10 Best Affiliate Programs to Make Money

The highest commission isn't always the best choice. A big percentage still earns little if the offer converts poorly, gets refunded, is hard to get approved for, pays slowly or loses the buyer to a short cookie. Your audience, the product's price, whether the commission recurs and how much work each sale takes matter more than the headline rate.

The ten picks below cover every way to earn from a referral: Amazon's retail reach, recurring software commissions through PartnerStack and impact.com, the big brand networks CJ, Rakuten and Awin, digital-product marketplaces like Digistore24 and ClickBank, and business referrals through Whop Partners.

Then there's Creem, which we built so software makers can run their own program inside checkout. Whether you're promoting offers or building a program for your product, each pick shows what it pays and what it costs.

Table of Contents

• What makes an affiliate program pay?
• 10 affiliate programs to make money as a publisher or a seller
  • 1. Creem
  • 2. PartnerStack
  • 3. Whop Partners
  • 4. impact.com
  • 5. Digistore24
  • 6. ClickBank
  • 7. Rakuten Advertising
  • 8. CJ
  • 9. Awin (includes ShareASale)
  • 10. Amazon Associates
• Affiliate programs compared: fees, partner access and payouts
• How to choose an affiliate program
• Sell through partners with Creem

What makes an affiliate program pay?

Partner programs pay off at scale. US brands spent $13.62 billion on affiliate marketing in 2024, and those programs drove $113 billion in e-commerce sales, per the Performance Marketing Association figures Awin collects.

For a publisher, three terms decide what a referral earns. The commission model sets whether you're paid once or on every renewal. The cookie window sets how long a reader has to buy after clicking. The payout terms decide when the money actually reaches you.

For the product paying commissions, a high rate tells you nothing about what you keep. The rate alone cannot show whether a referred sale leaves enough margin to pay for running the program.

I start with the buyer’s payment and remove any VAT, GST or sales tax charged at checkout. That money must be remitted. Then subtract:

• The partner’s commission, including commissions on subscription renewals.
• Platform charges and any separate fee for using the affiliate system.
• The cost of delivering the product.
• Time spent finding partners, checking what they’re owed and handling their payments.

Refunds change the calculation too. A refunded sale may reverse the commission, or leave you owing the partner despite returning the buyer’s money. Chargeback costs also depend on who carries liability for the sale.

Payout timing affects cash flow. Earnings can be profitable while still unavailable to withdraw, and receiving them sooner does nothing to improve the margin.

The cookie window matters to your partners. A short one cuts what they earn on buyers who take a few days to decide, so check how long each platform keeps a referral credited.

Before setting your commission rate, calculate each sale in order: buyer payment minus tax, commission, platform and affiliate fees, refund costs, product costs and the cost of your admin hours.

10 affiliate programs to make money as a publisher or a seller

Each pick works from both sides. Publishers use it to find offers and get paid. Sellers use it to recruit partners or run their own program. For sellers, the main choice is how much of the sale the platform handles, from partner discovery and tracking to checkout, tax and payouts.

• Integrated commerce: Creem keeps affiliate attribution and partner payouts alongside checkout, billing and merchant-of-record tax handling. Publishers join a product’s program directly.
• SaaS partner platforms: PartnerStack’s B2B software partner network helps you recruit partners and manage their commissions and payouts. Partners browse its brands free.
• Digital marketplaces: Affiliates browse Digistore24 and ClickBank for products to promote, with purchase flows, tax and commission payments handled by the marketplace.
• Enterprise partnership networks: impact.com, Rakuten, CJ and Awin connect established brands with publishers, who apply to each brand’s program there.
• Retail affiliate program: Amazon Associates pays publishers a share of anything their readers buy on Amazon.

PartnerStack, impact.com, Rakuten, CJ and Awin provide partner access and tracking without replacing your checkout or taking on merchant-of-record tax responsibilities. Your existing systems still run checkout and handle tax, so recruiting affiliates does not remove those jobs.

1. Creem: Merchant-of-record commerce with affiliates built in

Creem sells your software or digital product on your behalf as merchant of record. It handles payments, tax collection and remittance worldwide, invoices, fraud and chargebacks. A partner shares a referral link, the buyer pays through checkout, and Creem credits and pays the commission without a separate payout system to reconcile.

Best for

Creem is best for SaaS, AI and software companies, and sellers of digital products like templates and courses, who sell to buyers worldwide and want their affiliate program to run inside the same checkout that handles tax and pays partners. That’s the case where I’d choose it.

Key features

The Affiliate Hub records partners’ clicks, purchases and earnings. Its commission rules let you:

• Reward purchases with a percentage or a flat amount.
• Pay for subscription renewals or limit rewards to the initial payment.
• Give individual products different rates, or exclude them by setting their rate to zero.

You can reward ongoing subscription revenue while keeping products with tighter margins out of the program. If you sell subscriptions, my guide to SaaS affiliate programs compares recurring, fixed-term and one-time commission models.

You choose how long the referral cookie lasts, typically 30 to 90 days. Partners are paid on the 1st and 15th of each month once they pass a 50 USD or EUR minimum, by bank transfer or in USDC.

Partners join through an approval flow, so you decide who promotes you. Each one gets a referral link, and Creem's short links tie their clicks to the orders they bring. You can see which partners send paying buyers, not just visitors.

Revenue splits sit alongside the affiliate program, sending a set share of each sale to a partner, contractor or licensor automatically. For AI and SaaS products, Creem also bills by usage or prepaid credit wallets, and an API, SDKs, webhooks and a CLI let you wire referrals into your own app.

Founders who move to Creem often mention the affiliate program first. Thomas Sanlis moved Uneed from Polar for the lower fees, and the built-in affiliate program was the part that surprised him. Another founder, @madsmadsdk, wrote: I've migrated payments from Stripe to @creem_io in about 2 hours. Including testing and setting up an affiliate program.

For publishers

Creem has no marketplace to browse. Each software product runs its own program on it, so you apply to that product directly and get paid on the 1st and 15th. My guide to joining an affiliate program covers how to vet one and get approved.

Pricing

The transaction fee is 3.9% + $0.40, leaving $95.70 from a $100 sale. There are no setup or monthly charges, and the same rate applies to one-time sales and subscriptions, for every card type and country.

An affiliate-referred sale carries another 2% fee before calculating the partner’s commission. At higher volume, the Partner plan lowers the transaction fee and drops that 2% to 0%, priced on a call.

Creem leaves $93.70 from a $100 affiliate-referred sale after transaction and affiliate fees, before the partner’s commission. ClickBank leaves $91.50 from the same sale. A network like Awin adds 3.5% of the sale on top of what your current checkout already costs.

The partners you invite send buyers straight to your own product, not to a marketplace listing. Each referred sale is taxed, invoiced and credited to them in the same checkout, and renewals can keep paying them if you choose. Start selling and invite the partners you already have.

2. PartnerStack Partner Platform: Automated partner commission administration

PartnerStack lets B2B partners find your program in its marketplace and sends their referrals into your CRM. It also calculates rewards and pays partners from commissions you fund, while your existing systems still handle customer billing and tax. I’d shortlist it when partners bring sales leads and registered deals as well as clicks.

Best for

B2B software businesses with a team coordinating affiliates, referral partners, co-selling relationships and resellers through a CRM. That team gets more value from the platform than someone running one referral channel.

Key features

Instead of calculating rewards in a spreadsheet and sending each payment yourself, you can:

• Pay a fixed amount or percentage when someone signs up or buys, with separate reward terms for each partner group.
• Spread commissions over time as subscription revenue comes in.
• Fund approved rewards through one monthly bill, then have PartnerStack send each partner their earnings.

The people managing partners and the people paying them can work from the same commission records.

Launch makes you select either referral-link tracking or lead and deal registration. Enterprise combines link, lead and deal tracking, so running both affiliate referrals and registered deals affects which plan you need.

For publishers

Partners join the PartnerStack marketplace free and can apply to more than 600 B2B software brands. Each brand sets its own reward terms, and PartnerStack pays partners automatically.

Pricing

PartnerStack prices Launch, Growth and Enterprise in a demo, not on its pricing page. In signed contracts, the entry tier runs $500 to $800 a month, Growth $1,500 to $4,000 a month, and Enterprise $30,000 to $100,000+ a year, with a median contract of $19,616.

PartnerStack also takes 1.5% to 3.5% of the partner payouts it processes, and Enterprise setups add a one-time $5,000 to $20,000+. An annual term takes 10% to 25% off the month-to-month price.

On a $100 sale with a 20% commission, the partner gets $20 and the payout fee takes $0.30 to $0.70. That leaves about $79.50 before payment processing, tax and the monthly fee. For a small program, the $500 monthly floor is the number I'd test first.

3. Whop Partners: Commission on businesses you refer

Whop Partners pays for referring whole businesses that use Whop to take payments, run checkout and pay out.

Best for

Agencies, consultants and publishers reaching online business owners. The program earns on referred businesses' sales, so it pays off only when that audience already takes payments online.

Key features

Partners earn on Whop's fees and advertising activity:

• 30% of the revenue Whop earns from each business you refer.
• 1% of a referred business's Whop Ads spend.
• Second-tier earnings of 10% of revenue and 0.5% of ad spend from businesses your recruited partners refer.

The commission comes out of Whop's side of the fees, so the referred business's own revenue is untouched.

The partners page says earnings continue “whenever Whop makes money from them.” Whop says its partners have earned over $10M to date.

For publishers

Partners share a referral link tied to their Whop username or enter the business name and owner's email in the dashboard, and Whop emails the owner an invitation.

The dashboard shows each referred business's sales volume and the partner's earnings. Whop does not publish a cookie duration.

Commissions move from awaiting settlement to pending to completed before payout, and lines can be canceled or reversed.

The developer documentation lists a referral expiry date for each business, so confirm how long attribution lasts before forecasting income.

Pricing

A Verified Partner tier costs $199 once and adds custom fee setting for referred businesses within Whop's limits. Review current terms on the Whop Partners page before applying.

4. impact.com Partnership Cloud: Contract control alongside an existing commerce stack

impact.com connects brands with publishers and manages their relationships through partner-specific contracts. You set the payment model in each contract: a fixed acquisition payment, a percentage of the sale, a lead payment or a click payment. That gives you different ways to reward partners whose contributions differ.

Best for

Established brands managing conditional commission rules across an existing commerce stack. The contract controls fit a program where different partners need different commercial terms.

Key features

Payout groups let you change commission rates by customer status and product category. Contracts can also carry payout restrictions and action caps, with excess actions excluded from payment unless you authorize them. Those controls help you define which conversions deserve a reward before commissions accumulate.

Recruitment and tracking support several routes:

• Marketplace discovery and direct invitation links help you recruit partners.
• A first-party JavaScript tag or server-to-server API records conversions.
• Promo-code attribution and batch uploads provide additional ways to credit sales.

Settlement runs through the contract’s locking period. Commissions stay pending during that period, and returns or cancellations can reverse them. Partners are paid only once you fund settlement, so approved commissions are a cash obligation you need to budget for.

For publishers

Publishers find brands in the impact.com marketplace that match their audience and earn a commission on each conversion. Withdrawals run on a schedule or once your balance passes a threshold you set.

Pricining

Plans reportedly start at $30 a month for Starter, $500 for Essentials and $2,500 for Pro, with Enterprise priced by sales. A one-time setup fee and a 2.5% fee on partner-driven sales come on top (Modash). The median impact.com contract Vendr tracks is $38,500.

On a $100 sale with a 10% commission, the partner gets $10 and impact.com $2.50, which leaves $87.50 before payment processing and tax.

impact.com is not the merchant of record. Sales tax, VAT, fulfilment and customer disputes stay with you. I see its value in conditional contracts and settlement control. It earns its place when those controls solve a real partner-management problem and you already have the commerce side covered.

5. Digistore24 Vendor Marketplace: Affiliate operations joined to sales administration

Digistore24 gives affiliates a place to browse your product and choose whether to promote it. Affiliates join free, which makes it easier to get them to try your offer.

As merchant of record, it takes the buyer’s payment and handles tax. Refunds, disputed charges and fraud checks also run through the platform, reducing the separate systems needed to process a referred sale.

Best for

Sellers whose product already sells but who still need people to recommend it. I’d shortlist Digistore24 when marketplace exposure matters as much as taking payment and settling partner earnings.

Key features

You decide how much affiliates earn. Digistore24 attributes their sales, calculates what they’re owed and sends their payments, so you keep control of the reward without handling each payout yourself.

Its checkout and reporting tools let you:

• Offer an extra item at checkout through an order bump, or a one-click upsell.
• Compare checkout versions with A/B split testing.
• See which affiliates send sales, how traffic sources convert and how much revenue they generate.

That reporting helps you distinguish partners who send visitors from those who bring paying buyers.

For publishers

Affiliates choose from more than 10,000 offers in 44 niches. Commissions run up to 100%, the cookie lasts 180 days, and payouts go out up to three times a week.

Pricing

Registration is free and there is no monthly fee. Digistore24's US entity keeps 7.9% + $1 of each sale, rising to 9.9% + $1 if your chargeback rate goes above 1% (Digistore24 US). A refund costs $0.75 or $1, and a chargeback $50.

The German entity charges 7.9% + €1, takes 4.9% on the part of a price above €400, and holds 10% of each purchase as a security deposit (Digistore24 GmbH).

On a $100 sale through the US entity, Digistore24 keeps $8.90 and $91.10 remains, with tax and payment processing already handled. Your affiliate's commission comes out of that amount.

6. ClickBank Vendor Marketplace: Marketplace access with substantial cash-flow deductions

ClickBank puts your product in front of affiliates once it passes approval. When an affiliate sends a buyer, ClickBank tracks who referred them, takes payment, remits tax and pays the partner’s share. That keeps finding affiliates, charging buyers and paying commissions in one service.

Best for

Sellers of courses and direct-response products that already turn visitors into buyers. You need to be ready to deliver more orders. I’d consider its marketplace when finding affiliates is the main obstacle and each sale can cover both their reward and the platform’s fees.

Key features

ClickBank uses device-level tracking to credit the referring affiliate. Revenue Sharing pays them a portion of the sale, while Cost Per Action pays a fixed acquisition bounty. Those options let you choose how to reward a purchase.

For revenue-share sales, refunds debit the seller’s proceeds and the affiliate’s commission, and most refunds carry a processing charge too. ClickBank handles the administration, but a refund still reduces your balance.

For publishers

Affiliates open a free account and pick from more than 4,000 products. Revenue-share offers also pay on upsells and recurring rebills. CPA offers pay a fixed amount that refunds don’t take back. ClickBank says it has paid over $7.3 billion in commissions.

Pricing

Getting your first product accepted triggers a $49.95 activation charge. You owe nothing for activation if it is rejected. After that, there’s no monthly subscription, though every payment issued to you carries a $5 fee. More frequent payouts therefore add cost.

The amount taken from a sale depends on how the buyer pays and whether it is a renewal:

• On a standard purchase, ClickBank retains 7.5% plus $1 from the full customer charge, including shipping and any applicable tax.
• A qualifying Klarna purchase carries a 9.8% plus $1.30 charge, leaving less to cover the partner’s reward and product costs.
• For subscription renewals below $40, ClickBank buys the rebill at 90.1% of retail, requiring a separate renewal-margin calculation.

ClickBank’s $100 illustration leaves $91.50 after the standard charge. An affiliate receiving half of that takes $45.75, leaving the seller another $45.75 before other deductions.

ClickBank’s rates let you calculate the cost, but marketplace access still needs to produce enough profitable sales to justify it. I’d choose it for reaching affiliates, rather than simply making checkout easier.

7. Rakuten Advertising Affiliate Network (advertiser side): Network-based affiliate programs with commission design

Rakuten Advertising, formerly LinkShare, gives you a publisher network to recruit from, tools to set their rewards and reports showing how campaigns perform. You run your own program on the network, with control over which publishers earn commissions.

Best for

Retail and consumer businesses with an established brand and a team running affiliate campaigns. Rakuten pairs its technology with advice from specialists. I’d consider it when that help matters across a larger campaign, rather than for a solo founder’s first referral program.

Key features

You can search for publishers in plain language and get recommendations based on their record in your product category. That helps narrow recruitment to partners with relevant experience.

Campaign tools let you:

• Change commission rules for product promotions during key sales periods.
• Reward the publisher at the first or last touch in the buyer’s journey.
• Review campaign trends in dashboards and share performance reports with your team.

Checkout and customer sales tax still run through your commerce system. Rakuten’s value here is publisher reach and control over campaign rewards.

For publishers

Publishers promote luxury, retail, finance and travel brands through Rakuten’s publisher dashboard. Its discovery tools recommend brands and placements based on performance data.

Pricing

Rakuten sells its network by quote. Networks in its class, Rakuten and CJ included, charge a one-time setup fee of about $2,500, a platform fee of $500 to $3,500 a month, and a percentage of every affiliate sale. That is a fixed cost you carry before the first partner sale.

On a $100 sale with a 10% commission, you pay the partner $10 plus the network's percentage, and the monthly fee sits on top. I'd only take that on with enough partner sales to spread the monthly fee thin.

8. CJ Affiliate advertiser platform: Granular partner and commission controls

CJ Affiliate, formerly Commission Junction, is an advertiser-side network where you run your own affiliate program and recruit publishers. It brings partner discovery and relationship management into one platform.

Best for

Established advertisers governing a network program with differentiated commission terms. You still run checkout, billing and tax. I’d consider CJ when managing those partner relationships requires more than a single referral rate.

Key features

Commission rules can account for customer status, promotion type and customer location. A first-time buyer or a sale using a particular promotion can earn a different commission. Terms can also vary by partner and promotional property, such as the website or channel used to promote your product.

CJ reviews every publisher for compliance before their first payment. That puts a check for fraudulent or prohibited promotional activity ahead of the payout.

For publishers

Publishers are paid twice a month in over 150 currencies, by direct deposit or through Payoneer. CJ’s compliance review comes before your first payment, so expect a check before money moves.

Pricing

CJ prices advertisers by quote. Expect a network-access fee, a refundable deposit held against future commissions, monthly fees, dormant-account fees, and a share of the commissions you pay that is often near 30%. CJ sets that share per contract. Networks in its class set up at about $2,500 and charge $500 to $3,500 a month.

At a 30% share, a $100 sale with a 10% commission sends $10 to the partner and $3 to CJ, which leaves $87 before payment processing, tax and the monthly fee.

9. Awin Advertiser Network (includes ShareASale): Network access with separate commerce responsibilities

Awin helps businesses recruit publishers to promote their products, set rewards and pay partners. ShareASale is now part of Awin, with new customers launching directly on Awin.

Best for

Retail, travel and consumer brands that want to run their own network program. I’d shortlist it for consumer-brand distribution.

Key features

Access allows up to three commission groups based on product ID, product category or whether the customer is new or returning. Coupon-code and SKU rules require Accelerate, so more detailed rewards need the team plan.

Awin manages partner payments. You handle customer checkout, taxes, invoices and reconciling refunds.

For publishers

Publishers share links across blogs, social posts, videos and newsletters. Awin pays twice a month once confirmed commission reaches its $20 threshold, or £20 or €20.

Pricing

Access’s tracking fee is 3.5% of transaction value, separate from affiliate commission and only one component of the platform’s total cost. On a $100 sale at a 6% commission, the partner receives $6 and Awin takes $3.50, leaving $90.50 before payment processing and tax handling. The merchant-of-record options include those services in their per-sale charges.

Accelerate, the team plan, has a tracking fee of 2.5% of transaction value, separate from affiliate commission, so that rate alone does not establish whether upgrading costs less overall. Access commits you to at least three months, with 14 days’ notice needed to cancel.

Awin publishes its tracking rates, while Rakuten and CJ quote theirs. That lets you calculate Awin’s tracking cost on a referred sale before a sales call, though it remains only part of your total selling cost.

10. Amazon Associates: A retail program that covers almost any product

Amazon Associates pays you a share of qualifying purchases your links send to Amazon, plus fixed bounties for programs like Audible and Kindle Unlimited sign-ups. It works from the publisher side only. A software or digital-product seller can’t run their own partner program on it.

Best for

Publishers whose readers buy physical products: reviews, gift guides and how-to content where the next step is a purchase on Amazon. I’d start here when your audience already shops there and you want one program covering almost any product you mention.

Key features

One account covers the whole Amazon catalog, so you can link any product you recommend without applying brand by brand. Link tools build tracked links and product cards, and reporting shows which links earned.

For publishers

Commission depends on the product category:

• 10% on luxury beauty.
• 4.5% on physical books, kitchen and automotive.
• 4% on trade books, consumer electronics and all other categories.
• 1% on grocery, health and personal care, and physical video games.
• 0% on digital video games and restaurant delivery.

Commission is paid about 60 days after the end of the month you earned it.

Pricing

On a $100 kitchen order, you earn $4.50. The same sale through a 50% ClickBank offer would pay $45.75. Amazon’s strength is that almost every reader can buy something, not the rate per sale.

Affiliate programs compared: fees, partner access and payouts

Creem and ClickBank take their fees from the customer sale before commission. The networks add their fees on top of the commerce costs you already carry.

How to choose an affiliate program

If you're promoting offers, match the program to what your audience already buys, then compare the commission model, cookie window and payout terms. Marketplaces like Digistore24 and ClickBank put thousands of offers in one place. Whop Partners pays for referring businesses that sell online. Networks like impact.com, Rakuten, CJ and Awin give you access to established brands, each with its own application. Amazon Associates covers almost any physical product at lower rates.

If you're selling your own product, start with your partners. You may already have people asking for a referral link. If so, you need to track their sales and pay them. If nobody is ready to promote your product, partner discovery matters more.

The partners you already know may matter most: the top 10% of affiliates usually bring in about 70% of program revenue.

• People already willing to recommend your product: built-in affiliate tools tie their links to checkout and calculate what they earn.
• Without existing relationships, a digital marketplace lets potential affiliates find your offer among products they can promote.
• Selling through both content recommendations and partner-led deals calls for a SaaS partner platform that supports those different sales routes.
• A publisher network fits when you already handle checkout and tax and need access to partners you cannot recruit yourself.

Subscriptions need a clear reward policy: first payment only, or renewals too, with a defined duration. A high commission can consume margin quickly: at a 50% ClickBank commission, half of the net sale goes to the affiliate.

Before choosing, write down how you will recruit partners and which system will charge buyers, handle tax and calculate rewards.

If affiliate administration runs separately from checkout, check how the integration connects payments, refunds and renewals to commissions, and which system pays partners. If you're unsure what tracking you need, this guide to referral tracking systems shows how a click becomes a credited sale.

Sell through partners with Creem

If you need to recruit affiliates, a marketplace or network gives them a way to discover your offer. That access has a cost: ClickBank takes 7.5% + $1 per standard sale, while Awin Access charges 3.5% of transaction value on top of the partner’s commission and your commerce costs.

When you already have partners, I’d prioritize what happens after their recommendation. Their link needs to reach a checkout that collects the right VAT, credits the referral and pays the commission without a spreadsheet.

Creem becomes the legal seller of your software or digital product and handles that money path:

• Tax is collected and remitted, buyers receive invoices, and Creem handles fraud and payment disputes.
• You invite partners and see the clicks, purchases and revenue their recommendations generate.
• Rewards can pay once or continue through subscription renewals, using a flat amount or a share of revenue, with product-specific terms.

The transaction charge is 3.9% + $0.40, and referred sales carry an additional 2% affiliate platform fee before the partner’s share is calculated. Together they come to $6.30 on a $100 referred sale, compared with ClickBank’s $8.50 standard sale charge, before partner commissions.

If you already have partners, Creem keeps their buyers on your product and handles the tax, invoice and commission on every sale, renewals included, in one checkout. Start selling and invite the partners you already have.