Affiliate marketing is performance-based marketing in which an online retailer pays commission to an affiliate (an external website) for sales or traffic generated from the affiliate’s marketing effort (referrals).
However, affiliate marketing models differ from one company to another.
Some companies pay affiliates a one-time commission for a referral, while others pay a recurring income.
Different companies have varying commission rates, but generally, you get your income as long as the client remains with the firm.
Some firms define a commission lifespan for every client. For instance, if the lifetime is one year, and the client stays with the firm for over a year, you won’t receive a cut. You’ll only receive a cut for the initial subscription, not subsequent ones.
The hard part is picking the right product to promote. The products you select must be valuable to your target customers to sell them consistently. You’ll gain high income from a recurring affiliate marketing program if the client sticks to the product for an extended time.
The product type determines your income, so ensure you take your time when picking one.
Recurring Affiliate Programs
Recurring affiliates programs enable affiliates to earn higher cumulative earnings—you get commission on your referrals’ subsequent purchases and not for the first purchase only.
These programs are among the top sources of generating recurrent revenue. However, some programs have a short lifespan of earning recurring commissions while others are for life. It’s advisable to go for the programs that provide lifetime income.
Why Pick Affiliate Programs Offering Recurring Commission?
You are better off getting a lower recurring commission than earning a one-time higher income.
Furthermore, you don’t have to spend too much time, money, and effort to convert orders into sales as your referrals do that work.
This program is a win-win for companies and affiliates. Affiliates get to offer their clients an entry-level deal and get recurring commissions over time. The companies also gain since their sales increase immensely.
Best Affiliate Recurring Programs To Join
1. Moosend
This email marketing automation program provides all-in-solutions for Agencies, Publishers, eCommerce, Nonprofits, SaaS, etc. Moosend is a user-friendly, state-of-the-art tool that makes affiliate marketing simpler.
Moosend provides affiliates with an easy-to-use interface and ready-made materials to help you start earning as soon as possible.
This program also has a great team that will give you advice and information on marketing the tool effectively.
Affiliates earn a 30% recurring lifetime commission. On top of that, Moosend’s monthly challenges enables you to get extra rewards and boost your earnings like a pro.
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring
2. Strive
Strive, an editorial calendar add-on for WordPress, helps you easily plan your content marketing schedule. It will be easy to recommend this plugin to marketers and bloggers who come across your review since Strive makes content creation easier.
Additionally, you can write about the other features included, like post statuses, post checklists, and post revisions.
Affiliates get a 30% recurring commission for every sale. Every month, you’ll get a commission if your referral buys a monthly subscription. For annual subscriptions, affiliates get a higher payout upfront and then extra commissions each time the clients renew subscriptions.
Since Strive is a new program, you don’t have to compete with other affiliates yet.
- Cookie life: 60 days
- Commission rate: 30% for each referral
3. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a complex and feature-rich platform used for advanced email marketing.
Due to its complexity, the ActiveCampaign audience pool is much smaller, and you’ll have to be more targeted with your promotions.
This is an excellent program with a recurring commission model and a tiered payout system—the more sales you generate, the higher commission for every referral you get.
For instance, all affiliates start at the Silver tier (the bottom) and get a 20% commission per referral. With time, you can rise to the Platinum tier (higher payouts) if you get several paying referrals.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: beginning from 20% for each referral
4. Aweber
Aweber is a well-known email marketing tool that claims to be the “ideal option for small business owners and entrepreneurs.” Affiliates should target that audience when promoting Aweber.
Aweber has an outstanding affiliate program with punctual payments of 30% recurring commission for every referral. Furthermore, there’s a team that’ll help you establish a custom strategy for your brand.
- Cookie life: 12 months
- Commission rate: 30% for each referral
5. Ninja Outreach
Ninja Outreach is a mass email outreach platform. It’s perfect for beginners since it has pre-saved templates and great features that guide newbies to develop their first outreach campaign in a few minutes.
Besides being a perfect beginner tool, it’s also a great source of recurring affiliate income. Since Ninja Outreach has no monthly plans, all clients have to pay for an annual plan—therefore, you’ll get higher commissions upfront.
However, you’ll only receive your payment once a year for every referral.
- Cookie life: 120 days;
- Commission rate: 33% for each referral
6. ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels provides tools for building landing pages and converting users with funnels. Entrepreneurs use ClickFunnels to build marketing funnels and automate their sales.
It has an outstanding affiliate program with a high-quality product that sells well with businesses looking for an online selling platform. It also boasts one of the highest conversion rates of any tools in this list.
That’s because when a visitor signs up using your link, they get into the ClickFunnels funnel, which converts at an exceptional percentage—a large part of the work is being done for you.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: beginning from 20% for each referral to a maximum of 40% per referral
7. ConvertKit
ConvertKit is among the most straightforward affiliate programs suitable for newcomers. It has a direct Link Mink affiliate network that newbie affiliates can easily use.
This program has an easy-to-use ESP that can help affiliates in email marketing to understand automation, sequences, templates, and list segmenting better. ConverKit pricing is also easy to understand, and it has a good enough market share in the ESP arena.
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Commission rate: 30% for each referral
8. MailerLite
MailerLite is an easy-to-use ESP program perfect for new affiliates in email marketing. This program has a free plan which is a plus. You get a 30% recurring income reward when your referrals upgrade from free to paid.
MailerCheck developers are the ones behind MailerLite.
MailerCheck keeps your email list clean and promotes deliverability by scanning emails for spam signals and notifying you about them before you press the “send” button.
Email list builders are the perfect audience to promote MailerCheck to.
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Commission rate: 30% for every referral
9. GetResponse
GetResponse is a platform that features webinars, landing page creators, and email marketing.
It has two programs molded into one affiliate program: Affiliate Recurring Program, where affiliates earn 33% lifetime commission, and the Affiliate Bounty Program, where you receive a one-time $100 commission for each referral.
This platform has a team of experts who can help and provide you with free materials and advice.
- Cookie life: 120 days
- Commission rate: 33% for every referral
10. Instapage
Instapage, a landing page builder, majors on converting lead pages that come to your website from Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and PPC ads.
Since Instapage is a specialized tool, the prospective audience pool is a bit limited—most marketers don’t focus on paid advertising. Nevertheless, the marketers with a lot of cash are perfect targets for warm traffic waiting to convert.
The affiliate program provides several promotional materials and advice on how to market them effectively. You also get an affiliate manager who’ll orient and guide you throughout your stay.
- Cookie life: 120 days
- Commission rate: beginning from 50% for each referral in the first year and 30% for the following years.
11. LeadPages
LeadPages is a first-rate landing page builder that serves small business owners and entrepreneurs. It has a straightforward, user-friendly app that’s suitable for beginners.
LeadPages affiliate program enables you to earn by promoting the website and high-converting landing page builder to the target audience.
Affiliates get up to 50% recurring commissions on each sale, including one-time purchases, upgrades, and renewals for as long as your referrals stay with the company.
This affiliate program is a well-established and popular brand offering a high-quality service.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: beginning from 10% for each referral to a maximum of 50% per referral
12. Teachable
This is an online business site where people can host, create, and sell their courses on any topic.
Teachable has an outstanding affiliate program with a manager to onboard you. The platform provides affiliates with promotional materials to guide and help you sell. Additionally, you’ll have access to multiple split-tested sales funnels targeting unique demographics.
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Commission rate: maximum of 50% for every sale
13. Thrive Themes
Thrive Themes provide Thrive Architect (a landing page builder) and Thrive Leads (a lead generation tool). They aren’t all about premium WordPress Themes as the name suggests.
Clients can purchase the tools separately or buy them together. Either way, you get a 35% commission upfront, then 25% recurring lifetime revenue.
- Cookie life: 24 months
- Commission rate: 35% for each referral, 25% recurring commissions
14. Elegant Themes
This is a premium WordPress theme shop that provides the most popular and best themes on the market.
Divi is Elegant’s theme, and it has millions of installs on WordPress websites.
Elegant themes have a straightforward and well-organized design together with an oversimplified back-end that any beginner can grasp in no minute.
When promoting Elegant Themes products, your target audience will be any newbie looking for popular and affordable themes.
- Cookie life: 180 days
- Commission rate: 50% for every sale
15. Memberium
This is a premium WordPress membership add-on. Web developers use this plugin to convert WordPress installations into membership sites.
Memberium works with both ActiveCampaign and Infusionsoft. Although it has meager commission rates of 10%, it’s a recurring income.
Affiliates have access to the dashboard to find free promotional material and seek help from affiliate managers.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 10% for every sale
16. Thinkific
Thinkific is an online platform for creating, hosting, and selling online courses.
Thinkific affiliate program pays affiliates a 30% commission per sale on monthly and annual plans.
However, their recurring model caters for the first year only, so affiliates get recurring commission only on monthly plans—you receive a one-time payment for annual plans.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 30% for each sale
17. SEMrush
SEMrush is a popular SEO toolset for improving market insights and online visibility.
The target audience for the SEMrush affiliate program is marketers that work in PPC, SEO, PR, competitive research, keyword research, and content marketing.
The affiliates get free promotional materials that have proven to convert and a team of affiliate marketers that’ll help you in any way.
Additionally, you get access to the ShareASale affiliate platform for reliable reporting and tracking.
- Cookie life: 120 days
- Commission rate: $200 for each sale, $10 for every trial signup
18. MemberPress
This is a WordPress plugin that web administrators use to build membership sites.
MemberPress affiliate program pays you a commission of 25% with a sixty-day return cookie.
You can join the affiliate program for free and become part of a team of skilled publishers promoting the most popular and affordable platform for beginning an online business established on WordPress.
- Cookie life: 60 days
- Commission rate: 25% for every sale
19. HostGator
HostGator is a web hosting platform where affiliates can advertise products and generate income.
The platform is beginner-friendly. Host Gator has been on the affiliate marketing scene for over 20 years.
There’s a huge market to tap into. Plus, you can promote products with peace of mind knowing they are solid, and you won’t ruin your reputation with your customer base.
HostGator has a hierarchical system that hugely profits successful affiliate marketers.
Everyone begins at the bottom tier, where the commission is usually $65 for every referral. If you’re successful at promoting, you can rise through the ranks and increase your commission to $125 for every referral.
- Cookie life: 60 days
- Commission rate: 25% for every referral
20. SERPStat
This is a comprehensive platform that deals with SEO tools that you can advertise as an affiliate to get recurring income flowing your way.
SERPstat is a relatively new platform in the affiliate marketing world. They’re working hard to compete with established platforms like Moz, SEMrush, and Ahrefs.
They have an affiliate manager who can help you generate more income.
- Cookie life: 14 days
- Commission rate: 25% for every referral
21. Bluehost Affiliate Program
While Bluehost doesn’t have the best affiliate marketing program, they’re a leading hosting provider globally. Every beginner thinking about starting a website usually uses Bluehost.
There’s a huge market to tap into. Even though the space is a bit crowded, there’s room for everyone to grow as an affiliate.
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Commission rate: $65 for each referral
22. WPX Hosting
This is the fastest managed WordPress host globally.
Their monthly subscriptions are a bit pricey, with their basic plan costing $30 per month.
This, therefore, means that WPX Hosting isn’t beginner-friendly in terms of price. Only successful web admins can pay $360 per year for WPX Hosting.
WPX has a tier commission system.
You earn a commission of $70 for every customer if you refer less than 25 clients and $85 for every customer when you refer 25-100 customers.
If you refer more than 100 customers, you’ll earn a commission of $100 for every referral.
- Cookie life: 60 days
- Commission rate: $70 for every referral, maximum $100 for each referral
23. TubeBuddy
YouTube is among the niches that affiliate marketers rarely target. If you want to try affiliate marketing in this niche, TubeBuddy is the ideal tool.
TubeBuddy has advanced search features, which make videos search-friendly. It also has beautiful templates that assist in speeding up publishing times. Additionally, it has a powerful A/B testing feature that helps users know what suits them.
The high commissions make TubeBuddy an enticing program.
- Cookie life: lifetime
- Commission rate: Up to 50% lifetime recurring
24. FastComet Affiliate Program
This is an excellent hosting provider that offers various services.
FastComet sells WordPress hosting, dedicated servers, shared hosting, and VPS hosting.
Affiliate marketers on this platform can advertise any product they offer. They have a tiered commission system which ensures that you get paid based on how much you sell.
- Cookie life: 180 days;
- Commission rate: up to $200 per referral
25. Linkody
This platform makes the process of tracking a website’s backlinks easier.
Linkody has various metrics that assist marketers and bloggers in analyzing the links on their sites to identify and eliminate wrong links.
This platform also simplifies managing multiple domains concurrently. Users can also get insights into their competitors’ strategies to build links.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring
26. Drip
Drip is an enticing and robust email marketing tool. The platform connects users’ order management systems to their marketing analytics. This way, users can automate their campaigns based on particular customer behavior like products viewed, orders placed, etc.
Drip’s program recruits two types of individuals:
- Marketing Agents
- Software Creators
The program primarily relies on marketing agents to directly sell Drip to their clients. On the other hand, they also recruit software creators since they help them form integrating partnerships.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 30% recurring
27. Podia
If you are looking for an affiliate marketing program that promotes a five-in-one tool to high-intent customers, Podia is the platform for you.
Users on the podia platform can host, migrate, and build a web page without difficulties. You can also integrate their website with Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, and so much more.
Customizing their website is also easy. Podia has a flexible layout that gives users complete control over how the site appears.
Selling and uploading digital products such as e-books and online courses is super easy. All the tools you require for this are merged into the dashboard.
Users can also use this platform to host webinars, validate products, create membership sites, build email lists, etc. You do all using one software.
- Cookie life: 15 days
- Commission rate: 30% recurring
28. SamCart
Samcart is a marketing tool that assists entrepreneurs and marketers in upselling their websites faster by enhancing client lifetime worth with ease.
The order bumps tool boosts the average order worth by allowing clients to add more items at checkout. The one-click tool can make sellers up to three times the cart’s initial value.
Samcart’s single-click integrations have made managing emails and automation marketing simpler. Pushing trial offers and issuing coupons is just as simple.
Their affiliate program is very profitable, owing to their 40% recurring commission payouts.
- Cookie life: 45 days
- Commission rate: 40% lifetime recurring
29. Demio
Webinars have grown in popularity in recent times. Webinars help convert and engage, thus making them an invaluable tool that each marketer must use to their advantage.
However, setting up a webinar can be pretty challenging — this is where Demio comes in handy.
Demio helps users run automated and live webinars without difficulties, replay webinars, and create registration pages.
Demio has an aggressive price. This enables you to sell to both enterprises and individual marketers with ease.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring
30. Pipedrive
Marketers require a sales CRM tool like Pipedrive, which does all the heavy lifting.
The platform feeds leads into sales pipelines 24/7 through web forms and custom chatbots. With Pipedrive, tracking clients stuck somewhere along the funnel and convincing them to purchase a product is easy.
Pipedrive also has various features which make selling simpler.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 35% lifetime recurring
31. Stencil
This platform offers image creation tools that bloggers, social media marketers, and brands use regularly.
Stencil is built for speed. Therefore, users can create striking images from scratch and increase engagements quickly. For creators who are always on the move, Stencil is an invaluable tool.
The site’s dashboard is easy to navigate, and it also features a loaded editor, which makes selling simple. They also have very high commissions, making the program very lucrative.
- Cookie life: 60 days
- Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring
32. Mangools
Mangools provides a suite of SEO tools, including SERP visualization, rank tracking, backlink, and keyword research.
It offers ten-day free trials with affordable plans starting from $29.90 per month.
The affiliates earn an average of $487 every month. The program has a 30% commission rate which pays out for the life of the account.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring
33. LiveChat
LiveChat is an online chat and customer communication platform—it allows clients to have a real-time conversation with support agents.
LiveChat has an affiliate program that pays you a 20% recurring commission with a generous 120-day cookie duration, which helps you get total value from your referrals.
As an affiliate, you can offer your audience longer product trials and custom discount codes; therefore, you can close deals rapidly.
- Cookie life:120 days
- Commission rate: 20% lifetime recurring
34. PureVPN
PureVPN is among the top VPN providers globally. It operates over 6,500 servers in 140 countries with more than three million clients signed up.
Since this is a well-known brand, the high chances are that your audience in the VPN market already knows about it—this makes for a relatively easy sale.
PureVPN has an affiliate program that pays a 35% commission with a ninety-day cookie window.
Affiliates get an account manager to help them devise new ways to bring in traffic and troubleshoot problems.
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Commission rate: 35% lifetime recurring
35. Shopify
Shopify is among the leading platforms in the drop shipping industry, with more than 500,000 stores globally.
Shopify has everything you require to get your e-commerce store up and running. This includes analytic tools, shopping carts, web hosting, website builders, and store management solutions.
If your target audience is oriented towards e-commerce and needs help establishing an online store, Shopify’s affiliate program might be perfect for you.
You’ll receive a 200% commission for every referral as an affiliate. If any of your referrals sign up for a Shopify Plus account, you’ll receive a $2000 bonus payment.
Besides money, you’ll also get free Shopify content to market to your customer base and priority Shopify support.
Shopify’s affiliate program is entirely free to join. However, there’s one drawback, as an affiliate, you can only target customers who want to get into e-commerce, and they haven’t set up an online store yet.
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Commission rate: 200%
How Can One Promote Recurring Affiliate Programs?
Marketing your affiliate programs will assist you in increasing your business’s income by capitalizing on your current business’s online presence. Nevertheless, some techniques are essential for marketing affiliate programs. These include:
1. Digital Summits
Selling your services/products, building your customer’s email list, and promoting your brand are the methods you can use to advertise your recurring programs. Digital summits are an excellent strategy for selling affiliate services/products on the back end. Marketers primarily use this approach when hosting digital conferences when there’s a need to market a specific service or product.
2. Video Tutorials And Demos On Youtube
This is among the most promising approach when advertising your affiliate products. You can increase client engagement on your channel by posting multiple demos and videos. Ensure you paint a clear picture of how you find the product useful.
3. Email Marketing Automation
Integrating your affiliate services or products in an onboarding chain of all preprogrammed emails you send to new clients is always an excellent idea. You can use the same technique with your weekly newsletters and messages sent recurrently.
4. Writing Product Reviews
Giving honest, objective advice, providing a step-by-step explanation of how a product operates and taking screenshots is another excellent way of advertising recurring affiliate products. Platforms like Converkit, ClickFunnels, Funner Builder Hacks, and Funnel Hacks feature authentic reviews and target the right keywords.
5. Create Short Online Courses
Affiliates that aren’t well versed with technology may find it challenging to operate various complex software. If you are advertising a complex affiliate product, you can try coming up with short online courses detailing how customers can use the product. These classes will help you retain your clients as subscribers.
6. Creating Resource Pages
Resource pages are sites where users can list all the products or services they admire. The primary purpose of resource pages is to help visitors know which tools to use and how many affiliates links your page has.
Remember to refrain from promoting a service or product that doesn’t give value, even if it comes with a 95% commission. You should only promote products that are relevant to your audience’s needs.
7. Case Studies
If you want to convince people to purchase a particular product, you can use case studies or testimonials.
If you advertise a product for a specific individual or company that’s successful, you can appeal to them to share their story.
Additionally, you can include your customer’s testimonials and the company’s case studies into emails, in-depth reviews, and blog articles leading to the advertisem*nt of your recurrent commission programs.
Advantages Of Recurring Affiliate Programs
1. Predictability And Stability
With recurring affiliate programs, you are sure of earning a steady income. As long as your referrals convert often, you can predict how much you’ll get each month.
2. Revenue Accumulation
Since you earn as long as your referrals stay with the service, if you continue sending your merchant new clients each month, your monthly earnings will increase as well.
Couple that with the fact that most of the time, you earn for everything your referral buys after they register under your affiliate link, and you have a winning passive income creation strategy.
3. Passive Income
The foundation of true passive income is having a predictable, recurrent, and stable income. With recurring affiliate programs, bloggers can earn monthly income from the comfort of their homes.
Disadvantages Of Recurring Affiliate Programs
These programs more often than not collaborate with firms with high client retention. Consequently, enterprises with poor customer retention won’t be subscribed to recurring affiliate programs since they can’t yield a good ROI.
Another disadvantage of earning recurrent commissions is that you won’t have a chance to cash out substantial one-time commissions straight away.
Recurring affiliate programs have few disadvantages making them an excellent way of earning an income.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Do I Need To Pay To Join Recurring Affiliate Programs?
These programs are usually free to join, and they typically don’t require a registration fee. Nevertheless, some recurrent affiliate programs such as RescueTime need affiliates to pay a registration fee before advertising their services and products.
2. Where Can One Find Recurring Affiliate Programs Online?
There are several platforms where you can find a service or product with a recurrent affiliate program. After you register on the platforms and pay the monthly plan, these programs will make you handsome returns where you’ll generate income every time your referral spends money or buys a product you’ve promoted.
3. Do I Need To Purchase A Product Before Joining Their Network?
In most cases, no. However, there are instances where some programs require you to purchase the product before you promote it.
For instance, programs such as Accuranker require affiliates to be clients of their premium and costly tracker before they admit you into their affiliate program.
4. Is It Possible To Sell A Running Affiliate Business?
If you have a profitable affiliate business, you can always sell it as there are always many willing buyers. However, before selling it, make sure you use a valuation tool to determine your businesses’ actual value.
Once you have a rough idea of the value, you can now inform business analysts and selling agents to help you find a buyer who’ll meet your businesses’ price tag.
5. Which Is The Leading Paying Affiliate Program?
This question is difficult to answer as it solely depends on your specialty.
For instance, some programs pay a commission of $1000 for every referral. However, if it isn’t in your niche, it doesn’t matter.
The best thing to do if you want to earn good commissions is to come up with a list of 20 affiliate programs and list them according to the amount of commission they offer.
Bottom Line
Choosing the best affiliate program to join has been a big challenge in the past. Besides finding the best options, you also have to narrow the search depending on their payout system.
This list will help you narrow down your search. If you’ve been in the affiliate marketing scene for a while, you have to factor in your niche, as starting from scratch can be challenging.
Whichever program you choose, make sure to foster a strong relationship with your customer base once you’ve identified your target market.
