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11 Best WordPress Affiliate Plugins (2023 Comparison)


Are you looking for the best WordPress affiliate plugin to suit your needs?

Affiliate marketing on WordPress can mean a couple different things: business owners who want to start their own affiliate programs and affiliate marketers who want an easier and more effective way to promote affiliate links.

In this post, we’ve listed plugins that suit a variety of different affiliate marketing purposes.

The best WordPress affiliate plugins

TL;DR:

AffiliateWP – The best WordPress affiliate plugin for creating and managing an affiliate program for your WordPress site. It works with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.

Pretty Links – The best affiliate marketing plugin. It allows you to keep a categorized collection of affiliate links in WordPress, transform them into user-friendly versions using your domain and even insert them into posts by selecting them in the WordPress editor.

Affiliate Coupons – The best WordPress affiliate plugin for affiliate marketers who have their own coupon codes or are affiliated with a company that offers general coupon codes.


#1 – AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP is a popular WordPress affiliate plugin for starting and managing your own affiliate program. It’s used by over 30,000 businesses and is owned by Awesome Motive, who also own WPBeginner, OptinMonster, MonsterInsights, WPForms and more.

This plugin offers the best of both worlds: an easy way for business owners to launch an affiliate program in WordPress without needing to know how to code and an intuitive way for affiliates to track their earnings over time.

As a business owner, it lets you manage every step of starting an affiliate program quite easily.

This includes the application and approval process, setting multiple commission rules and rates, tracking different types of referrals, and payouts to affiliates.

It integrates with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, MemberPress, Restrict Content Pro and more.

Best of all, because it’s a self-hosted solution, it bypasses adblockers and is GDPR compliant by default because it doesn’t use third-party cookies.

Key features

  • Tracks affiliate performance.
  • Customizable affiliate registration form.
  • Multiple commission rules.
  • Affiliate dashboard.
  • Affiliate leaderboard.
  • “Creatives,” which are assets like premade banner ads and images your logo affiliates can download to promote your brand.
  • Payouts available via PayPal or Stripe.
affiliatewp dashboard

Pros

  • Unlimited affiliates, commissions, creatives and payouts available on all plans.
  • Lets you manage affiliates from WordPress.
  • Affiliate performance metrics include accurate data for click, sale and commission tracking.
  • Lets you set the registration form to auto approval.
  • The commission rules you have to pick from include one time, recurring, tiered, lifetime, personalized and store credit.
  • Affiliate area lets affiliates create affiliate links, download assets and track their own performance.
  • Allows affiliates to create “pretty” affiliate links that appear friendlier to consumers as well as their own personal affiliate coupons.
  • Includes groups to categorize creatives.
  • Includes groups to categorize affiliates.
  • Lets you payout individual affiliates manually or all affiliates at once with one click.
  • Uses first-party cookies for better tracking and security.
  • Includes fraud detection so you only pay affiliates for legitimate commissions.

Cons

  • No free version.
  • Expensive, especially for renewals.

Pricing

Pricing for your first year starts at $149.50. Pricing for renewals starts at $299. A 14-day free trial is available.


#2 – Pretty Links

Pretty Links is a custom link shortener for WordPress that makes a good WordPress affiliate plugin, specifically for affiliate link management.

pretty links homepage Homepage

It lets you use your domain to create shortened versions of URLs you created for your WordPress site.

For example, if you have an original URL that reads “yourdomain.com/iphone-15-review,” you can use Pretty Links to create a shortened version that reads “yourdomain.com/iphone” but still leads to the original URL.

This makes it a lot easier to market the URL.

One extremely useful feature about this plugin is the fact that you can use it for external URLs as well, which is why it’s so useful for affiliate marketing.

Affiliate links are notorious for not having user-friendly appearances. Pretty Links gives you a way to create user-friendly versions that make it easier to promote affiliate links as well as a central location to manage them in.

Key features

  • Branded link shortener.
  • Affiliate link management.
  • Supports 301, 302 and 307 redirects.
  • Affiliate link inserter for the Paragraph block.
  • Product displays.
  • Link tracking and click data.
  • Broken link detection.
  • Expiration dates for links.
  • Automation.
pretty links add new link

Pros

  • Unlimited links for all plans.
  • The plugin’s data can be collected as reports.
  • Product displays include spaces for images, text and buttons.
  • Automation includes a keyword replacement tool to automatically add affiliate links to your site based on keywords.
  • Lets you create links for new pages and posts automatically.
  • Links can be organized with categories and tags.
  • Lets you add a nofollow tag to affiliate links.
  • Google Analytics integration.

Cons

  • Expensive, especially after your first year.

Pricing

A limited free version is available. Premium plans start at $99.50 for your first year. This plan renews at $199/year.


#3 – ThirstyAffiliates

ThirstyAffiliates is another WordPress affiliate plugin designed to help you manage affiliate links. It’s similar to Pretty Links, and both WordPress plugins are owned by MemberPress. This one’s primary focus is affiliate link cloaking.

thirstyaffiliates homepage Homepage

Like Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates allows you to cloak affiliate links by transforming them into user-friendly versions.

Many sites create dozens of affiliate links for the many different products they promote. Without link management plugins, you’d need to resort to managing them in a spreadsheet or document.

You’d then need to access that document every time you want to add affiliate links to your WordPress website.

ThirstyAffiliates allows you to manage every affiliate link you have from the WordPress dashboard and gives you a way to make them appear user friendly.

Plus, you can insert affiliate links from the WordPress editor, so you don’t need to memorize any of them.

Key features

  • Affiliate link cloaking.
  • Affiliate link inserter for the WordPress editor.
  • Multiple redirect options.
  • Affiliate links assigned to images.
  • Auto linking based on keywords.
  • Broken link fixer.
  • Expiration dates for links.
  • Reports.

Pros

  • Unlimited links on all plans.
  • Includes link categorization.
  • The link inserter tool works with affiliate links assigned to images.
  • Includes uncloaking to comply with affiliate programs that don’t allow affiliate cloaking, such as Amazon Associates.
  • Makes it easy to nofollow affiliate links.
  • Lets you add alternative affiliate links based on a reader’s location.
  • Google Analytics integration.

Cons

  • Cheaper than Pretty Links but still fairly expensive for what it does.

Pricing

A limited free version is available. Pricing for the premium version starts at $79.50 and renews at $159.


#4 – Solid Affiliate

Solid Affiliate is a WordPress affiliate plugin for WooCommerce. It’s designed to help you create and manage an affiliate program for your WooCommerce store.

solid affiliate Homepage

It has its own registration form where customers can apply to your affiliate program as well as a way to automatically approve affiliates.

You can set commission rates based on percentages of sales completed on your site as well as subscriptions you manage through WooCommerce.

You can even offer recurring commissions on subscriptions and for specific customers.

Key features

  • Affiliate program management for your WooCommerce store.
  • Multiple commission options.
  • Link generator affiliates can use.
  • Affiliate dashboard affiliates can use to track referrals, manage payments and download assets.
  • Assigned affiliate coupons.

Pros

  • Comes with a setup wizard for a simpler installation process.
  • Commission options include percentage-based commissions, recurring commissions, a commission rule that allows you to assign customers to specific affiliates and more.
  • Auto approval for affiliate applications.
  • Integrates with WooCommerce Subscriptions.
  • Lets you create a library of promotional assets for affiliates to download.
  • PayPal integration for payouts.

Cons

  • Most expensive affiliate program management plugin on this list.

Pricing

Plans start at $49/month. Lifetime plans are also available. They start at $327.


#5 – AAWP

AAWP is the Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin. As the name implies, it’s a WordPress plugin designed to help you promote affiliate links from Amazon.

aawp Homepage

It allows you to take the affiliate links you usually promote from Amazon and promote them through product boxes, text links, comparison tables, bestseller lists and more.

It works with multiple regional Amazon partner networks and even includes geotargeting that refers users to their regional Amazon stores automatically.

Key features

  • Product information and pricing updated automatically via the Amazon Product Advertising API.
  • Geotargeting.
  • Product boxes.
  • Comparison tables
  • Text links.
  • Bestseller lists.
  • New release lists.
  • Browser extension for creating shortcodes as you browse Amazon.
  • Tracking.

Pros

  • Predesigned templates available.
  • Lets you create your own templates.
  • Different styles available.
  • Has its own block for the block editor if you don’t want to use shortcodes.
  • Product boxes include an Amazon buy button.
  • While the lists feature generated content, you can filter the view to only show specific products.
  • Includes widgets.
  • Lets you see which products receive the most clicks as well as which parts of product boxes receive the most clicks.

Cons

  • Since it only works with Amazon affiliate links, this plugin is really only useful if you promote Amazon affiliate links regularly and rely on Amazon affiliate marketing heavily.

Pricing

Plans for this plugin start at €49/year.


#6 – SliceWP

SliceWP is an affiliate program management plugin that integrates with a number of different plugins that allow you to generate revenue through sales on your site.

slicewp Homepage

It’s very easy to use and has one of the most user-friendly dashboards in its niche.

One of its best features are the reports it generates for your affiliates, which includes data on commissions, payouts, amounts for average commissions and more.

Key features

  • Affiliate program creation and management.
  • Frontend affiliate dashboard.
  • Asset library affiliates can use to download promotional images.
  • Affiliate coupon codes.
  • Multiple commission options.
  • Custom commission rates for individual affiliates.
  • Payouts available through PayPal.
  • Reports.

Pros

  • Comes with a setup wizard.
  • Integrates with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, Restrict Content Pro, Paid Memberships Pro, MemberPress and more.
  • Includes registration form for affiliate applications.
  • Auto approval for applications.
  • Commission options include fixed rates for individual sales, recurring commissions, lifetime commissions in which you assign a customer to a specific affiliate and more.
  • Social sharing buttons available on the affiliate dashboard page.

Cons

  • No groups or ways to categorize affiliates.
  • No Stripe payout option or any alternative to PayPal.

Pricing

A limited free version is available. Pricing for the premium version starts at $169. This plan renews at $229/year.


#7 – Easy Affiliate

Easy Affiliate is another affiliate plugin managed by the MemberPress family. This one is designed for launching and managing an affiliate program.

easy affiliate Homepage

It’s primarily designed for ecommerce sites but also integrates with MemberPress for membership sites.

It’s a fairly straightforward affiliate management plugin. It makes it easy to accept affiliates into your program, set up commission rates and issue payouts.

Key features

  • Affiliate program management.
  • Application form.
  • Multiple commission options.
  • Affiliate dashboard.
  • Asset library.
  • Custom link generator.
  • Integrates with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads and MemberPress.
  • Fraud detection.
  • Reports.
  • Payouts through PayPal.

Pros

  • One-time and recurring commission rules available.
  • Affiliates can use the affiliate dashboard to check their own stats, download assets and edit their information.
  • Custom link generator is powered by Pretty Links.
  • Fraud detection feature flags suspicious behavior before you issue payouts.
  • Reports include a list of your top affiliates.

Cons

  • Not all features are available with every plan.
  • Only payout option is PayPal.

Pricing

Plans start at $99.60 for your first year. This plan renews at $249/year.


#8 – Affiliate Coupons

Affiliate Coupons is a unique plugin designed for sites that promote coupon codes. This makes it especially useful for affiliate marketers who promote brands who issue personal affiliate coupons.

affiliate coupons Homepage

However, it can just as easily be used by marketers who promote affiliate links for brands who issue general coupons, such as a Black Friday coupon code.

The way it works is simple. You use the plugin to create coupon boxes that have buttons visitors can click to access coupon codes.

The plugin is designed to partially hide the code until the visitor clicks on it.

You can assign your affiliate link to a coupon box so that it opens the link in a new tab while also revealing the code.

Key features

  • Coupon code management.
  • Click-to-reveal coupon code functionality.
  • Categories for vendors (brands you want to promote).
  • Multiple display options.
  • Filter and pagination display options.
  • Includes titles and descriptions for coupon boxes.
  • Social sharing.
  • Tracking through Google Analytics and Matomo.
  • Statistics.

Pros

  • Includes multiple templates.
  • Includes multiple styles.
  • Comes with widgets for displaying coupons in your sidebar.
  • Lets you hide titles and descriptions for coupon boxes.
  • Statistics include data on views, coupon code copies and clicks.

Cons

  • No integration with Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates.

Pricing

A limited free version is available. Pricing for the premium version starts at $29/year.


#9 – AdSanity

Here’s where we start to move away from pure affiliate plugins and transition over to plugins that simply work great for affiliate marketing.

AdSanity is one such plugin. It’s an ad management plugin available for WordPress. In short, it helps you create and manage ads and display them on your WordPress site.

adsanity Homepage

The plugin is designed to work with ads you create yourself as well as ads created by dedicated ad networks.

This makes it perfect for affiliate marketing since you can assign an affiliate link to individual ads.

Key features

  • Self-hosted ads.
  • Network ads.
  • Categories for ads.
  • Ad block detection.
  • Conditional ad appearance.
  • Rotating ads.
  • Lets you accept advertiser applications and includes advertiser management.
  • Disable ads based on user role.
  • Tracking through Google Analytics.

Pros

  • Lets you customize ad sizes.
  • Includes widgets so you can display ads in widget areas.
  • Lets you display ads in the content area of posts and pages.
  • This option to disable ads for specific user roles makes this plugin a perfect addition to membership sites.
  • Developers and experienced users can use actions, filters and custom CSS to make customizations.

Cons

  • Not all features are available on every plan.

Pricing

Plans start at $59/year.


#10 – Ultimate Affiliate Pro

One last pure affiliate plugin for the road.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro is an affiliate management plugin for WordPress. It’s designed to work with WooCommerce sites.

ultimate affiliate pro Homepage

One of its most unique features is the sheer number of commission options you have to choose from, including cost-per-mile, which allows you to issue commissions based on a specific number of views on the assets you create for affiliates.

Key features

  • Affiliate program management for WooCommerce.
  • Multiple commission options.
  • Affiliate dashboard.
  • Affiliate registration and login forms.
  • Achievements for affiliates.
  • Asset library.
  • Affiliate leaderboard.
  • Social sharing.
  • Reports.
  • Payouts available through PayPal and Stripe.

Pros

  • Commission options include cost per lead, cost per sale, cost per action, cost per click, cost per mile, earnings per click, tired ranks and multi-level marketing.
  • Includes fixed and recurring commission options.
  • Includes affiliate coupons and user-friendly affiliate links.
  • Lets you customize commission rates.
  • Allows you to set different commission rates for specific products.
  • You can assign a customer to a specific affiliate.
  • Multiple templates for registration and login forms.

Cons

  • No integration with Easy Digital Downloads, Restrict Content Pro or membership plugins.

Pricing

One-time fee of $69. Additional support available at a discounted price.


#11 – Let’s Review

Let’s Review is another example of a plugin that’s not a dedicated affiliate plugin but works great for affiliate marketing. It’s a review plugin that includes buttons optimized for affiliate marketing.

lets review Homepage

It’s a review box plugin that includes buttons you can assign affiliate links to.

Key features

  • Review boxes.
  • Affiliate buttons for review boxes.
  • Multiple review box designs.
  • Multiple rating formats.
  • Visitor reviews.
  • Review schema data.
  • Gallery options.
  • Shortcode tool

Pros

  • Review boxes include individual ratings for different criteria as well as an overall rating.
  • The shortcode tool makes it easy to insert review boxes into WordPress content areas.
  • Custom icons included.
  • Includes widgets.

Cons

  • No integration for Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates.

Pricing

One-time fee of $29. Additional support is available at a discounted price.


Final thoughts + choosing a WordPress affiliate plugin

That concludes our list of the best WordPress affiliate plugins.

They cover a broad spectrum of purposes, mainly plugins that make it easy to start and manage an affiliate program from the WordPress dashboard, but they also include plugins designed for affiliate marketers.

Again, these are our top three choices based on different use cases:

  • AffiliateWP – The best overall plugin for managing an affiliate program from WordPress.
  • Pretty Links – The best overall plugin for managing and cloaking multiple affiliate links. ThirstyAffiliates is a great alternative, though.
  • Affiliate Coupons – The best affiliate plugin for affiliate marketers who promote coupon codes.

However, there are also plugins on this list designed for the Amazon affiliate program and for promoting affiliate links in ads and review boxes.

Make sure you consider the types of affiliate links you promote and how promote them before you decide.

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