19 Best Recurring Affiliate Programs (and 1 to Avoid)

Last Updated on 6th February 2024

Welcome to our article on the best recurring affiliate programs.

If you have been into affiliate marketing, you have probably heard of recurring affiliate programs.

In case you haven’t, they’re the affiliate programs of products that have a subscription model, and instead of paying a one-time commission, they pay every month.

So, if a product costs $100 per month, and pays 40%, the commission would be $40 per month.

It’s a great way to build up passive income, as that commission will be paid for as long as the customer stays on the subscription without your time going into earning it.

What is a Recurring Affiliate Commission?

A recurring affiliate commission is an affiliate commission that is paid out every month, or at least once per year.

The most common recurring affiliate programs are those that offer products that require a monthly or yearly subscription like software products or membership courses.

The customer needs to pay monthly or yearly in order to continue to use the service. Each time they pay their monthly or yearly fee, you as the affiliate get paid.

Basically, you will continue to earn passive income from each customer you refer for as long as they remain a customer.

Why Choose Affiliate Programs With a Recurring Commission?

The main advantage of this type of affiliate program is that it gives you a steady stream of income every month. This means you don’t have to worry about whether you’ve sold enough products each month to earn your commissions.

Instead, you just keep earning money month after month for work you only did once. This is a great way to build your business as you can stack those affiliate commissions over time.

Affiliate programs that pay a recurring commission really take the pressure off in the early days of building your business.

Knowing that you have a steady amount of passive income coming in from these programs will also help you to plan how much money you want to invest in your business in order to grow.

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More affiliate programs by niche at the end of this article

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Best Recurring Affiliate Programs

The best recurring affiliate programs on our list are:

• Kartra
• ClickFunnels
• SamCart
• Dorik
• LeadPages
• ClickMagick
• Stencil
• CloudWays
• PipeDrive
• Mangools
• GetResponse
• Shopify
• Fiverr
• DepositPhotos
• PureVPN
• TailWind
• Tubebuddy
• ThriveThemes
• Thinkific

See also: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners

Kartra

Kartra is a product very similar to GrooveFunnels. The main differences between the two are a couple of features, the technology, and that Kartra is a little older. Other than that, they are pretty similar.

It also aims to be an all-in-one solution for marketers and online businesses that takes all the needed software and puts it into one platform.

Kartra also has a pretty good affiliate program with tons of tools, high commissions, and a good community.

Through my own Kartra promotions, I can tell you that their tracking and reporting system is advanced, so you can see clearly where your sales are coming from without needing to use a 3rd party tracking solution like ClickMagick.

They have a Facebook group for their affiliates, where you can ask any questions or discuss strategies.

• Product sale range: $99 per month to $499 per month
• Commission %: 40%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: Kartra Affiliate Program

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels probably doesn’t need any introduction since it’s so well-known now.

With over 120,000 paid customers, it is by far the most popular funnel builder on the market.

ClickFunnels also has a killer affiliate program that pays nice commissions and also has a selection of other products to promote, which include, books, courses, and the famous OFA Challenge.

There have been affiliates that have made millions (yes millions) promoting their products, so it’s definitely a highly profitable affiliate program.

You can also use ClickFunnels to promote your offers, which is what a lot of successful ClickFunnels affiliates do. You can learn to use ClickFunnels for affiliate marketing here.

• Product sale range: $99 per month to $1,497 per month
• Commission %: 20-40%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No.

Sign Up and Promote: ClickFunnels Affiliate Program

SamCart

SamCart is also a popular SaaS tool for online businesses. It is a comprehensive shopping cart solution that aims to help businesses and marketers sell more.

The main purpose of it is to optimize the user shopping cart experience to help you increase sales. This is a pretty attractive offer for business owners, which means it can be profitable to promote.

Combine this with their 14-day trial, and you can earn some nice commissions with this affiliate program.

When I first started promoting SamCart the conversions were slow and I didn’t receive a payout for my first few months. However, once my efforts built up traction I started to make regular sales.

Currently, I only send around 30 clicks per day on average to this program, so not a lot. However, I get an average of 1 person a day signing up for a free trial, many of which convert into paid customers. So, this shows that SamCart also converts well.

SamCart also runs regular promotions and their team offers some great prizes.

I only send a small number of clicks to SamCart because my method of affiliate marketing revolves around promoting a range of offers. However, with the small amount of traffic that I do send their way, I made a few thousand dollars in their last promo and also received a $50 Amazon gift voucher as a thank you.

Basically, SamCart converts, and if you put more effort into promoting them than I do (which isn’t much) then you can do really well.

• Product sale range: $99 per month to $199 per month
• Commission %:  40%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: SamCart Affiliate Program

Dorik

If you want to offer your audience a fast and easy solution for building great-looking websites, then Dorik is a great option.

Let’s face it, not everyone has the time or know-how to build a website from scratch on a platform like WordPress. Dorik solves this issue in a flash.

Dorik provides the hosting, a nice library of templates and pre-designed blocks that you can customize to your heart’s content, and over 20 elements to help improve both design and conversion rates.

I particularly like the versatility of Dorik. You can use it to build simple landing pages, full-blown websites, and even membership sites.

What it can do:

• Build landing pages
• Full-blown websites
• Blogs
• Membership sites
• Build shopping carts
• Take payments for your product purchases

Who it’s good for:

• Entrepreneurs
• Brick-and-mortar businesses
• Service-based businesses
• Agencies that want to build websites for customers

As an affiliate, you’ll get between a 30-50% recurring monthly commission when you join this program. Here’s how it works:

• 30% recurring commission for your first 20 paid referrals
• 40% recurring commission for 20+ paid referrals

If you have a large audience or list that’s relevant to this kind of product, then you can reach out to Dorik for a nice commission bump of up to 50% recurring commissions!

The cookie life is decent for this program too, at 90 days. This should be plenty of time for your referrals to test out the Dorik platform and become paid users.

Dorik also offers a completely free plan too, which should make it considerably easier to get your audience to click your affiliate link and give Dorik a try!

• Product sale range: Free plan – $649 per year
• Commission %:  30-50%
• Cookie life: 90 days
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign up and promote: Dorik affiliate program

LeadPages

LeadPages is another landing page builder that’s also extremely popular. It’s known for its ease of use and beautiful templates. This makes it a perfect fit for many types of businesses that you can promote it to as an affiliate.

The commission percentages aren’t quite as generous as Kartra or ClickFunnels’ but are still decent at 30% recurring.

Plus, just like most of the other options on this list, they also offer a free trial which means it will be much easier for you to get signups, as you just have to promote the trial, which is free.

I also think LeadPages are a great landing page builder considering their price, so a lot of people will upgrade.

• Product sale range: $27 per month to $321 per month
• Commission %: 30%
• Do you need the product to promote it? Yes, at least the pro plan.

Sign Up and Promote: Via FlexOffers

ClickMagick

ClickMagick is an industry-leading link tracking tool with 35% recurring commissions.

Link-tracking tools are used to get deeper insights into the traffic that is clicking on your links.

In a way, it’s similar to bit.ly, but the difference is that the analytics go into much more detail.

ClickMagick is the most popular option on the market for what it does, and also has a pretty sweet affiliate program with recurring commissions.

The target audience for this type of traffic would be anyone interested in Internet/affiliate marketing.

While ClickMagick is absolutely a great product, in my experience it doesn’t convert as well as some of the other programs on this list. However, I received an email from the ClickMagick affiliate department a few months ago to say that they are now putting a lot more effort into their affiliate program, which they said they hadn’t been doing up until recently.

Since that email, I have seen a good increase in free trial sign-ups and the conversion rate has improved too, so it looks like their affiliate program really is changing for the better.

• Product sale range: $27per month to $97per month
• Commission %: 35%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: ClickMagick Affiliate Program

Stencil

Stencil is another product with a great affiliate program that pays recurring commissions. It’s an online graphic design tool for bloggers, small businesses, and social media influencers, which is quite similar to Canva.

Stencil is one of the tools I use a lot in my business to create images for my blog and social media channels.

Stencil appeals to quite a broad audience, so you’ll have lots of options in who you can promote it to.

It pays 30% recurring commissions which are pretty sweet too. Something that I also like about their affiliate program is that it comes with a built-in link tracking tool which is always pretty helpful, as a lot of affiliate programs don’t provide this.

• Product sale range: $0 per month to $12 per month
• Commission %: 35%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

If you’re promoting products through social media then you may also like to read my article on some of the top recommended affiliate programs to promote on Pinterest.

Sign Up and Promote: Stencil Affiliate Program

CloudWays

Cloudways is a managed hosting provider. Managed hosting basically means that certain technical aspects such as updates, backups, and more are managed for you.

This gives the customer fewer hassles as they can focus on other aspects of their website or business such as creating content.

Most hosting providers usually pay a one-time commission, but Cloudways has several different commission structures, some of which include recurring commissions.

Alongside, the custom structure for affiliates with over 81 sales per month, there is also the following:

1. Hybrid: Earn $30 per sale + 7% lifetime recurring commission
2. Slab: $50 to $125 per sale (depending on how many sales per month)

If you’re in the hosting, blogging, or any other website-related niche, Cloudways’ affiliate program could be a good option for you.

• Product sale range: $10  to $274.33 per user, per month
• Commission %: One-time fee + 7% recurring
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: CloudWays Affiliate Program

PipeDrive

PipeDrive is a sales management CRM system that helps its customers manage all their leads in one place.

As you can imagine, this type of software is something that you’ll want to promote to marketers, business owners, and salespeople. However, the market scope for this product extends beyond this to anyone who needs to manage a team.

When promoting PipeDrive, you’ll be able to earn a 33% yearly recurring commission.

There is also another affiliate program for this software which is called the “Expert program” here, you’ll receive 20% recurring commissions for a lifetime. But, to join the PipeDrive Expert program, you have to pass a test that also includes consistent referral activity.

• Product sale range: £15  to £99  per user, per month
  Commission %: 20-33%
  Do you need the product to promote it? No.

Sign Up and Promote: PipeDrive Partner Sign Up

Mangools

Mangools is an all-in-one SEO tool that comes with features to help you find keywords, analyze your competitors, and more.

It’s a great tool used by leading brands such as Adidas, Airbnb, and Alexa. It pays a sweet 30% recurring commission for a lifetime which is also pretty nice.

Mangools can be beneficial for marketers, business owners, and of course SEOs, so you also have quite a lot of options of who you want to promote it to.

Something that I thought was quite interesting about Mangools’ affiliate program is that the average affiliate earns $487 per month. Not bad considering most affiliates don’t actually earn much from their promotional efforts.

In case you weren’t aware, most programs only have a handful of high-earning affiliates that promote them so the $487 monthly average reported by Mangools should mean that it converts quite well.

• Product sale range: $29 per month to $129per month
• Commission %: 30%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No. You only need to sign up for the free trial which you can cancel.

Sign Up and Promote: Mangools Affiliate Program

GetResponse

GetResponse is one of the most popular pieces of email marketing software on the market.

In recent years, it has expanded and become more of an all-in-one marketing platform. Some of the other features include webinars, a landing page builder, and a CRM feature.

It also has a killer affiliate program that pays 30% recurring commissions and has a 120-day cookie life, which is pretty decent.

This is also one of those affiliate products that can be promoted to a very broad audience, which gives you lots of freedom in how you want to promote it.

• Product sale range: $15 per month to $580+ per month
• Commission %: 30%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: Via FlexOffers

Fiverr

Okay, so Fiverr isn’t necessarily recurring. But, it can pay commissions pretty frequently which is why I thought it can make the list.

The Fiverr affiliate program has three commission structures; CPA, RevShare & Hybrid.

CPA pays out a commission of up to $150 the first time the customer makes a purchase, while with RevShare, you will earn every time the customer makes a deposit, which is why I’ve included Fiverr in this article. Not “strictly” recurring, but recurring with client activity, so make of that what you will.

For RevShare you will receive 30% of what Fiverr receives in fees forever. As I said, it’s not a classic recurring affiliate program, but it can pay you quite frequently.

Lastly, the Hybrid option will pay a $10 CPA commission, and 20% of what the customer deposits ongoingly.

• Product sale range: Varies
• Commission %: 10-30%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: Via Fiverr the Affiliate Program

Kinsta

Kinsta is another great managed WordPress hosting provider which lets you earn recurring commissions.

Again, a lot of hosting providers only offer one-time CPA-type commissions, but this isn’t the case with Kinsta.

Kinsta offers $50-$500 per referral + 10% lifetime commission, meaning you’ll earn juicy recurring commissions.

The beauty of promoting offers like these is that as your recurring sign-ups grow, so will your commissions over time.

In this case, when your referrals need more resources, they’ll upgrade and you will earn higher recurring commissions, which is one thing I especially like about this program.

• Product sale range: $30per month to $1500 per month
• Commission %: one-time + 10% recurring
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: Kinsta Affiliate Program

DepositPhotos

DepositPhotos is a premium solution for stock photos, videos, and music.

Creators can sign up for their plans and get monthly credits to use within DepositPhotos. They also offer on-demand i.e pay as you go pricing plans, for people who would like to use their service, but do not subscribe to a monthly plan.

Their affiliate program offers a 40% commission on all first-time sales, plus 15% on any recurring subscriptions.

If you’re looking to recommend a company for stock photos, videos, and images, DepositPhotos’ affiliate program could be a nice way to stack up recurring commissions.

• Product sale range: £19 per month to £159 per month
• Commission %:  40% first time sales + 15% recurring
• Do you need the product to promote it? No.

Sign Up and Promote: via FlexOffers

Pure VPN

Pure VPN is a leading VPN provider that helps customers all over the world protect their privacy.

It has some extremely unique and advanced features that beat most other VPNs.

Admittedly, I’m not an expert when it comes to internet privacy, but what I can tell you is that they’ve got a pretty cool affiliate program.

How good is it?

Well, one of their affiliates earned $38,924 in one month!

So that should show you some of the potential that this affiliate program has.

If this fits your niche, then it’s worth considering as it has extremely high EPCs and conversions.

• Product sale range: $10 per month to $80 per month
• Commission%: Up to 100% first-time sales, 35% recurring
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: Via FlexOffers

TailWind

Tailwind is a social media scheduling tool for Pinterest & Instagram.

It is especially popular among Pinterest users, and the main option for that platform, which is also why so many people use it.

TailWind offers 15% lifetime recurring commissions and a long cookie period of 90 days.

You can promote it to any type of (aspiring) Instagram and Pinterest influencers or even businesses that are looking to leverage those platforms.

• Product sale range: $9.99 to $14.99
• Commission%: 15%
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and promote: Via FlexOffers

TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is an all-in-one YouTube tool to help video creators grow their channels and be more productive when creating their videos.

It’s a chrome extension that helps its users do various tasks related to YouTube such as:

• Research keywords
• Publish faster
• Optimize Videos
• And more

They do offer a freemium version but most of the best features come with a paid plan.

As an affiliate, this is a great model, as you can promote it as a free product, and get lots of commissions once your referrals upgrade.

• Product sale range: free to $49 per month
• Commission %: Up to 50% recurring
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: TubeBuddy Affiliates

ThriveThemes

ThriveThemes is one of the most popular WordPress theme and plugin providers on the market.

Their products range from a page builder plugin (Thrive Architect) to various themes, all for WordPress.

These can be purchased separately for a one-time fee, or there is also the ThriveThemes subscription which costs $19 per month (billed yearly).

And that subscription is of course, where the recurring commissions come from which will be 35% of the sales you generate.

• Product sale range: $69 one time fee to $19 per month
• Commission %: 35% per first time purchase, 25% recurring
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign Up and Promote: TriveThemes Affiliates

Thinkific

Thinkific is a platform for creating and hosting online courses. Some of its main competitors include Teachable, Kajabi, and ClickFunnels.

The target audience for this product is DIY entrepreneurs, and content creators who are looking to host a membership course.

The Thinkific pricing starts reasonably at $49 per month, which is affordable for most small businesses and solopreneurs. The top-level account costs $499 per month.

Like most subscription-based software products, Thinkific offers a discount for those who choose to pay annually for the service.

Thinkific pays its affiliates a 20% recurring monthly commission, which can be a nice revenue stream to build up. If your referral chooses to pay yearly then you can earn up to $675 on a yearly basis.

• Product sale range: $49 pm to $499 pm
• Commission %: 20% recurring (up to $675 when paying yearly)
• Do you need the product to promote it? No

Sign up and promote: Thinkific affiliates

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1 Affiliate Program To Avoid – GrooveFunnels

I started promoting GrooveFunnels with very high hopes. Sadly, I and many other affiliates have learned the hard way that GrooveFunnels is not a good company to partner with.

If you are thinking to promote GrooveFunnels then be warned, they do not treat their affiliates very well, and many affiliates, including myself, have not been paid for commissions owed, even after several months of emailing their support.

GrooveFunnels did pay my commissions in the early days, but now they have stopped paying me any other affiliates, blaming it on “technical issues”.

At this point, they owe me several thousand dollars in commissions, which should have been paid a long time ago. After several emails back and forth, they have now stopped replying to my support emails.

I’m not the only one. This is what happened to my friend Lyndon Scott, who had a similar issue:

You can see the full Facebook post and comments here.

While most companies out there will make great affiliate partners, unfortunately, there are also some bad companies out there too.

Besides running the risk of not being paid, it’s best to avoid these companies at all costs since even your association with them can hurt your reputation.

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Best Ways To Promote Recurring Affiliate Programs

Here are some of the best ways to promote affiliate programs.

Build an Affiliate Website

Tons of people turn to search engines like Google and Bing every day to search for help, and advice, and even to purchase products.

By building a niche affiliate site around a specific topic, then in time, you can rank on page 1 for your chosen keywords and scoop up lots of free traffic.

Niche website pros

• Free traffic
• Passive income – you can make consistent sales through your website even while you’re away on vacation, or while you sleep
• Build long-term traffic source
• You build an asset that you own completely (your website)
• You can sell your website later for a large payout if you decide to exit the niche

Niche website cons

• Takes time
• Some keywords are very competitive, so you’ll need to do some deep-dive keyword research to find the low-hanging fruit

If you like the idea of building a niche website that makes passive income, with the option and flexibility to sell your business later for 6-figures, then this is the best course to show you how.

Promote on YouTube

YouTube is an excellent way to build credibility and a trusted brand online. More and more people are turning to YouTube every day for help and advice on almost any topic you can think of.

This is a great platform to build an audience and online business in pretty much any niche.

YouTube pros

• Free traffic
• Passive income – you can make consistent sales through your website even while you’re away on vacation, or while you sleep
• Build long-term traffic source

YouTube cons

• You have to be on camera if you want to build a brand (How to build a highly profitable YouTube channel without showing your face camera – more info here)

If you like the idea of building a profitable YouTube channel for affiliate marketing, then this is one of the best (very) low-cost courses to show you how to do it.

Promote on Social Media

Social media is another great place to build an audience. While there are tons of platforms out there, the best ones for affiliate marketing tend to be TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

While there are various strategies you can take here from paid advertising to starting a Facebook group, the most popular way affiliate leverage social platforms to make money is through regular social media posting and building relationships with their audience, and then networking with them over the platform’s private messenger app.

Social media pros

• Can make money quickly

Social media cons

• Is not passive
• You need to publish several social posts every day
• You need to actively network and connect with other users, build relationships, and then sell directly to them

If you like the idea of leveraging social media to sell affiliate products, then this free training is a great place for you to start.

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Recurring Affiliate Programs – My Final Thoughts

As you have seen throughout this list of best recurring affiliate programs, there are tons of great options.

We’ve covered everything from landing page builders to VPNs, so you should have been able to find a program that suits you.

If you did enjoy this article and would like to read more of our articles on affiliate programs, check out some of our other posts below.

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