The web hosting market is ever-growing, and every day there are slightly more than 547,200 new websites created globally.
It’s a pretty big market, and if you can get a small piece of that cake – you could be racking in some serious dough.
But with so many similar offers out there, finding the best web hosting affiliate programs can be tricky.
And if you pick the wrong affiliate program with low commission rates or one that simply doesn’t convert – you’ll never reach your full earning potential.
In this article, we’ll rank the best web hosting affiliate programs based on:
- The commission rate
- The reputation of the company
- How successful other affiliates are promoting it
Plus, we’ll guide you based on our experience dealing with these companies as affiliates and customers. We’ve promoted some of these programs on our own websites, and have also dealt with several of them as customers – so we can share real experience.
Besides, we also took a look at which influencers are promoting the affiliate programs, so you can take that into consideration too.
But without further ado, let’s jump into the list.
Table of Contents
Best Web Hosting Affiliate Programs
The best web hosting affiliate programs are:
- WP Engine (Highest Paying Program)
- Kinsta (Excellent All Around Program)
- WPX (Best Site Speed)
- Siteground
- Bluehost
- BionicWP
- Cloudways
- Scala Web Hosting
- iPage
Of course, “best” is subjective and depends on your audience.
For example, if you’re targeting beginners, you’ll likely want to promote a low-priced offer that offers good commissions.
On the other hand, if you’re targeting advanced small business owners, you’ll probably want to promote an offer that has the best technical aspects (server speed, disk space, etc.)
That’s why below, we’ve given you much more detail to help you find the right web hosting affiliate product for your audience.
WP Engine
WPEngine is one of the most popular managed WordPress hosting providers that offer excellent support and robust performance.
If you’re looking for the highest-paying web hosting affiliate program, WP Engine wins. Why?
$200+ commission per sale and bonuses for every 5-10 sales. Plus, it’s a well-recognized brand and has a generous 180-day cookie.
Yeah, the payouts are one of the highest (if not the) in the hosting industry.
The only downside is that it slightly loses out to some competitors like Kinsta or WPX in performance.
However, these are minor differences that won’t affect the conversion rates of a website.
Another cool thing about this program is that it’s available on ShareASale. This means you can directly integrate it with Afflytics to track all your affiliate earnings — in one place.
- Commission Rate: $200+
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: 180 Days
- Platform: ShareASale
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
Kinsta
The Kinsta web hosting affiliate program is an excellent all-rounder.
The reason it’s in 2nd place because the hosting is excellent, while they also pay out decent commissions per referral.
Kinsta’s WordPress hosting has built a reputation for being reliable, fast, and having flexible pricing plans for small to medium-sized businesses.
And check this out: Kinsta pays both cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and recurring affiliate commissions.
So you can get those juicy one-time commissions while also building up passive income.
- Commission Rate: $50 to $500+ 10%
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: 60 Days
- Platform: Private
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
WPX
As affiliate marketers, it’s always an advantage to promote the best products.
And WPX hosting is one of the best-managed WordPress hosting offers. Why?
Because it’s lightning-fast.
According to Mathew Woodward’s hosting speed test, its starter plan outperformed the entire market, including some enterprise options of competitors.
And talking from experience: Most website owners switch hosting companies to upgrade their speed – so that’s an aspect of WPX that is easy to sell.
It’s no wonder that many of the biggest affiliate marketing influencers such as Matt Diggity, Mathew Woodward, or Authority Hackers are promoting it.
But, the downsides of the affiliate program are that it’s not the highest-paying nor the most recognized brand.
WPX’s affiliate program is privately hosted on their own website, and you can apply to become an affiliate here.
Bonus tip: Have a large audience? You can request Terry Kyle, the CEO of WPX, to be a guest on your platform and promote WPX at the same time (ex: YouTube live stream)
- Commission Rate: $70+ per referral
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: Undefined
- Platform: Private
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
Siteground
The SiteGround affiliate program is decent because it has many pricing plans so that you can sell it to a broad audience.
For example, they have shared, E-commerce, managed, and other plans that you can promote… all of them are also affordable. In addition, affiliates often market it as a better Bluehost alternative which is why you’ll find endless speed tests between them online.
The downside is that the commissions aren’t the highest – usually around $40 to $50 per sale while you’re starting.
You can apply to become an affiliate on their website.
- Commission Rate:$50+ per referral
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: 60 Days
- Platform: Private
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
Bluehost Affiliate Program
Despite being the most widely promoted hosting affiliate program, it’s also started to become one of the most hated. Why?
Because there are many customer complaints about server speed (particularly on shared hosting plans) and customer support. The truth is most hosting companies that offer shared plans have similar issues. But with Bluehost, it just seems to be a little more frequent.
So, why are there still so many affiliates promoting it?
Because the commissions are juicy. Even if you sell the $3 per month shared hosting plan to someone, you’ll be paid a $65 commission.
Long story short: It’s cheap, i.e., easy to sell, and has high commissions.
However, it’s not as bad as people make it out to be, and the value for money is decent. Plus, your referrals also get a free domain and SSL certificate.
Besides, it also offers VPS hosting and dedicated plans for businesses that need it.
Franklin Hatchett, ClickBank, and some other big names in the affiliate marketing industry promote it – so it also gets a lot of trust from there.
- Commission Rate: $65+ per referral
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: 60 Days
- Platform: Private
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
BionicWP
BionicWP is another web hosting company that offers an excellent commission structure: $75 per sale + 12.5% recurring for two years.
The reason it’s a little further down the list is mainly that it’s pretty expensive – which makes it a little harder to sell – especially since it loses out against some others on performance tests.
For example, WPX, which is faster, offers 5 sites on its $25 per month plan. With Bionic, just adding one additional site (2 total) will cost your referrals $63+ per month.
But the commission structure is excellent, so it deserves its spot on this list.
- Commission Rate: $75+12.5% per referral
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: 60 Days
- Platform: Private
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
CloudWays
Cloudways is one of the most popular managed web hosting services on the internet.
It also has a killer affiliate program that offers flexible commissions per sale or a hybrid model that includes a recurring lifetime commission.
You can choose between the commission structures, and when you refer a new customer, you will be paid accordingly.
Your affiliate account will also come with dedicated managers, guides on affiliate marketing, and more.
The main reason it’s so far down this list is that it also lacks USPs and has pretty low commission rates.
- Commission Rate: $50+7.5% per referral
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: 90 Days
- Platform: Private
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
Scala Web Hosting
Scala is also a pretty decent web hosting affiliate program that offers its affiliate program on Shareasale – so you can track it via Afflytics in real-time. In addition, it offers similar commissions to other web hosting providers starting at $50 per sale but going up to $200.
This is pretty decent because their hosting starts at just $3.95 per month – so you can sell it to both beginners and small businesses.
- Commission Rate: $50+ per referral
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: 60 Days
- Platform: ShareASale
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
iPage
Our final affiliate program is iPage.
Like some other popular web hosting platforms on this list, it offers affordable hosting – while offering decent commissions.
The plans start at just $1.99 per month, while the commission rate is $65.
And check this out: iPage even has its own website builder to help your referrals create beautiful, mobile-optimized websites with ease.
The downside is that iPage is not a widely recognized brand and that it only offers shared hosting or plans for WordPress sites. So, you probably can’t promote it to a business that needs a VPS server.
Plus, it’s not the best performer – as you may imagine at the price point, which makes it harder to sell.
- Commission Rate: $65+ per referral
- EPC: Undefined
- Cookie Length: Undefined
- Platform: Private
- Affiliate Manager: Yes
Summary – Which Is The Best Web Hosting Affiliate Program For You?
Recap of best web hosting affiliate programs:
Best Overall: WP Engine. It’s the highest paying affiliate program and provides an excellent service to customers.
Best Managed Hosting Affiliate Programs: Kinsta, WPX, Bionic WP, Cloudways – all of these options provide excellent speed to customers while having a decent affiliate program that can earn you as much as $500 per sale.
Best Shared hosting affiliate programs: Bluehost, SiteGround, iPage, Scala Web Hosting- Budget-friendly options that are easy to sell, while offering decent commissions so you can promote them.
As we have seen throughout, most of these programs offer some pretty sweet commission rates – hopefully, this list has helped you find the right program for your audience.
Track All Your Affiliate Earnings In One Dashboard
We know the struggle of having to track all your affiliate earnings – in dozens of dashboards. Switching between ShareASale, ClickBank, and other affiliate networks to count all your commissions using a calculator.
Or even worse… Forgetting about commissions that you already earned.
The good news is that this no longer has to be the case. You can now track all your affiliate earnings in one place – using afflytics.
