Elegant Themes as I did with any other affiliate program.
For first, the themes were due for renewal not before a year. Second, only a feeble 1% renewed their subscription, the remaining simply switched over to newer themes.
But, on the positive side, the upfront commission offered by Elegant Themes soars at 50%, the highest amongst its competitors.
Email Marketing Recurring Affiliate Programs
Email marketing has only recently come to light.
The availability of cheap internet and email addresses in bulk has helped email marketing to tide over its previous roadblocks.
Affiliate programs, too, have caught with the waves of email marketing and there is increased hype over its affiliations programs.
- ConvertKit
The only entity that made it to our list is ConvertKit.
ConvertKit is an email marketing application exclusively made for content creators and digital marketers.
Since email marketing is all the hype these days, you can expect a good volume of search impressions and visits on your blog.
How much can you earn with ConvertKit?
Each payment can earn you a recurring commission of 30%.
Even with the most basic plan, you can earn $8.7 per month per customer. That totals to around $104 dollar a year per customer.
If you can refer 10 customers in a single year, you’d have a thousand bucks doing nothing.
Dedicated server hosting and cloud servers affiliate programs
- RoseHosting
Hosting is one of the ever-booming businesses and isn’t going anywhere, at least for the decade to come.
Affiliate marketing is relatively new in the domain of server hosting, despite the fact that hosting, as a business, has existed for more than three decades.
Affiliate program in web hosting and related-industry is teeming with opportunities. The competition among affiliate marketers is lower and payouts higher – several providers pay as high as 80% in the first year.
To begin with, you can collaborate with RoseHosting. I have personally experienced that RoseHosting is 5 times more likely to convert visitors into customers than other providers, so it would be a decent platform to start with.
What are the payouts?
You are not going to earn crazy loads of money with RoseHosting. They offer a relatively skimpy commission of 10% but client attrition is also equally low. This means, there are more renewals, more payouts and more earnings.
Furthermore, once you have successfully referred 30 customers through your affiliate links, RoseHosting team will surge your commission rate to 15%.
- pCloud
pCloud only started in 2013 but have grown their customer base to a whopping 8 million.
Although I haven’t run affiliate programs for pCloud, I know a few who do. Commissions are one of the best in the industry.
They offer up to $70 upfront and 20% commission on subsequent renewals.
Advantages of pCloud affiliate program –
- Large customer base
- Attractive commissions – 20% on every payment
- Upfront referral reward – up to $70
- Huge consumer base
- High conversion odds.
pCloud is known to be the safest of cloud storage platforms. They are also running a bounty program, offering $100,000 to anyone who can crack their encryption. The bounty stands unavailed until now.
- Shopify
Shopify is the leading e-commerce store-builder powering more than 1 million online businesses worldwide.
Shopify has an entirely different section of ‘partners program’ with one of the highest commissions in the e-commerce industry.
Commissions paid by Shopify
You can earn $50 on average per sign up. For every Shopify Plus referral, you are paid $2000 upfront.
Recurring commission is computed at 20% of the total amount payable.
Recurring Crypto Affiliate Programs
- Binance
Cryptocurrency is the most notorious way to capitalize on assets but is not yet illicit.
Now a billion-dollar industry, cryptocurrency exchanges are burgeoning at a rapid pace.
One such exchange, Binance, has recently slipped several positions to become one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges to exist.
Affiliate with Binance
Make a note than Binance will pay you in the only currency they know – crypto coins.
The affiliate program, however, is just too lucrative to overlook. The commission on each crypto purchase is around 40% of the sale value.
There are payouts not only for successful crypto referrals but also for trading happening thereupon for a period of 3 months.
Affiliate Programs with Binance
| Commission rate with Binance | Up to 40% |
| Cookies expire in | 90 day (3 months) |
| Minimum Payout | $0 |
| Payment mode | Cryptos, choice of cryptos available |
Cyber-security and Virtual private network
Several VPN providers have also joined the race of affiliate programs for added customer benefits.
There isn’t much scope with VPN affiliations. I have run affiliate programs for VPNs but was not satisfied with the end results.
First, the percentage commission is less and the pay-outs are rather slow. Second, the attrition rate is among the highest. In my case, no user had stuck with the same VPN provider for more than three months.
Finally, there are a number of free VPN hosting providers in the market already.
Back when I tried collaborating with VPN providers, the internet was unchartered territory and cyber censorship sort of did not exist.
As internet censorship became a thing, VPN providers have seen a notable surge in business.
- Pure VPN
Of all VPN affiliates, I think Pure VPN has the best conversion rate. It also offers a handsome commission of 40% but the payout threshold of $50 is a turnoff.
You would continue to receive commissions on all payments within the initial 2 months, post which, no commission shall be
Pure VPN would directly credit your reward in your bank account but you cannot redeem until you surmount the $50 threshold.
