Everyone says their WooCommerce affiliate plugin or WordPress affiliate plugin is the best. But can there be so many best affiliate marketing plugins? Maybe for a particular feature or niche, but there are plenty of strong affiliate players in the market.
So, in this blog, we’re concentrating on plugins with cutting-edge value-driven features, established reputations and a demonstrated track record. We analyzed some crucial parameters among the most popular affiliate plugins to determine the best affiliate plugin for you.
We understand the difficulty of filtering among countless affiliate program plugins. That’s why we’re here to clear up any confusion and provide a comprehensive comparison.
12 best WooCommerce affiliate plugins
For this comparison table, we choose the top six plugins from a list of twelve based on market popularity and features. We have covered all twelve plugins in detail after the comparison table to give you more valuable content.
The idea is to give you a solid and quick idea of the most useful affiliate plugins. To find the best affiliate plugin for WordPress, this table might help.
| Affiliate for WooCommerce | AffiliateWP | Post Affiliate Pro | ReferralCandy | YITH WooCommerce Affiliates | Ultimate Affiliate Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce extension / SaaS / Integration | WooCommerce Extension | Integration & SaaS | Integration & SaaS | Integration & SaaS | WooCommerce Extension | WooCommerce Extension |
| Customizable Registration Forms | ||||||
| Customizable Affiliate Referral Links | ||||||
| Single Screen Management | Juggle multiple screens | Juggle multiple screens | Juggle multiple screens | Juggle multiple screens | Juggle multiple screens | |
| User Friendliness | Super user-friendly | User-friendly | Moderately complex | Moderately complex | Basic and friendly | Basic and friendly |
| Integrations | Smart Coupons, WooCommerce Blocks, Customer Email Verification, PayPal Payments, Woo Subscriptions | Zapier Integration, REST API Extended | PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net, ChargeBee | Shopify, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, PayPal | PayPal, Stripe | PayPal, Apple Pay, Stripe |
| Multi-tier Affiliate Program | ||||||
| Marketing Campaigns / Brand Creatives | ||||||
| Commission Plans / Rules | Multi-tiered, storewide, specific Products, affiliates and product categories, Affiliate tags, fixed and percentage, lifetime commissions | Percentage and fixed, store credit, tiered, lifetime and recurring, affiliate-specific | Lifetime, multi-tier, recurring, split commission and performance rewards | Only based on referral Sales | Global commission but can be refined with specific products, Product categories, Affiliate tags and user roles | Percentage and fixed, MLM or multi-tiered, lifetime and recurring, referrals bonus, performance rewards |
| Lifetime Commissions | ||||||
| Landing Pages | Paid Addon | |||||
| Affiliate Coupons | Coupons (with links) for tracking referrals | Coupons (with links) for tracking referrals | Yes but need to setup manually | Yes but with limited functionality | Yes but with limited functionality | Yes but with limited functionality |
| Payouts | PayPal, Stripe (Instant and Automatic) | Bank transfer and PayPal. For mass payments, buy Paypal Payouts addon | Not available. Only outside the system using payment gateway or cash/benefits | PayPal only | PayPal or direct bank/wire transfer | Bank transfer, PayPal, Stripe |
| Real-time Reporting | ||||||
| Fraud Detection | ||||||
| Developer Needed | ||||||
| 5-Star Reviews | 59+ | 50+ | 15+ | 190+ | 10+ | 40+ |
Here is a detailed overview of each of the twelve WooCommerce affiliate plugins.
Affiliate for WooCommerce
Do you want to generate more traffic, sales and revenue? If so, Affiliate for WooCommerce can be a great help. This plugin is available with an array of features including some unique ones.
StoreApps, the official WooCommerce extensions developer, is the creator of this plugin. It is slowly emerging as a powerhouse in the WooCommerce affiliate marketing space.
With a solid feature set, the plugin makes it easy to set up affiliate partners with a few clicks, from a single dashboard.
Store owners can allow affiliates to sign up via customized registration forms and manually or automatically approve them as affiliates.
The plugin’s main feature is that it includes hundreds of rules-based commission plans designed to offer a superior experience.
Top features
- Offers simple installation and effortlessly run your affiliate program directly from your WooCommerce store
- Efficient code quality means no site slowdown. You can run it on shared hosting sites as well
- Approve affiliates manually or automatically. Configure commission settings for your affiliates easily
- Choose PayPal or Stripe to pay your affiliates automatically or handle it manually via bank transfer.
- Affiliates receive unique referral IDs or coupons. Coupons can be shared on sites like Instagram where links are not allowed
- Experience comprehensive tracking and monitor visitors, conversions, commissions and payouts
- Send performance Summary Emails to affiliates automatically every month
- One-click migration from “WordPress Affiliates” plugin
- Set-up affiliate marketing campaigns
- Set a storewide commission rate
- Set different affiliate commission rates based on product, product type, affiliate tags, number of orders and referrals, product price, quantity and taxonomy
- Set a multi-level/multi-tier commission plan with unlimited tiers
- Create, assign and personalize affiliate landing pages
- Assign affiliate tags based on performance
- Predefined labels to filter affiliates
- Assign/unassign order to an affiliate
- Export affiliates data as CSV
Pricing: Billed annually at $179 or $14.92 a month
Get Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin
AffiliateWP
Pippin Williamson and Andrew Munro created AffiliateWP in 2014 but it is currently owned by Awesome Motive. With over 30,000 satisfied users, AffiliateWP is trusted by savvy online store owners to generate extra sales.
The plugin works with popular eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, as well as membership plugins such as MemberPress.
Though AffiliateWP has numerous appealing features, it also has certain limitations. First, you must select the required interface and operate across numerous screens. Further, you may also need to buy additional paid add-ons to gain access to essential features.
Top features
- One-click installation and integration for WooCommerce
- Easy tracking of the affiliate referrals
- Integrated payouts to the affiliates directly from PayPal or the bank
- Intuitive dashboard with advanced analytics and real-time reporting
- Countless partners for the single site
- Collaborate with affiliate coupons for seamless tracking
- Hooks and templates to add custom features and functionality
- Rest API and WP-CLI integration – Users can create, view, update and delete the data (CRUD) using the WP-CLI commands from AffiliateWP
Pricing:
- Basic plan starts at $149.60 a year
- Plus plan at $199.60
- Professional plan at $299.60 a year
Post Affiliate Pro
Post Affiliate Pro, which started as a customer development project in 2004, quickly acquired authority for its all-in-one affiliate solutions. Post Affiliate Pro is a risk-free cloud-based platform that is useful for precise tracking algorithms to monitor affiliate activity.
Post Affiliate Pro has a user-friendly intuitive design and a competitive pricing structure that caters to multiple business models. The plugin also offers more integrations (200+), which outnumbers many other popular WooCommerce affiliate plugins in the market.
However, one downside could be the monthly subscription fees. You may also require a skilled software developer to work with the customization and APIs.
Top features
- Offers a myriad of integrations like WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Recurly, Calendly, ChargeBee, etc.
- Real-time access to affiliate metrics, including clicks, impressions, commissions
- User-friendly interface and good support team
- Get a range of ad banners, including PDF, text link, HTML, image, banners, etc.
- Robust tracking system ensures nobody misses a referral or commission
- Experience advanced automation for repetitive actions/tasks
- Affiliates can also track their sales and performance effortlessly
- Get an array of commission plans including Split Sales
Pricing: Basic plan starts at $129 per month (if billed annually). Free trial is available.
Learn more about Post Affiliate Pro
ReferralCandy
ReferralCandy, a SaaS affiliate software, offers a comprehensive suite of tools to design, launch and manage your referral marketing program.
With features such as automated invitations, customized rewards and fraud prevention, ReferralCandy is a key player in affiliate marketing. It’s perfect for those offering SaaS goods and doing large-scale e-commerce.
ReferralCandy integrates with platforms such as Mailchimp and Google Analytics, but it is most popular for its extensive insights and reports that go beyond sales information. Secondly, ReferralCandy, which is available with awesome pre-built templates, lets you design customized emails and landing pages to impress the audience.
It has a few drawbacks, such as the tiered pricing plan depending on monthly sales volume. This can make ReferralCandy slightly expensive for high-volume store owners compared to StoreApps’ Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin.
Furthermore, advanced customization requires a professional software developer at an additional cost. Also, unlike native WooCommerce plugins, ReferralCandy may cause concerns with data ownership.
Finally, you need to buy multiple software to enjoy all the features and power of ReferralCandy. The final expense can be overwhelming for starters and emerging stores.
Top features
- Integration with popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and Magento
- Tailor your affiliate program with various reward options
- Track your referral revenue and analytics, easily find your top referrers and more
- Unlimited customers, rewards and campaigns
- Automation of referral link creation and tracking
- Customizable referral program templates for emails and pages
- Integrates with email marketing platforms like Mailchimp
- Comprehensive analytics for tracking referral program performance
- Mobile-first experience for customers across devices
- Easy-to-use customization options for branding
- Full flexibility for developers with HTML & CSS editing capabilities
Pricing:
- Basic plan starts at $59 per month (+3.5% ReferralCandy commission fee)
- Professional plan starts at $299 per month (+1.5% ReferralCandy commission fee)
YITH WooCommerce Affiliates
YITH WooCommerce Affiliates is the key to realizing all the possibilities of affiliate marketing for your WooCommerce store. You can use this plugin to set up distinct commission rates for different products and affiliates.
It can work with all popular integrations such as PayPal Payouts and WooCommerce Subscription.
This plugin has two main downsides that you should be aware of. For instance, despite its high cost, it does not allow store owners to launch marketing campaigns or distribute brand assets to affiliates and audiences.
The other disadvantage is that if you want to pay using PayPal, you must spend an additional $90 for the YITH PayPal Payouts for the WooCommerce plugin. As a result, the cost increases.
Top features
- Automated commissions and refunds
- Affiliates can request a withdrawal of their commissions
- User-friendly and intuitive dashboard
- Easily collaborate with influencers and bloggers
- Setup manual or automated payments to affiliates either by Stripe/PayPal or bank transfer
Pricing: Paid plan starts at $179.99 a year. But you can enjoy the free version on WordPress.
Get YITH WooCommerce Affiliates plugin
Ultimate Affiliate Pro
Ultimate Affiliate Pro provides an excellent framework for affiliate marketing, although it may not be the most feature-rich alternative. It includes the necessary functionalities for small and medium-sized e-commerce firms at a reasonable price. However, additional support and advanced features are charged separately.
In addition, the plugin has only a few users and there have been considerable delays in releases and improvements, so the true performance is uncertain.
Top features
- Set a flat rate for all affiliate partners
- Rank all the affiliates for better tracking
- Unlimited number of affiliates
- Easy payments from Stripe or PayPal
Pricing: Pricing starts at $69
Get Ultimate Affiliate Pro plugin
Tapfiliate
Tapfiliate is a pioneering SaaS affiliate software that is changing the affiliate marketing landscape. Tapfiliate enables businesses to easily build, track and grow affiliate and partner marketing programs.
Tapfiliate makes it easier to manage successful affiliate programs by automating everything from commission set-up to referral partner recruitment.
Though it has come up with a few amazing features, the plugin’s pricing is quite expensive.
Top features
- Accurate tracking with links and coupons, even for offline sales
- Automated referral partner recruitment to create sustainable growth
- Flexible commissions including recurring, lifetime, fixed, or percentage-based
- Create white-labeled affiliate pages and personalized email notifications
- Real-time reporting with in-depth insights to optimize your campaigns
- Integrates easily with all major e-commerce platforms and payment gateways
Pricing:
- Essential plan starts at $890 per year
- Professional plan starts at $1490 per year
WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates
WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates WordPress Plugin, marketed by CodeCanyon Team, stands out as a powerful tool for selling Amazon products to WooCommerce users. With over 35,000 purchases, this plugin continues to expand, offering powerful capabilities for affiliates wishing to maximize their earnings through the Amazon Associates Program.
So, as of now, you can only sell your Amazon products and get commission until they come with a new update to make it a full-fledged affiliate plugin.
Besides that, the plugin is overall good as you can experience better page optimization with settings like Amazon CDN and Product Advertising API.
A disadvantage can be that the plugin misses out on regular updates. Moreover, the customer support service has some gaps too.
Top features
- Bulk import hundreds of products from Amazon into your WooCommerce store
- Best for product marketing and promotion
- Automated referral generation
- You can have Amazon Products and simple WooCommerce products in the store at the same time
- From clicks to revenue, a new module offers detailed analytics to help you measure conversions and optimize strategies efficiently
Pricing: Only one paid plan at $49 with 6-months support from Amazon Affiliates
Get WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates plugin
Solid Affiliate
Start your affiliate program in under ten minutes with Solid Affiliate. If you’re looking for cheap WooCommerce affiliate plugins, Solid Affiliate is the one. This new plugin – released in 2021 – features deep integrations with WooCommerce, WooCommerce Subscriptions, PayPal, Mailchimp and more.
The plugin offers unlimited affiliates, conversions and creatives with a myriad of integrations and add-ons built into it. Hence, despite being billed annually, users might find the cost overwhelming.
Top features
- Supports both simple and complex commission rates, including per-product and per-affiliate rates
- A dedicated help tab to support you with tips and documentation on every page of the plugin
- Award commissions for subscription signups and recurring renewals
- Support for coupon referrals
- WordPress shortcodes for the affiliate login form, the registration form, creatives, affiliate links and more
- Payout history, real-time tracking, automated emails and more
Pricing:
- Basic plan at $49 a month (only 1 WooCommerce site)
- Expert plan at $99 a month (with 3 WooCommerce sites)
- Agency plan at $149 a month (with 10 WooCommerce sites)
Affiliates Pro
Itthinx’s Affiliates Pro plugin is compatible with WooCommerce and includes some of the best features for providing a lucrative customer experience. You can also employ developers to work on the plugin’s framework for customized solutions.
This robust growth-oriented tool has a flexible pricing but you may have to spend more money on additional features and plugins.
Top features
- Simple, intuitive and customizable dashboard
- Unlimited affiliates with easy recruitment
- Set up flexible and advanced commission rates, including general rates, individual rates per affiliate, rates per product, etc.
- Supports banner images for affiliates
- Mass payment, coupon referral, export
- Integrates seamlessly with leading platforms such as WooCommerce, AddToAny, AddThis, Ninja Forms and more
Pricing:
- Standard License for a single site at $69
- Up to 5 sites at $119
- Up to 25 sites at $229
SUMO Affiliates Pro
SUMO Affiliates Pro is an accomplished WordPress plugin that allows you to manage a successful affiliate marketing network from your existing WordPress/WooCommerce stores.
The pricing for this plugin is quite low, yet you can discover some unique features like QR code (for affiliate links), URL masking, SMS and pushover notifications.
Disadvantages include additional support costs, no marketing campaigns and a few user reviews.
Top features
- Notifications via SMS and email about all the affiliate activities on your site
- Users can instantly become affiliates while opening an account with WooCommerce
- Affiliate links can be generated as QR codes
- Customize the number of direct referrals, number of levels for MLM commission and commission rate for each level
- Affiliates can customize their affiliate slug as per their preference
- Pay affiliates their commissions as wallet balance or as reward points
Pricing: Pricing starts at $49
Get SUMO Affiliates Pro plugin
Easy Affiliate
Easy Affiliate provides a simple and powerful solution for creating and managing your affiliate marketing program.
If you don’t like complex dashboards and difficult setups, Easy Affiliate is all you need with all advanced affiliate features.
The good thing is that you can leverage automation using Rest API and webhooks. However, a downside is that some add-ons and integrations may cost more. Moreover, the marketing campaign feature is also not available with Easy Affiliate. Users have an extensive price to deal with before making a purchase.
Top features
- Keep affiliates engaged and informed with access to metrics, creative assets, payments and account activity
- Detect and address suspicious affiliate activity before payout, ensuring the integrity of your program
- Seamlessly integrate with popular e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce, PayPal and Easy Digital Downloads
- Effortlessly communicate with affiliates through integration with leading email marketing services like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit
- A full-featured platform for managing links and banners for affiliate marketing
- Expedite affiliate payments with PayPal 1-Click payouts
Pricing:
- Basic plan (for one site) available at $99.60 a year
- Plus plan (for three sites) is priced at $149.60
- Pro plan (up to five sites) is priced at $199.60
Our recommended WooCommerce affiliate plugin and why
Although there are other affiliate marketing plugins for WooCommerce, StoreApps’ Affiliate for WooCommerce has a certain edge. It stands out due to its simplicity, extensive feature set and timely releases and updates.
This isn’t just about our claims; thousands of satisfied WooCommerce store owners have made Affiliate for WooCommerce a top-rated plugin in the marketplace. Here’s why it should be your go-to solution:
- Growing faster than ever with 5000+ customers and powerful reviews
- Backed by StoreApps, an official developer of WooCommerce extensions
- No need to buy bundles or multiple plugins; Affiliate for WooCommerce is an all-in-one plugin
- Compatible with Smart Coupons, WooCommerce Blocks, Customer Email Verification, PayPal Payments, Woo Subscriptions
- Experience affiliate marketing management in a single-screen environment
- Get regular updates and improvements
Additionally, benefit from WooCommerce’s comprehensive return policy and StoreApps’ exceptional customer service, which will give you complete peace of mind.
Get Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin
Conclusion
Over 80% of digital marketers use affiliate marketing to increase awareness of their brands, according to this study. So, affiliate campaigns are a big deal. WooCommerce store owners find it increasingly helpful to use affiliates and raise their sales figure.
Success with affiliate marketing takes time to build as networks and people connections strengthen. But by automating invites and tracking across your preferred plugin, you are free to focus on vital business aspects.
We hope this review of top WooCommerce affiliate plugins was helpful. If you need any other help growing your affiliate marketing and eCommerce business, feel free to reach out to us!
To check out how the best affiliate plugin for WooCommerce can help, click here!
FAQ
Should I choose a WooCommerce extension or a SaaS integration coupon plugin?
Most store owners avoid SaaS tools or integrations since the costs can spiral out of control with increased usage and users, but WordPress plugins do not have this issue. WooCommerce affiliate products provide more customization than SaaS plugins, which are easy to use but have limited customization options. Plus, unlike SaaS integrations, which limit data ownership, WooCommerce plugins provide you with complete control over your data.
Will these plugins slow down my website?
If you choose a native WooCommerce plugin like Affiliate for WooCommerce or basic plugins like Ultimate Affiliate Pro or YITH, there’s no chance of site slowdown. But if you choose SaaS or heavy integration plugins, things may slow down a bit.
What are some factors to consider when choosing a WooCommerce affiliate plugin?
Price is the top thing to consider. If you don’t need a complex or expensive plugin, it’s better to settle with a native WooCommerce plugin like Affiliate for WooCommerce for fast performance throughout. Some other SaaS tools can be considered if you have adequate expertise and budget. The unpleasant news is that most SaaS or integrations don’t allow you to own or control data.
Other factors may include ease of use, features like customization, integrations, lifetime commissions and multi-tier commission plans.
Are there any WooCommerce affiliate plugins that offer lifetime commissions?
Yes, both Affiliate for WooCommerce and AffiliateWP plugins offer lifetime commissions, ensuring affiliates receive rewards for ongoing sales and promotions. Post Affiliate Pro also offers these commissions.
Affiliate for WooCommerce is the best affiliate plugin for WordPress, if you don’t want to navigate through multiple screens or tabs.
Thanks for this nice plugins list.