Most people start a blog to make money online through various advertising options such as Google AdSense, Media.net, sponsored posts, banner ads, and more. This is a good approach but it has one big con: it usually takes a lot of time until you start making decent revenue. However, by properly planning and using the right tools, you can make money from your blog within months. How? With affiliate plugins for WordPress.

If you use self-hosted WordPress, you can easily monetize your site. You can find both free and premium plugins in the repository and from third-party plugin shops. The problem is that there are thousands of add-ons to choose from so today we’ll make your life easier so you can start to earn money with your blog.

Even though there are plenty of options if you want to maximize your sales and revenue, we recommend using affiliate plugins for WordPress. That’s why in this post, we’ll have a look at the best WordPress affiliate plugins.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Before jumping into the plugins, let’s better understand what affiliate marketing is. In simple words, affiliate marketing is like refer-and-earn. You promote other companies’ products or services and you get a commission for every sale you generate.

There are many WordPress web hosting companies that offer affiliate programs that usually work similarly. When you join their program, they give you a unique link and they track all the traffic that you generate through that link. When someone purchases something from them through your tracking link, you will get either a flat amount or a percentage of the total sale. And the best part is that you can promote your links through your blogs, YouTube channel, blog commenting, email newsletters, and any other way you can think of.

Another advantage is that most affiliate programs are free to join so you don’t need to spend any money to be part of it.

On the other hand, most affiliate programs have a minimum threshold for payments that varies from company to company. This means that to get paid, you must reach that minimum amount, and then they will pay you via PayPal or ACH deposit.

As these programs are a win-win situation, nowadays most online shops offer them. For example, Amazon has an affiliate program that you can join, get a custom link to products, share it, and earn a commission. Similarly, there are many web hosting companies that also have this kind of programs such as WP Engine, Kinsta, Bluehost, GreenGeeks, SiteGround, HostGator, and many others.

Why using Affiliate Plugins in WordPress is a good idea?

So if there are so many affiliate programs, why do you need affiliate plugins for WordPress? Because they’ll allow you to easily manage and accurately track conversions.

Most affiliate programs’ links are long and ugly. For example, they usually look like “https://www.company.com/product-name/ref=yourusername”. They’re very hard to remember and they don’t look good. So by using an affiliate plugin, you will be able to cloak the affiliate URLs, customize them, and make them easier to remember. For example, the above affiliate URL can be cloaked to “https://www.domain.com/go/company” which looks much better.

Additionally, most WordPress affiliate plugins also come with tracking features so you can check how many clicks you got on an affiliate link, the visitors’ location, and a lot of other interesting information. With a premium plugin like MonsterInsights, you can also track affiliate conversions.

Best WordPress Affiliate Plugins for 2022

So now that we know what affiliate marketing is and why you should use a plugin, are you ready to choose the right one for you? Here, we have collected the best affiliate plugins for WordPress in 2022. They all have amazing functionalities so you’re sure to find one that suits your needs.

ThirstyAffiliates

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online. If you are planning to promote the affiliate products through your blog, ThirstyAffiliates is one of your best bets.

Plans

ThirstyAffiliates is a freemium WordPress plugin and it’s one of our favorite tools out there. The free version is called ThirstyAffiliates Lite and has more than 30,000 active installations. It includes basic features such as link cloaking, custom prefix, and redirection. However, if you want more advanced features like automatic keyword linking, import/export, Amazon API integration, or Geographic referrals, you’ll need to purchase one of the premium licenses.

One of our favorite features is automatic keyword linking because it’s an excellent way to maximize revenue. The idea is that once you have added a link and cloaked it with ThirstyAffiliates, every time you create a new post or page, the specific keyword will be automatically linked with the affiliate link. This means that you don’t need to enter the affiliate link manually every time you create a post so you’ll save a lot of time.

ThirstyAffiliates Lite is available for download from the plugins repository.

On the other hand, there are three premium plans:

• Single Site License – 49 USD/ Year.
• 5 Site License – 99 USD/ Year.
• 10 Site License – 149 USD/ Year.

You can get the premium versions from this link. All three plans offer the same features so you should choose the one that best suits your needs. It’s worth noting that ThirstyAffiliates offers a 14-day money-back guarantee which means that you’ll get a full refund if you don’t like the tool.

AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP is one of the best WordPress affiliate plugins out there. It’s one of the most popular tools that shops use to manage their affiliate program and for good reason. It comes with a lot of advanced features and it’s compatible with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD).

If you only sell digital products, EDD is the best option for you. But if you sell both physical and digital products, WooCommerce is your best choice.

You can also integrate the AffiliateWP plugin with payment gateways such as Stripe and PayPal, and WordPress form builders such as WPForms, Formidable Forms, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, and others.

Plans

This tool comes in four premium plans:

• Personal – 99 USD / Year – Single Site.
• Plus – 149 USD / Year – Three Site.
• Professional – 249 USD / Year – Unlimited Sites.
• Ultimate – 499 USD / Lifetime – Unlimited Sites.

So which plan should you choose? If you have just started an online shop and need to test the plugin’s features, the personal plan is the right for you. However, if you are running an online business that generates thousands of dollars per month, you might want to consider purchasing the Professional or Ultimate plan.

On top of that, AffiliateWP offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for all the premium plans. So, if you think you made a mistake and this tool is not a good fit for you, you can get a full refund.

TIP: If you want to optimize your WooCommerce shop to get more sales and conversions, check out our list of top WooCommerce plugins.

Pretty Links

Pretty Links is another plugin that will help you cloak, track, organize, and shorten your affiliate links to get more revenue. This tool is an amazing option for link cloaking and can turn your website into a link shortener.

This plugin comes with an amazing advanced feature: redirection manager. Typically, link cloaking plugins like ThirstyAffiliates will only allow three redirection types.

• 301
• 304
• 307

By default, the 307 is activated. However, you can change the redirection type from the settings and choose a different one for all the new affiliate links.

Apart from this, Pretty Links offers many other cool functionalities such as:

• Robot filtering
• Link tags
• Custom slugs
• Expiring links
• QR code generation
• Keyword Auto Linking
• Import / export
• Social Sharing

Plans

Pretty Links offers three premium pricing options:

• Beginner – 49 USD / Year – 1 website.
• Marketer – 99 USD/ Year – 2 Websites.
• Super Affiliate – 149 USD/ Year – 5 Websites.

All plans are protected by a 14-day money-back guarantee and they come with one year of support and updates.

WordPress Affiliate Manager

WP Affiliate Manager is one of the fastest-growing WordPress affiliate plugins in the market. It’s very easy to use and comes with great features. If you run an online shop and you want the affiliate section to run in autopilot mode, this add-on is an excellent choice. Once you set it up in your WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads store, you’re good to go.

WP Affiliate Manager doesn’t limit the number of affiliates you can have in your shop. It has tons of features but some of the main ones are:

• Affiliates portal
• Automated system
• Unlimited Affiliates
• Real-time tracking
• Mailchimp integration
• Customizable forms
• PayPal Mass Pay integration
• Shortcodes ready
• Translation ready
• Customizable Emails

One very interesting functionality is real-time tracking. When an affiliate makes a sale through their affiliate link, it will be updated in the admin section and the affiliate’s area so you know how each link is performing at any time.

Additionally, WP Affiliate Manager sends emails to the affiliate regarding the sales it generates and these emails are 100% customizable. There are two payout methods available: PayPal and Manual (your own payment method). You can integrate this plugin with PayPal Mass Pay to release payments to all the affiliates with one click.

On top of that, you can integrate WP Affiliate Manager with MailChimp and add them to your subscribers’ list. This way, you can welcome your new affiliates, send newsletters, promote your products, and so on.

Plans

This is a freemium plugin. You can get the free version with basic functionalities or the premium plans with advanced features.

The plans are:

• Free – 0 USD
• Single Site – 39 USD
• Developer Site – 97 USD

If you have only one shop that needs the affiliate section, you can try the free version. If that’s not enough, you could go for the Single site license. And if you have two or more online shops that need an affiliate area, you should get a Developer license.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro

Ultimate Affiliate Pro is one of the most powerful WordPress affiliate plugins. It offers plenty of integrations with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and Ultimate Membership Pro. Additionally, it’s compatible with payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe. But that’s not all. Email marketing integrations with popular tools such as GetResponse, AWeber, Constant Contact, or Campaign Monitor are also available.

Additionally, this plugin comes with a set of interesting marketing modules to track Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per Action (CPA), Cost per Lead (CPL), and other key metrics.

With more than 8650 sales and a 4.6-star rating out of 5, this plugin is one of the best options out there. Some of the features that make this tool so attractive to users are:

• Ranking system
• Custom amount
• Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)
• Lifetime commission
• Bonus payments
• Recurring referrals
• Optin integrations

Plans

Ultimate Affiliate Pro is a premium tool that costs 59 USD (one-time payment). It offers lifetime updates for the core and six months of support from the date of purchase. The support period can be extended for 12 months by paying an additional 20 USD.

Affiliates

Affiliates is a freemium WordPress plugin that aims to help you grow your business through marketing and maximize your revenue.

Among its main features, there’s a very intuitive affiliate dashboard to check the main metrics, automated affiliate registration, and the possibility to add unlimited affiliates. Additionally, you can integrate Affiliates with many other platforms such as WooCommerce, PayPal, Ninja Forms, and many others.

All in all, the prominent features this plugin offers are:

• Real-time reporting
• Traffic statistics
• Unlimited affiliates
• API integration

Plans

Affiliates plugin has a free version with basic features and three pro ones:

• Single Site – 49 USD
• Up to 5 Sites – 79 USD
• Up to 25 Sites – 159 USD

Similar to every freemium product, the free version of Affiliates doesn’t offer as many functionalities as the premium one but it’s good for beginners in the affiliate marketing world.

Bonus: MonsterInsights

If you are using an affiliate link cloaking plugin such as ThirstyAffiliates or Pretty Links, this bonus is perfect for you. MonsterInsights is a very popular freemium tool that can be integrated with Google Analytics. This means that you would be able to track affiliate links and see analytics reports in your WordPress dashboard.

So, along with the ThirstyAffiliates reports, with MonsterInsights you’ll be able to see which affiliate links are performing well and get all types of reports regarding your audience, content, and much more.

Plans

MonsterInsights has a free version and three premium plans:

• Plus (1 site) – 99.50 USD per year
• Professional (up to 5 sites) – 199.50 USD per year
• Agency (up to 25 sites) – 399.50 USD per year

It’s worth noting that they all have a 14-day money-back guarantee so if you’re not happy with your purchase you can get a full refund.

Affiliate Plugins for WordPress: Conclusion

All in all, affiliate plugins can help you manage and track your affiliate links. All the add-ons in the list are excellent options so you should choose based on your needs, the features you want, your budget, and so on.

If you want to create an affiliate program inside your WordPress blog, we recommend using AffiliateWP. While if you are an affiliate marketer who promotes offers, ThirstyAffiliates might be your best option. If you don’t want to spend any money, you can try the WP Affiliate Manager or ThirstyAffiliates free plans.

Finally, all these plugins are optimized for Gutenberg so you won’t have any issues with the latest version of WordPress.

If you’re still not sure which one to choose, feel free to leave a comment below. We will be happy to help you pick the right one for you!

If you are looking for innovative ways to improve your site, check out our list with best WhatsApp WordPress plugins.