Affiliate marketing has been a lucrative way for bloggers, influencers, and website owners to monetize their content. Recurring affiliate programs are a type of affiliate program that pays affiliates a commission for every recurring payment made by a customer they referred.
The average affiliate commission rate for a recurring affiliate program is between 5-30%. This means that affiliates can earn a commission every time their referred customers renew their subscriptions or make repeat purchases.
For instance, a subscription-based software company may offer affiliates a 30% commission on every monthly payment their referred customers make to keep using the software.
In this article, we will explore some of the best recurring affiliate programs available. That means if you refer a customer and they never unsubscribe, you can earn a commission for LIFE!
Contents
- What Are Recurring Affiliate Programs?
- Why Promote Affiliate Programs With Recurring Commissions?
- 15 Best Recurring Affiliate Programs in 2024
- 1. AWeber – 30% lifetime recurring commissions
- 2. ConvertKit – 30% lifetime recurring commissions
- 3. ClickFunnels – Lifetime recurring commissions of up to 40%
- 4. MailerLite – 30% lifetime recurring commissions
- 5. ActiveCampaign – Up to 30% lifetime recurring commissions
- 6. GetResponse – 33% recurring lifetime commissions
- 7. Leadpages – Up to 50% lifetime recurring commissions
- 8. Thinkific – 30% lifetime recurring commission
- 9. Teachable – 30% recurring lifetime commission
- 10. Moosend – 30% lifetime recurring commission
- 11. Elegant Themes – 50% recurring annual commissions
- 12. Serpstat – Up to 30% lifetime recurring commission
- 13. Mangools – 30% lifetime commission
- 14. Hubstaff – 30% recurring commissions for 12 months
- 15. NordVPN – 30% lifetime recurring commission
- Conclusion: Best Recurring Affiliate Programs 2024
What Are Recurring Affiliate Programs?
Recurring affiliate programs are a type of affiliate program where affiliates receive a commission for every recurring payment made by a customer they referred to a particular product or service.
This means that affiliates can earn a commission every time their referred customers renew their subscriptions or make repeat purchases.
For example, let’s say you are an affiliate for an online course platform that offers a monthly subscription plan. You refer a customer to the platform, and that customer signs up for the monthly subscription plan.
As an affiliate, you would receive a commission for that initial sale. However, if that customer continues to renew their subscription each month, you would continue to receive a commission for each subsequent payment they make.
Recurring affiliate programs are particularly attractive to affiliates because they provide a steady stream of income.
Unlike one-time commission affiliate programs, which pay out only for the initial sale, recurring affiliate programs can provide ongoing income for affiliates as long as their preferred customers continue to use the product or service.
Additionally, these types of programs are often associated with products or services that customers are likely to continue using over time, such as software subscriptions, membership sites, or online courses.
Why Promote Affiliate Programs With Recurring Commissions?
Promoting affiliate programs with recurring commissions can be a smart move for affiliates for several reasons.
Firstly, these types of programs provide a steady stream of income for affiliates as they can earn a commission every time their referred customers renew their subscriptions or make repeat purchases.
According to the Affiliate Marketing Benchmark Report, nearly 30% of affiliates said they preferred promoting products with recurring commissions because of the potential for long-term income.
Secondly, products or services with recurring commissions tend to have a higher lifetime value for customers. This means that customers are likely to continue using the product or service for a longer period, which increases the potential for recurring commissions.
For example, software subscription services or online courses may have a higher lifetime value for customers than one-time purchase products like clothing or electronics.
Thirdly, promoting affiliate programs with recurring commissions can be more cost-effective than one-time commission programs. This is because affiliates can continue to earn commissions without having to constantly find new customers.
In addition, recurring commissions can incentivize affiliates to promote the product or service more frequently and effectively to ensure their referred customers continue to renew their subscriptions or make repeat purchases.
Some examples of affiliate programs with recurring commissions include Shopify, which offers affiliates a 20% recurring commission for the lifetime of the customer, and Aweber, which offers affiliates a 30% recurring commission for each customer’s monthly subscription.
Other examples include SEMrush, an SEO tool with a 40% recurring commission, and Hootsuite, a social media management platform with a 15% recurring commission.
15 Best Recurring Affiliate Programs in 2024
Here is a list of 15 affiliate programs with recurring commissions in different niches.
1. AWeber – 30% lifetime recurring commissions
AWeber is mainly an email marketing platform, but customers can also use it to make landing pages and send web push notifications. It can even be used for online shopping.
AWeber has a free product tier, but through this recurring affiliate program, you’ll be pushing the Pro plan, which starts at $16.15 per month.
When you send someone to AWeber, you’ll get 30% of the first payment and 30% of all future payments (paid monthly).
To make sure you get the most out of your referrals, AWeber gives you a cookie window of 365 days, which is the longest we’ve seen in any recurring affiliate program.
Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring commissions
Cookie duration: 365 days
2. ConvertKit – 30% lifetime recurring commissions
ConvertKit is an email marketing platform for online business owners that includes tools for e-commerce and the ability to make landing pages.
The fact that smart passive income affiliate marketer Pat Flynn works with ConvertKit is a testament to its best recurring affiliate program.
It’s easy to see why he joined since he would get 30% of every customer he brought in for life.
In the ConvertKit recurring affiliate program, affiliate marketers are given a lot of support to improve their performance. This includes a lesson with Pat Flynn, images, videos, and webinars that are always available.
URL: ConvertKit Affiliate Program
Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring commissions
Cookie duration: 90 days
3. ClickFunnels – Lifetime recurring commissions of up to 40%
ClickFunnels is a website builder and sales funnel for business owners who don’t know how to code.
Its solution has helped more than 110,000 clients make a total of about $12 billion in sales.
When you join the ClickFunnels recurring affiliate network, you get a 20% lifetime commission rate right away, which is already a pretty good deal. Better yet, it gets better from there:
- To qualify for 30% recurring commissions, you must earn $1,000 in monthly commissions.
- In order to increase your commission rates to 40%, you must have at least 40 active live accounts for a minimum of 30 days.
In addition, you can earn $100 commissions when you sell ClickFunnels’ “One Funnel Away” product.
URL: ClickFunnels Affiliate Program
Commission rate: A lifetime recurring commission of up to 40%
Cookie duration: Lifetime
4. MailerLite – 30% lifetime recurring commissions
MailerLite is a tool for email marketing that was made to be easy to use.
With MailerLite, users can create beautiful emails without knowing HTML using a drag-and-drop editor.
In addition to being easy to use, it has one of the best affiliate programs we’ve ever seen. Refer a customer to MailerLite and you’ll get 30% of every sale they make for as long as they use the service. What could be easier?
To help you, you’ll have access to the same high-quality branding and content marketing materials that MailerLite’s in-house team uses.
URL: MailerLite affiliate program
Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring commissions
Cookie duration: 30 days
5. ActiveCampaign – Up to 30% lifetime recurring commissions
ActiveCampaign is not like most email marketing systems. It also has all of the CRM and marketing automation tools that companies use to give their customers a better experience.
With monthly fees ranging from $9 to $229, it appeals to a wide range of people, which makes it easy to promote through your affiliate website.
And it’s worth marketing because the average ActiveCampaign affiliate makes $1,350 per sale through the recurring affiliate program.
You’ll get a recurring commission of at least 20% for each customer you send to ActiveCampaign as long as they keep using it. Your base commission could be as high as 30%, depending on how many sales you make and how many of those customers stay with the company.
URL: ActiveCampaign affiliate program
Commission rate: Up to 30% lifetime recurring commissions
Cookie duration: 90 days
6. GetResponse – 33% recurring lifetime commissions
Each week, GetResponse customers send about 765 million emails using their email marketing platform.
In other words, it’s a fairly significant event. In addition to email marketing, it automates standard digital marketing chores and creates landing pages.
The GetResponse affiliate program offers a $100 per sale program, along with a recurring affiliate program.
The commission will be paid on the 20th of every month for every customer you suggest once you are accepted.
You can earn substantial money here with rents up to $580 a month.
URL: GetResponse Affiliate Program
Commission rate: 33% recurring lifetime commissions
Cookie duration: 120 days
7. Leadpages – Up to 50% lifetime recurring commissions
Leadpages’ software for websites and landing pages has helped over 40,000 small business marketers improve their websites and lead generation methods.
It is an easy-to-use landing page builder that also lets clients make alert bars and popups.
Leadpages is not the cheapest product on the market. It costs between $27 and $239 per month.
Even though it may be more difficult to sell, the top-tier commissions are equal to the highest of each of the recurring affiliate programs we’ve investigated.
Each Leadpages affiliate starts out with a 10% commission rate on each sale, but you can easily make more money by getting more referrals:
- Referrals between $50 and $2,999.99 earn 40% recurring commissions
- Sales over $3,000 per month will result in a 50% commission
URL: Leadpages Affiliate Program
Commission rate: Up to 50% lifetime recurring commissions
Cookie duration: 30 days
8. Thinkific – 30% lifetime recurring commission
Thinkific helps people who make online courses and membership sites build and market them.
More than 50,000 creators have used the site to make more than $650 million in sales over the years.
Content creators have to pay a monthly fee to use Thinkific’s tool, so its affiliate program is designed to bring in new content creators.
When you recommend a creative, you’ll get a 30% commission on their monthly or annual plan for as long as they stay with Thinkific. That means you could make up to $1,700 a year from a single referral.
URL: Thinkific Affiliate Program
Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring commission
Cookie duration: 90 days
9. Teachable – 30% recurring lifetime commission
Teachable is one of Thinkific’s main competitors.
There are some small differences between the two programs, but they mostly do the same thing. Teachable costs a little bit more and doesn’t have a free tier.
The business plan is the same as Thinkific’s, so to make money through the platform’s recurring affiliate program, you’ll need to find content creators.
Again, it gives commissions for life, so the longer the people you refer use Teachable, the more money you make.
Its pay structure starts at 30%, but if you meet certain monthly goals, you can earn up to 50% in recurring commissions.
URL: Teachable affiliate program
Commission rate: 30% recurring lifetime commission
Cookie duration: 90 days
10. Moosend – 30% lifetime recurring commission
Moosend is another email marketing platform with a lot of extra features, such as CRM and segmentation tools, as well as tracking and reporting.
Famous brands like Domino’s Pizza and Vogue are among their customers, but the prices are still fair. The basic Moosend plan is free for life, and the company’s Pro plan, which is in the middle, starts at just $8 per month.
This is already one of the best recurring affiliate programs because you get 30% lifetime commissions and the cookie lasts for 90 days.
But that’s not all. When a customer clicks on your affiliate link, signs up for the free plan, and then upgrades to a paid plan more than 90 days later, you get a commission.
URL: Moosend affiliate program
Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring commission
Cookie duration: 90 days
11. Elegant Themes – 50% recurring annual commissions
Elegant Themes is a site builder for WordPress. It is good at what it does because Trustpilot gave it five stars and more than 765,000 business owners and web designers use it.
Elegant Themes makes more than $3 million a year from more than 30,000 affiliates. This makes it one of the most popular affiliate programs with recurring payments.
Also, it is one of the best affiliate programs for making money over and over again because it pays 50% on annual renewals.
In other words, you’ll keep getting passive income as long as the people you send to the company continue to pay for WordPress themes.
Elegant Themes also gives you the best chance to make money from the traffic you bring in because it has one of the longest cookie lifetimes on this list.
URL: Elegant Themes Affiliate Program
Commission rate: 50% recurring annual commissions
Cookie duration: 180 days
12. Serpstat – Up to 30% lifetime recurring commission
Serpstat is one of the most used SEO tools.
It’s the best-selling product in its category on Appsumo, and it’s also the SEO tool with the most votes on Product Hunt. It also has a rating of 4.6 stars on G2 based on more than 400 reviews.
Because of trust issues like these, it’s much easier to persuade people that Serpstat is worth buying, even though it’s not cheap (starting at $55 per month).
The amount of money you get from Serpstat’s recurring affiliate program depends on how many new customers you bring in. It starts at 5% and goes up to:
- From the first to the fifth payment, 10% will be applied
- From the 5th to the 20th payment, 20% is applied
- From the 22nd first payment, 30%
URL: Serpstat Affiliate Program
Commission rate: Up to 30% lifetime recurring commission
Cookie duration: 30 days
13. Mangools – 30% lifetime commission
Mangools has a full set of SEO tools, including rank tracking, keyword and link analysis, and SERP visualization.
Plans start at just $29.90 per month, which makes it a good deal. It also has a 10-day free trial, which makes it even easier for your audience to use.
Mangools says that each affiliate in its recurring affiliate program gets an average of $487 each month. If you do these things, you will be well on your way to making enough money to replace your job.
The commission rate is a flat 30% and is paid for the life of the account. Since the commission is paid for the life of the account, recurring income can quickly add up.
URL: Mangools Affiliate Program
Commission rate: 30% lifetime commission
Cookie duration: 30 days
14. Hubstaff – 30% recurring commissions for 12 months
Hubstaff’s time tracking and productivity management software is used by more than 40,000 companies, including well-known ones like Groupon and Instacart.
Since the starting price for two users is only $14, it’s easy to see why so many businesses have signed up.
Hubstaff is easy to sell because of its price, but you’ll need to send them a lot of traffic to make a living from this recurring affiliate program, which pays 30% recurring commissions.
There are a few small problems with this affiliate marketing plan. First, commissions are paid every 12 months instead of for life.
Second, commissions are paid after 12 months. This means that you’ll have to wait a long time to see a return.
URL: Hubstaff Affiliate Program
Commission rate: 30% recurring commissions for 12 months
Cookie duration: Unknown
15. NordVPN – 30% lifetime recurring commission
NordVPN is one of the world’s biggest VPN services. By 2022, the global VPN market is expected to be worth about $36 billion. This shows that it has chosen a good business.
A lot of well-known YouTubers, like PewDiePie, Casey Neistat, and Philip DeFranco, use and promote NordVPN. This has made the brand very well-known. This makes the process of promoting a lot easier for affiliate marketers.
This recurring affiliate program is a good one to promote because it pays commissions of 30% for life and up to 100% on the first sale.
URL: NordVPN Affiliate Program
Commission rate: 30% lifetime recurring commission
Cookie duration: 30 days
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Conclusion: Best Recurring Affiliate Programs 2024
Promoting affiliate programs with recurring commissions can be a smart move for affiliates as it provides a steady stream of income, higher lifetime value of customers, and can be more cost-effective than one-time commission programs.
When looking for the best recurring affiliate programs, it’s important to consider the product or service’s popularity, the potential lifetime value of customers, and the commission rate.
Some of the best recurring affiliate programs include Leadpages, Aweber, ClickFunnels, and NordVPN, which offer competitive commission rates and popular products or services.
By promoting these types of programs, affiliates can earn a consistent income and build long-term relationships with their audience.