The Best Recurring Affiliate Programs – 23 Examples

It’s a dream for affiliate marketers: A steady recurring commission month after month! It means they profit from a successful referral for an entire year instead of just once. That’s what a recurring affiliate program provides.

But why do vendors offer this type of commission? Excellent question! It’s not for everyone. An affiliate program with a recurring commission is suited for certain business models – for example, subscription-based services or software.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with a quick review of how affiliate marketing works, how affiliates get paid, and how businesses figure out the best program setup for them. Not all programs are forthcoming with the information they provide.

What is a recurring affiliate program and how is it unique?

The foundation of affiliate marketing is a partnership between vendor and affiliate. One owns a product; the other promotes it. The affiliate earns a fee for every new customer or sale resulting from their promotional activities.

How does that work in a recurring program? The fee doesn’t get paid once but over a period of time. The affiliate receives a set percentage or amount each month for successfully performing their task.

For example, when a user signs up for membership, the affiliate receives a monthly recurring fee for as long as the user remains a paying member. The affiliate’s recurring monthly payout is renewed each time the auto-renewal is activated.

How do other types of affiliate programs work?

Other affiliate program types offer a one-time commission payment to the affiliate when the referred user completes a defined action. For example, if the purpose of affiliate marketing is lead generation, a commission is granted for every lead the affiliate generates.

In programs that offer sitewide commission, the affiliate receives a fee for any purchase made on the site. Every time a visitor arrives at an ecommerce site from the affiliate’s site and makes a purchase, the affiliate receives a fee.

In the affiliate world, you’ll come across various acronyms describing the payment method, such as CPA (cost per action, or cost per acquisition) and CPL (cost per lead). Specifying precisely what counts as an action and when a prospect converts into a lead is critical.

The calculation can be complex because prospects pass many touch points before they become customers. They could have engaged with various affiliates, and it’s critical to define a clear attribution model to determine who’s entitled to the commission.

Types of businesses offering affiliate programs with recurring commissions

The form of commission payment depends primarily on the product type and the customer lifetime value.

A recurring commission makes sense for the following:

• SaaS companies 

SaaS clients sign up for service packages and pay for a usage period. It could be a month, a year, or two years. The affiliate receives a monthly fee throughout the validation period of the package.

• Subscription sites, such as online courses and news sites

In a subscription model, the user pays a monthly amount to the content provider. The affiliate fee is aligned with the monthly subscription cost and gets paid as long as the user remains a subscriber.

• Web hosting, cloud storage, and VPN providers 

These are platforms for ongoing use. Users often remain signed up for lifetime plans or at least for multiple years. Recurring affiliate commission is most profitable to all involved parties. These companies have some of the most popular recurring affiliate programs.

Best recurring affiliate programs

According to affiliate marketing statistics, it’s estimated that Amazon runs the largest affiliate program, and the fashion industry holds a leading position in this type of marketing. However, affiliate programs with recurring commissions are hard to find there.

How do we determine which are the best recurring affiliate programs? Let’s take a look at some platforms with extensive recurring programs that are also highly popular with affiliates.

ECommerce software affiliate programs

Shopify

Shopify runs one of the strongest affiliate marketing programs. The basic affiliate program offers a flat payment of $150 per purchase. The site also offers a partner program with a 20% recurring commission.

The site receives almost 25% of traffic through referrals. Traffic to the site’s shop.app is 86% referral generated. That’s an unusually high percentage.

Samcart

Similar to Shopify, Samcart is a platform for sellers to set up shop. However, the site specializes in digital assets and calls itself the ecommerce platform for creators. You can offer online courses, coaching, ebooks, or any type of membership site.

Affiliates receive a 40% recurring commission, which is over average. Samcart doesn’t accept everybody to the affiliate program. Interested parties need to apply and show they have the means to drive traffic.

Additionally, each entrepreneur using Samcart can run their own affiliate program and determine the percentage.

When comparing traffic channels, we see that Samcart receives a little over 25% from referrals. Traffic channels for Samcart and PayHip showing from where the sites receive their traffic.

Payhip 

Payhip offers a similar solution for creators and small service providers, who can sell digital assets or courses through the platform.

The partner program offers a 50% recurring commission. The site makes creatives available to affiliates who can advertise through various channels, including social media.

Payhip receives 19% of its traffic from referrals and 30% through social media.

Sellfy.store

The platform lets small business owners and creators set up shop. Affiliates receive a 25% recurring commission that increases with the number of sales and can reach up to 40%. Affiliates ad use blog, social media, or any other channel to promote sellfy.store website traffic. 17.5% of the site’s traffic comes from referrals and 41.5 % from social media.

Recurring affiliate programs for web hosting and cloud storage

Kartra is a web builder that offers additional features to manage a commercial website. The recurring commission for affiliates is 40% plus 10% on sales generated by recruited affiliates. The cookie lifetime, however, is only 30 days.

PCloud is a cloud storage provider, granting a straightforward commission of 20% with 45 days of cookie validity. They provide landing pages and marketing materials. The provider receives 30% of traffic through referrals.

With Similarweb you can see which ad networks and publishers drive traffic to pCloud.

Cloudways offers affiliates the opportunity to choose how they get paid. They can choose between a per-sales payment of up to $125 based on performance and a hybrid model of 30$ per sale plus a 7% recurring commission. The host receives close to 24% of traffic from referrals.

Kinsta, a direct competitor of Cloudways, offers up to $500 one-time payment plus a 10% recurring commission. The share of referral traffic is around 10%

RoseHosting offers an initial 10% recurring commission which increases to 15% after 30 successful referrals. As an additional incentive, the cloud storage provider also grants monthly bonuses. Alternatively, you can choose a flat-rate CPA program and earn up to $500 per referral.

The site is refreshingly transparent about the payment structure and displays actual examples of how the commission is calculated. On the other hand, they are less forthcoming about the lifetime of the tracking cookies.

Popular recurring affiliate programs for CRMs

Ontraport offers a 25 % recurring commission. The site clearly prioritizes quality over quantity. Affiliates need to apply and undergo training to become product experts before they can start earning their commission.

Hubspot runs an extensive affiliate program, offering the affiliate partners different options. They can choose between a flat rate or a 15% commission, granted for up to one year.

Zoho CRM offers a similar commission rate to Hubspot: 15% recurring commission with a cookie window of 90 days. In the Zoho affiliate program, the referred customer also receives special credits. The site offers a unique commission calculator to make it easy for aspiring affiliate partners.

Another program popular with affiliates is Engagebay. It offers a 30% referring commission with the first click. That means, if someone signed up to the CRM after going through multiple affiliate sites or ads, the first one collects the commission.

Most of the traffic to CRMs is direct. Referral traffic is usually the second or third biggest traffic source. Similarweb lets you identify the affiliates that drive traffic to your competition. Choose the relevant sites and identify their affiliates and traffic volume.

Competition among recurring affiliate programs for VPNs

VPN providers offer up to 100% commission for new signups, followed by a relatively high monthly recurring commission. Some add bonuses and other incentives. Much of their advertising is done by affiliates and they have a large pool of affiliates to manage.

Here are a few examples:

PureVPN: up to 100% plus 35% recurring commission with a 90-day cookie lifetime. It also offers bonuses for high performance and a two-tier program.

ZenMate: 100% for monthly new signups and 35% recurring commission for renewal. For a yearly plan, the initial payout is 40%, followed by 30% recurring. The cookie lifetime is 90 days.

NordVPN has the same setup as ZenMate. 100% for every monthly signup with 35% recurring and 40% one-time payout, and 30% recurring commission for longer plans. The site doesn’t disclose the cookie lifetime up front.

HideMyAss (HMA) affiliates earn the same as affiliates of competing VPN providers but with a cookie lifetime of 30 days. The program is currently not open to new affiliates, and the provider offers other partnership opportunities.

VPN affiliates usually run review or comparison sites. When you search for “best VPN,” Google serves you three pages of almost exclusive affiliate content (even the top ads are by affiliates). Competition in this field is what drives the commission high.

When we look at where affiliates send the traffic, it’s no surprise that we find all popular VPN providers on the list of the same affiliate. Use Similarweb to discover competitors’ websites the affiliate sends traffic to.

Noteworthy affiliate programs for email marketing software

AWeber offers one of the most generous affiliate programs for email marketing software. It calls it an advocate program, but it has all the characteristics of an affiliate program. The recurring commission is 50%, with an unusually long cookie lifetime of 365 days.

GetResponse started as an email marketing automation tool and has developed into a comprehensive marketing tool with a site builder, landing page creator, funnel building, and more. The provider offers its affiliates a 33% recurring commission with a tracking cookie lifetime of 120 days.

With ConvertKit, affiliates earn a 30% recurring commission over 24 months for every new customer signup.

ActiveCampaign rewards affiliates with a 20% recurring commission for new subscribers.

Other recurring affiliate programs

Fiverr is a freelancer portal with an extensive affiliate program. It’s also one of the more complicated when it comes to calculating the commission. The platform lets affiliates choose from a variety of payment structures. Because the site sells service packages that differ in value and include dissimilar services, the payout system is intricate.

An affiliate can receive a recurring commission only for two of the packages. Other structures include a CPA (cost per action) percentage and a hybrid system including rev-share. RevShare is a payment method in which the affiliate receives a portion of the revenue generated from the referred user. This is relevant in gaming or trading sites and, as we can see, for a freelancer platform.

To end on a less technical note, let’s turn to something a little more sensual: The cosmetics industry. Are there any affiliate programs with recurring commissions? We found two:

doTerra sells essential oils online to retailers and wholesalers. The program is open to individuals, influencers, bloggers, businesses, and practically anybody who’d like to promote this type of product. You can earn a 20% recurring commission for wholesale and 25% for retail customers.

Jade Bloom also offers essential oils online. The payment structure has four stages. Depending on the number of new customers they bring in per month. The commission structure starts at 10% first order plus 5% lifetime and can reach 15% of the first order and 10% recurring. To reach the top stage, affiliates need to generate at least 300 new sales in a month.

Get data to find potential affiliate partners for your program

Recurring affiliate programs are excellent for affiliate marketers. Companies offering an affiliate program need to think twice if this is the best option for them. A deep dive into what the competition offers and how successful they are with it can help reach a decision.

With the affiliate research tool in Similarweb, you identify your competitors’ affiliates and evaluate their performance. View data from relevant sites side-by-side and compare their traffic.

You’ll first notice that many competing sites get traffic from the same affiliates. Now, compare and see which affiliates provide the most traffic and how they generate it.

You should also assess the quality of the traffic. You can do this by examining how engaged the affiliates’ audiences are. Why does that matter? Most consumers check several affiliate sites before deciding on a purchase. That means visitors hop from one review site to the next, from price comparison to a blog post and so on. Naturally, they spend more time on sites they trust. Affiliates with a higher engagement score have the strongest influence on the audience.

These are the affiliates with the best potential, and those are the ones you want to reach out to.

Similarweb allows you to evaluate and qualify affiliates, compare performance and identify potential partnerships.

FAQs

How is a recurring affiliate program unique?

The word “recurring” refers to how the commission is paid to the affiliate. In traditional affiliate marketing, the affiliate receives a one-time fee for each purchase or referral. A recurring affiliate program offers a recurring monthly fee for each referral.

What is a recurring affiliate commission?

When a new customer makes a purchase after an affiliate has referred them, the affiliate receives a monthly fee. This is relevant mainly for subscription-based online products or services, and the affiliate gets a recurring payment for as long as the customer remains signed up.

What is the average commission paid in a recurring affiliate program?

Recurring commissions can vary from 5% and can reach up to 50%. This, however, is seldom and reserved for industries with tough affiliate competition. Most recurring commissions evolve around 10%

What are the different types of affiliate marketing commissions? 

Commissions can be based on a percentage of a purchase or a flat fee per purchase. Companies can add additional incentives such as a first-time bonus. VIP commission for top-performing affiliates and so on.