Ready to put your wealth on the fast-track? Recurring income affiliate programs are just the ticket to do that.
Solid advice though: It’s not all about you! Businesses are not lining up to pay you recurring commissions because it sounds nice.
It has a business advantage and that’s to recruit long-term committed affiliates – the type prepared to put in the leg work for low payout rates in the early stages so they can benefit from the compound effect.
What’s the compound effect?
It’s what naturally happens to your income as you refer more customers. Instead of being paid a one-time fee, you continue to earn a commission of all payments paid to the company you’re affiliated with.
By putting a system in place to generate a couple of sales per month, after a year, you’ll have x24 what you started with because of the compound effect.
Find a program paying just $10 lifetime commission and after 20 sales, you’ve banked $200 monthly. Keep scaling your referrals, your income just keeps on growing. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
That is assuming your referrals remain active. Offer support to people you refer to your partners and you can help improve customer retention, thereby, protecting your income.
Commission rates tend to be lower for most affiliate programs paying lifetime commissions. Btw: Lifetime commissions refer to the life of the customer continuing to pay the company.
With the above in mind, it’s the long-game you want to be thinking about when selecting the vendors to partner with. The ones best to align with are those with a solid customer retention strategy and have been around a while.
Always remembers that merchants control the affiliate program and can make changes to your commissions or payment structure anytime they feel like it. That’s a risk you need to be aware of so don’t build up too much reliance on any one partner.
Different sectors have different customer retention averages. Membership sites are one example of recurring income affiliate programs, but most have only 3 to 6 months of retention. Software used by businesses though can last for years.
Some of the longest retentions are in email autoresponder services and web hosting because they’re needed and because when a new customer starts using a new technology, it’s difficult to change providers.
Asides from software and membership sites, there are recurring income affiliate programs in a lot of niches including the pet industry, vaping and even e-learning.
Recurring Income Affiliate Website Ideas
- Build a review website specifically around software products in the B2B space.
- Go further with a demo channel on YouTube with tutorials on how to use the products you’ve reviewed on your site. A lot of popular programs have loads of long-tail search phrases related to how to do something a little technical or [product name] tutorials.
- If you have or plan to start a service-based business, partner with other businesses that compliment what you offer your clients. A good partnership with ongoing commissions can not only boost your income, but it can also give you some financial freedom to take more time off without losing as much income.
- Perhaps the best way to monetize with these types of offers is to totally commit and build a brand by establishing an authority website. When you own an asset that attracts thousands of readers or viewers and become a trusted resource online, you benefit from increased reader trust and easier acceptance to better partnerships with higher financial rewards over the long-term.
12 Recurring Income Affiliate Programs
- Tailwind App
- Live Agent
- Call Hippo
- Avangate Network
- Capsule CRM
- Rescue Time
- Emojics
- Organifi
- Hot Juice
- Natural Wonder Pets
- Mailtag
- Teachable
1. Tailwind App
Websites live and die by the site owners’ ability to get traffic and that’s what Tailwind helps them do. It’s a cloud-based app to manage Pinterest marketing campaigns and schedule Instagram stories.
From a site owners’ perspective, the benefits of Tailwind is the ability to increase page views, strengthen SEO and boost brand visibility with the help of Pinterest Tribes, which is similar to Facebook’s groups.
The Tailwind affiliate program uses 90-day cookies and pays you a 15% recurring commission on any pro plan fees your referrals subscribe to. Moreover, they give you two months to use the service for free so you know the service you’re promoting.
Definitely take the time to use the service and try your best to get results because your results will make your promotions easier and your recommendation stronger.
Sign up to the Tailwind affiliate program here
2. Live Agent
Live Agent is a platform for teams to combine all their communication channels into a central dashboard.
Even owner-operated businesses could find it helpful to have their email, website live chat, all social media channels and phone support grouped into one central location.
Free plans are available for startup and growing businesses preparing to scale and paid plans start at $15 and can be scaled up and down.
The Live Agent affiliate program pays you a 20% commission from the first order and the same 20% recurring commission for the duration of your referrals account.
Take note of this part though: they base their payouts on 92% of total order values to account for their payment processing fees so your affiliate commissions will be lower than 20%.
Interestingly, they also have a shared affiliate payment structure for situations when more than one affiliate introduces a new customer. The payment threshold is $100 and you’ll need to have referred at least 2 paying customers.
As with most affiliate programs offering recurring commissions, they are looking to partner with long-term affiliates and do not allow any PPC campaigns because it would mean they’d wind up competing with themselves. Makes sense.
Sign up to the Live Agent affiliate program here
3. Call Hippo
Call Hippo is a cloud-based virtual phone service that provides toll-free phone numbers to businesses in over 50 countries.
In a world where a lot of teams are on different continents, VoIP telephony services can lower telephone costs significantly.
In addition to cheaper calls, they also provide a call management system making it easier for businesses to record calls for quality assurance, access call analytics, and store some essential call analytics to measure team performance.
The Call Hippo affiliate program uses 60-day cookies, pays 20% recurring commissions and pays monthly to PayPal with no payment thresholds to meet.
Sign up to the Call Hippo affiliate program here
4. Avangate Network
The Avangate Network is a software marketplace with thousands of software products available.
If you’re in the tech industry or involved with PC repair or even gaming, there’s likely to be products in the marketplace that could be complementary to other computer affiliate programs, such as those related to the performance of gaming PCs.
One of the higher paying products listed on Avangate’s top 10 recurring commission products is TweakBit.com paying 70% commission on all purchases and license renewals.
As Avangate is a marketplace, it’s up to vendors to select their commission structure. Most are one-time commissions but merchants can list products with cookies lasting from 30-days to 180-days with either one-time commissions or recurring payments.
There is a minimum payout threshold of 100 Euros or USD – both currencies are supported.
Sign up to the Avangate affiliate network here.
5. Capsule CRM
A startup business can only go so long relying on a solid system of spreadsheets, email management, and a really good memory. As orders increase, so too does support requests and communication between vendors and teams.
Eventually, there comes a point where technology needs to be brought into the business.
CapsuleCRM.com is a customer relationship management software. They have integrations for accounting software, email services, and customer help desks so that everything can be centrally managed.
Given the uptake by businesses to modernize customer relationship management, CRM software is reported to be the largest software market globally and projected to reach $80 Billion in revenues by 2025.
While most CRM providers focus on serving growing businesses, Capsule CRM has made it easy to engage with specific industries with tailored solutions.
Industries CapsuleCRM serve include:
- Startups, small and medium-sized business
- Real Estate
- Hotels / Hospitality
- Construction and Contractors
- Travel Agencies
- Accountants
The affiliate program for Capsule CRM pays a 20% recurring commission with payments made monthly to PayPal after you’ve reached the minimum threshold of £50.
Sign up to the Capsule CRM affiliate program here.
6. Rescue Time
Rescue Time has long been a favorite app for time management. The free version has enough features for almost anyone who needs to use their internet connection for meaningful tasks by blocking out distracting sites.
Known time-wasting websites like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube can be restricted.
For companies, or even in small teams, the application lets organizations monitor internet usage and see the areas that are costing them productive work hours, then block websites based on the data and it can be done at the team level too.
Naturally, the affiliate program is for the pro plans and those are geared towards business users, whether in small teams, independent freelancers or enterprise clients.
The affiliate program for Rescue Time pays a 15% recurring commission for as long as your referral remains on a pro plan.
Sign up to the Rescue Time affiliate program here
7. Emojics
Marketers of all levels need people to engage with their content on multiple platforms including on websites, emails and across social media.
Social platforms popularized reaction buttons. Emojics capitalizes on people’s familiarity with reaction buttons to give businesses the same feedback tools to use in email or on their own website.
Bottom line: Emojis offer a fun and creative way for marketers (which includes small business owners doing their own marketing) to take their customers’ emotional temperature.
It’s a way for them to find out if their content resonates or alienates customers.
As the saying goes, what can be measured, can be improved! This is just one way to measure customer reactions to business communications.
Rather than asking people to complete lengthy surveys, feedback can be made one-click simple by encouraging readers to click an emoji that most resonates with how they feel.
Here’s a video summary from their 2019 fire sale launch…
Since the launch, like most SaaS products, Emojics moved from a lifetime license to a subscription model. Emojics has two tiers for affiliates.
The partner program pays a 30% recurring commission and is open to anyone. The buddy program pays 35% commission is only for existing customers.
The only cookie information available relates to the branded logo on the widget. Those links have the cookies set to 120-days. For direct affiliate links such as those used in emails, social media or in blog posts, the cookie length might be different.
Sign up to the Emojics affiliate program here.
8. Organifi
Organifi makes organic green juice powered by superfoods. The main product is the Organifi Green Juice consisting of 11 superfoods and it’s used as a healthy energy booster.
The Organifi affiliate program is one of the very few to offer high commission rates on a tangible product. Up to 30% lifetime commissions across their funnel and on all future rebills.
Here’s a couple of landing pages for their green juice…
Organifi uses Clickbank to manage their affiliate program but it’s not as simple as signing up and requesting approval.
Given they offer industry-leading commissions on tangible products, they are selective on who they partner with. You can go to Organifi.com/affiliate and register your interest in partnering with them but it’s highly likely you’ll be ignored!
The bottom of the affiliate resources page has a note telling you that they are selective about who they partner with and they are unlikely to accept affiliates with little experience.
If you feel you’d be a good partner for Organifi.com products, you’ll first need to email Josh Valencia at Partners [at] Organifi.com (with a crafty subject line preferably) and explain your experience, your audience stats and try your best to prove you’re someone who can send quality referrals.
Get more information on the Organifi affiliate program here and here then if you feel you’d be a good fit, send an email to Josh at Partners [@] Organifi.com
9. Hot Juice
Hot Juice could be coined as an up and coming brand ready to make its mark on the vaping community.
They’ve only been in business since 2018, but their CEO, Jon Deak, has been involved in the e-cig and vaping niche since around 2006.
It’s clear that the affiliate program is part of the company’s growth strategy, but given they are still in their infancy, this is one of those programs with potential but not without risk.
One of the objectives of Hot Juice is to bring more flavors to the vaping community. 30% more to be specific.
If you’re in the vaping niche, this could be a good merchant to partner with. Their e-liquids are made in their own lab in Southern California using locally sourced ingredients.
The Hot Juice affiliate program uses 90-day cookies with commissions starting at 20% on the first sale. Recurring lifetime commissions start at 5% and increase based on your sales volumes.
The more monthly sales you refer, the higher the first commission is and the recurring commissions after that.
Similar to Organifi, and a lot of programs offering recurring commissions, Hot Juice want experienced affiliates.
If you research the company first, you’ll probably find they’ll favor video reviewers and other social media influencers in the CBD and Vaping niche. (That’s an opinion though. They don’t state any preferences for affiliates other than having experience.)
Sign up to the Hot Juice affiliate program here.
10. Natural Wonder Pets
Natural Wonder Pets is an affordable online store for organic products for cats and dogs. They make their own products and have them evaluated by veterinarians before they’re released for sale.
One of the core advantages of the products here is the direct to consumer approach.
These products aren’t sold in retail stores, which also brings manufacturer to consumer savings.
If you’re in the pet niche, this is where you’ll find herbal remedies for cats and dogs at affordable pricing and with the customer care of a small business.
The Natural Wonder Pets affiliate program is managed by ShareaSale.com and sadly the cookies are set to 1-day. But, when you do refer customers who go on to buy, they are paying 15% commission on all future orders too.
On top of that, it’s a 2-tier affiliate program so if you refer another affiliate, you’ll also earn a 20% commission of their referrals order value.
Join the Natural Wonder Pets affiliate program here.
11. Mailtag
Mailtag is a chrome extension for Gmail that’s used by freelancers, sales teams, and small business owners.
Its main purpose is to enable auto-follow up, email tracking and scheduling, all of which contribute to helping close more sales. Super important for small businesses and it’s a fairly good price.
Mailtag was acquired in 2019 by Ben Cohen and Joe Speiser, two entrepreneurs and angel investors who were proactive in rectifying customer dissatisfaction with technical and billing problems.
Since the acquisition, work has been done to improve customer service and the overall user experience.
The Mailtag affiliate program is managed on the Partner Stack network, uses 90-day cookies and pays 30% recurring commission monthly via PayPal or Stripe.
Sign up to the MailTag affiliate program via Partner Stack here.
12. Teachable
Teachable is a popular e-learning platform that lets anyone share their knowledge regardless of tech-savviness.
For a fee, they’ll host online courses, all the videos, images, PDF downloads and manage payment processing.
There are free plans that limit the courses to 10 students so naturally anyone intending to make money from their courses, the unlimited students option is the sensible choice. That’s what costs and it’s those fees you can earn a percentage of.
The Teachable.com affiliate program uses 90-day cookies and pays you a 30% recurring commission of the fees their customers pay them. This isn’t a 30% recurring commission on every course sold – only the fees paid by those creating and selling courses through the platform.
Naturally, they prefer to work with affiliates who have experience using the platform.
