15 Best Pay Per Lead Affiliate Programs: Get Paid Per Free Signup

Last Updated on 6th February 2024

When it comes to affiliate marketing, most affiliates focus on earning commissions by generating sales for a product owner.

For example, you place a link on your website, if a person clicks the link and then buys the product or service, you get paid.

However, that’s not the only way to do it.

You can also get paid per free signup just by sending leads to the advertiser, regardless of whether the prospect buys or not. These types of programs are called pay per lead affiliate programs (PPL).

In most cases, Pay Per Lead programs pay a small amount, but the good ones can convert into regular sales for you because you don’t need the person to buy anything in order for you to get paid.

Having said that, some Pay Per Lead programs pay substantially high commissions, some as high as $150 per lead, as you will see in this article.

Pay per lead programs are also sometimes referred to as Cost Per Lead (CPL). If the visitor is also required to perform an action in order for you to receive your commission, then the program will be referred to as a Cost Per Action (CPA) affiliate program.

Typically, the action will be something simple like signing up for a free trial, submitting an email address, or completing a survey, for example.

Why Promote Pay Per Lead Affiliate Programs?

You might be thinking that a lot of cost per lead affiliate programs are not worth promoting because they pay low commissions, but this is not the right way to look at it.

If you only promote high ticket offers then your sales will be more infrequent, even if it’s a good offer. On top of that, you will also need some sales skills to present high ticket offers effectively in order to earn money online consistently.

Promoting a few good PPL offers that convert well will help you to earn money steadily each month.

A good way to think about it is to tailor your affiliate marketing strategy to include a mix of a few good high ticket offers, some recurring affiliate programs, and some Pay Per Lead offers.

That way you can make money from the cost per lead affiliate programs regularly, build up a recurring income with your re-bill affiliate programs, and also scoop up some high commissions along the way.

Affiliate marketing is becoming more popular every year, with an increased interest of around 200% since 2015. So, with more people starting affiliate marketing it makes sense to give yourself the best chance to earn money online by including some PPL programs in your affiliate marketing strategy.

Best Pay Per Lead Affiliate Programs

There are a ton of PPL and CPA offers out there that will pay you per free signup. However, it can be hard to find a lot of the good ones.

When you come across them yourself without a recommendation, it can be hard to know if they will actually convert once you start sending leads to them.

Some of the best Pay Per Lead websites I have promoted took me years to find. So, in this article, I have listed some of the best pay-per-lead affiliate programs I have come across to save you time searching the web.

Pay Per Lead SMB Affiliate Programs

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is a great piece of software that allows you to build sales funnels, landing pages, receive payments for your own products and services, recruit affiliates, and build an email list.

ClickFunnels also has a great affiliate program too and is one of the highest pay-per-lead affiliate programs out there. This is due to the money you can make on the upsells for some of their products.

Although their affiliate tracking has been known to be a little off in the past, they are still a great product to promote. Their products are massively popular, and you also have the chance to make some pretty sizeable commissions.

Promoting a few of their low-ticket offers such as their marketing books (DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets, Traffic Secrets, and Copywriting Secrets) will pay you $1 per lead.

This doesn’t sound like much, but once you’ve referred that lead, you will also earn money on anything the customer buys on the back end of the funnel.

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Example 1

You get $1 for any Copywriting Secrets signups → Customer later buys Funnel Scripts at $797 and you earn a $297 commission on the Funnel Scripts sale.

Example 2

You get $1 for any DotCom Secrets signups → customer later buys the ClickFunnels software at $99 or $297 per month and earn 30-40% recurring commission on this sale every single month.

• Commission rate: Various – $1 on books, 20% on selected products for new affiliates and up-sells, 30-40% on all products, up-sells, and re-bills for affiliates who have met specific criteria.
• Cookie duration: Lifetime sticky cookie
• Affiliate Network: Private
• Signup to promote here

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ShareASale

ShareASale is one of the biggest and most reputable affiliate networks out there and is also one of my personal favorites to work with.

ShareASale caters to a wide variety of niches and has a huge range of products. Typically products are either physical, software, or service-related.

As an example, you can find anything from mattresses to web hosting services, so it’s a pretty varied list.

You will get paid $30 for referring other affiliates to ShareASale, and once that affiliate has earned their first $20 on the platform.

If you refer an advertiser then you will get $150 once they have set up the ShareASale affiliate program and made their first $100. Or, once the advertiser has been on the network for 6 months, whichever comes first.

If you want to know more about the ShareASale network then check out my ShareASale review.

• Commission rate: $30 affiliate referral and $150 for a merchant referral
• Cookie duration: 365 days
• Affiliate Network: ShareASale
• Signup to promote here

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FreshWorks

FreshWorks, formerly FreshDesk, is a well-known customer relations management (CRM) software service that helps you to provide great customer support if you are selling your own products.

I used FreshWorks a few years ago on a previous website where we were also selling our own products, so I can vouch that it’s a great service.

FreshWorks is designed for small and medium-sized businesses and supports various communication channels, including phone, email, website, and social media.

As an affiliate, you can earn $5 per lead, and a further 15% recurring commissions over the first year from your referrals that go on to sign up for a paid account.

• Commission rate: $5 per lead, an additional 15% on sales
• Cookie duration:
• Affiliate Network: Private
• Signup to promote here

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Rankpay

RankPay is essentially an SEO service. However, you only pay them if they are successful in ranking your site. Just tell them what keywords you want to rank for and they will try to make it happen for you.

As an affiliate, they will pay you a nice commission just for free signup, so they’re not all that hard to make money online with.

• Commission rate: $25-$50 per lead
• Cookie duration:
• Affiliate Network: ShareASale
• Signup to promote here

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Grammarly

Grammarly is one of the leading online spelling, punctuation, and plagiarism checkers on the market. Many businesses, content writers, and bloggers use it on a daily basis to help them craft content.

Grammarly has a great PPL program and is known to convert very well and has an average conversion rate of 20-30%. So once you get people to click on your links you should be able to make money pretty easily.

As an affiliate, you will earn $0.20 per lead and $20 per free signup.

• Commission rate: $0.20 per lead, $20 per free signup
• Cookie duration: 90 days
• Affiliate Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

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Canva

Canva is a go-to graphic design tool for many online marketers, bloggers, influencers, and business owners. You can use it to create all kinds of graphics from logos, social media posts, banners, infographics, and more.

One of the reasons it’s so popular is because anyone with no design experience can use it and quickly make awesome-looking graphics.

Promoting Canva as an affiliate can earn you $6.50 per lead, or, per free signup you refer, and 25% on paid accounts. You also get a 100% commission on the first month of the paid plan.

• Commission rate: $6.50, 25% on paid plans
• Cookie duration: 30 days
• Network: Impact Radius
• Signup to promote here

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ConstantContact

ConstantContact is one of the oldest email autoresponders on the market, with over 20 years of experience. Small and medium-sized businesses use ConstantContact to help grow their email list, support their customers, and market their products.

If you sign up to promote ConstantContact as an affiliate, and you refer someone for a free trial you’ll earn $5 for the lead. If your lead goes on to open a paid account then you’ll get an additional $105, which is pretty sweet!

All in all, this is a great program to promote to earn money online.

• Commission rate: $5 per lead, $105 per upgrade to a paid account
• Cookie duration: 45-75 days
• Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

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Merchant Equipment Store

The Merchant Equipment Store provides businesses with the ability to accept credit card payments through their payment processing equipment.

The Merchant Equipment Store is popular among small and medium-sized businesses because its prices are very close to those set at wholesale.

Affiliates sending leads to this product will receive $20 per lead, and an additional 5% on any purchases that are made.

• Commission rate: $20 per lead, 5% per sale
• Cookie duration: 30 days
• Network: ShareASale
• Signup to promote here

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Pay Per Lead Financial Affiliate Programs

Personal Capital

Personal Capital is a very useful piece of financial tracking software. Basically, it allows you to manage and track all your financial activities.

People use it to help them budget effectively and plan for important things like buying a house, saving for their kid’s education, or planning their retirement.

This is another high-paying pay-per-lead affiliate program and is a great one to join if it fits your niche. You can earn a cool $50-$100 just for referring a lead.

However, there is a caveat to this:

Your leads will also need to hook up at least $100,000 worth of assets to their tracking software in order for you to qualify for the commission. This sounds like a lot, but it’s really not much if your referral is going to include things like their 401K, savings, and any equity that they have in their home, which a lot of users tend to do.

All in all, this is a great program for you to make money online with.

• Commission rate: $50-$100
• Cookie duration: 30 days
• Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

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CIT Bank

CIT Bank is a bank that only operates online. They offer very attractive savings products and an easy way to shop.

CIT Bank provides an easy-to-use eChecking account, which allows you to easily pay your bills and access your cash from their mobile app. People are also attracted to CIT Bank because they can also earn interest with no monthly fees.

CIT Bank also has one of the highest pay-per-lead affiliate programs. As an affiliate you can earn up to $100 per referral, which is great for a pay-per-lead program.

• Commission rate: $100
• Cookie duration: 30 days
• Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

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National Debt Relief

As you probably would have already guessed, National Debt Relief helps people to get out of debt, but they do it without using loans or encouraging you to file for bankruptcy.

This pay-per-lead affiliate program is also a highly lucrative one. If you want to promote this product then expect to earn $27.50 for every qualifying lead you can send their way.

• Commission rate: $27.50
• Cookie duration: 60 days
• Network: ShareASale
• Signup to promote here

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Pay Per Lead Insurance Affiliate Programs

Hiscox

Hiscox is a US insurance company for small businesses that provide customized policies to their customers.

They cover all the necessities including, professional liability, general liability, cybersecurity, business owner policies, and short-term liability.

Promoting Hiscox as an affiliate, your efforts can bring you $25 per lead who generates a quote through your link.

• Commission rate: $25 per lead
• Cookie duration: 7 days
• Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

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Pay Per Lead Education Affiliate Programs

Skillshare

If you’re not already familiar with Skillshare, it’s an online learning site where people can go to access both free and paid courses.

Skillshare has all kinds of courses on a variety of topics like business skills, marketing, design, art, photography, writing, and more.

The classes are taught by real experts in their field, so you can be confident you are referring people to a place where they will actually learn good skills taught by people who know what they are doing.

If your audience needs to acquire any kind of skills then joining the Skillshare affiliate program is a no-brainer.

As an affiliate you will receive $10 per lead, that is, as long as a person signs up for a free trial then you will get paid.

• Commission rate: $10
• Cookie duration: 30 days
• Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

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CreativeLive

CreativeLive is another online learning center with well over 1,500 courses. Like Skillshare, CreativeLive has both free and paid courses, many of which are taught by some very noteworthy people including Lewis Howes, Tim Ferriss, Mel Robbins, Ben Greenfield, and Gary Vaynerchuk.

This is a great pay-per-lead affiliate program because it also allows you to earn repeat commissions from your referrals at the same time.

When you refer someone to CreativeLive you’ll earn a $1 affiliate commission for a free trial, 20% on the first-course purchase, and 10% on all future purchases.

• Commission rate: $1 per lead, 20% for the first paid course, 10% on future courses
• Cookie duration: 30 days
• Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

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Pay Per Lead Side Hustle Affiliate Programs

SwagBucks

Swagbucks is a platform where people can make some money for watching videos. However, customers need to be in either the US, Australia, UK, Ireland, or Canada to take part.

Fortunately, you do not need to be in one of these countries if you want to promote Swagbucks as an affiliate.

Affiliates earn $3 for every qualified lead they send, so not too bad for a pay-per-lead affiliate program.

• Commission rate: $3 per lead
• Cookie duration:
• Affiliate Network: FlexOffers
• Signup to promote here

Related: FlexOffers review – an in-depth look

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Best Ways To Promote Pay-Per-Lead Affiliate Programs

Here are some of the best ways to promote pay-per-lead affiliate programs.

Build an Affiliate Website

Tons of people turn to search engines like Google and Bing every day to search for help, advice, and even products to purchase products related to almost any topic you can think of.

By building a niche affiliate site around a specific topic, then in time, you can rank on page 1 for keywords related to your niche and scoop up all that 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 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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Best Pay Per Lead Affiliate Programs – My Final Thoughts

There are loads of great offers out there for you to earn money with. Fortunately, with Pay Per Lead affiliate programs, or CPA offers, you don’t need to rely on making a sale in order to get paid.

Nope, you can get paid just for a free signup!

Including a few good pay-per-lead affiliate programs in your marketing strategy can help you make money regularly and build up a healthy affiliate income.

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