If you are currently selling online with Shopify, a great way to boost your sales is by launching a Shopify affiliate program.
This post will walk you through the process of setting up an affiliate program and help you choose which Shopify affiliate app to sign up for depending on your budget and needs.
First off, choosing a Shopify affiliate program app is not very straightforward. If you do a search in the Shopify app store for “affiliate marketing”, over 49 different results show up.
To make your choice even more difficult, every single Shopify affiliate marketing app description sounds exactly the same and it’s hard to tell them apart.
The truth is that most Shopify affiliate marketing apps offer similar functionality and the main difference is how the app is priced and the size of the apps’ built in affiliate network.
In this article, I’ll give you a run down of the most popular Shopify affiliate apps from the perspective of an influencer who makes 6 figures as an affiliate marketer AND from someone who also runs an affiliate program for a 7 figure ecommerce store.
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What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a sales strategy where you leverage influencers or “affiliates” to promote your products and compensate them with a cut of every sale you make.
Affiliate marketers act like virtual salesmen for your online store. By sharing your products on social media, blogs, and other publications, your affiliates earn a commission every time a customer clicks a special affiliate link and makes a purchase.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Here’s how affiliate marketing works for a Shopify store.
- An affiliate joins your Shopify affiliate program.
- Your Shopify affiliate app provides the affiliate with a special link to promote your products.
- The affiliate shares their link on their blog and other marketing channels.
- When a customer clicks on an affiliate link, they are tagged by either a cookie or a browser variable with the affiliate’s unique ID.
- When the customer makes a purchase, this cookie or browser variable is matched up with the affiliate ID to give proper credit for the sale.
- You pay the affiliate a commission for every sale that is made.
As the owner of the affiliate program, you can set the payout and the duration of the cookie.
For example, you can set a rule for your affiliate program that a customer must make a purchase within 30 days after clicking on an affiliate link.
The commission payout can be expressed as a percentage of the sale or a flat fee. For most ecommerce stores selling physical products online, the affiliate payout is typically between 10-20% but you can set it at whatever you like depending on your margins.
In general, the higher the payout, the more attractive your offer will be to potential affiliates.
Why Run A Shopify Affiliate Marketing Program?
The main benefit for running an affiliate program for your Shopify store is that you only pay a commission when an actual sale is made.
As a result, there’s no upfront risk for running an affiliate program and you can commission an army of virtual salesmen for your products.
Your affiliate program also provides you with a compelling reason to convince influencers to promote your products.
Overall, there’s no real downside to offering an affiliate program for your Shopify store as long as you have the margins to support it.
How To Create An Affiliate Program For Your Online Store
Once you’ve decided to create an affiliate program for your Shopify store, the hard part is choosing the right app. As mentioned earlier, there are almost 50 different Shopify affiliate marketing apps to choose from.
To save you time, I’ve chosen the most popular 16 apps for your review along with full explanations.
Here’s the criteria I used to evaluate each program.
- Functionality – The amount of features the affiliate program offers.
- Price – How much does the Shopify app cost?
- Network – Does the Shopify app have a built in database of affiliate marketers?
Of the 3 features above, the most important factor for attracting potential affiliates is the size of the affiliate network.
As an affiliate marketer who generates 6 figures per year recommending products online, I can personally tell you that I hate signing up for individual, standalone affiliate programs.
For example, if there are 5 companies that I want to promote, I’d much rather sign up for 1 affiliate program that covers all 5 companies rather than sign up for 5 separate programs.
Most influencers promote MANY products and it’s much easier to keep track of the payouts of each product when they are under 1 roof.
The other must have feature is an affiliate dashboard. Most serious affiliate marketers want accurate tracking of both clicks as well as conversions.
In fact, here are the features for an affiliate program that are par for the course. Unless otherwise noted, all of the programs below support the following features.
- Percentage and flat rate commissions for either customers and/or products referred
- One time and recurring commissions
- Customizable affiliate links
- Affiliate dashboard to display statistics
- Coupon codes tied to affiliate conversions
- Easy payment of affiliates
With that in mind, let’s talk about the apps!
Refersion
Refersion is an affiliate marketing app for Shopify that allows businesses to track their affiliate marketing activity, identify high converting affiliates and manage their sales.
Refersion is one of the most well known Shopify affiliate marketing apps and arguably one of the most robust platforms available.
The only downside is that it’s also one of the most expensive. As a result, Refersion is best suited to larger ecommerce stores who have the budget.
Here are the best features of the platform.
- Refersion has a large, built in network of affiliate marketers for easy signup and onboarding.
- All affiliates get the own personal dashboard to track performance and create affiliate links for campaigns.
- The ability to trigger affiliate conversions based on custom coupon codes and emails.
- The ability to set different commissions based on product or SKU.
- US based customer support
- A migration service to port data and content from legacy systems
- Software training and support for your team
Refersion costs $89/month to track up to 130 orders per month. After that, you have to contact sales for a custom quote (which I hate).
Because Refersion is on the pricier side, the primary value add is being listed in their marketplace and having access to their network of existing affiliates.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 7 out of 10
- Price – 3 out of 10
- Network – 5 out of 10
Click Here To Try Refersion For Free
UpPromote Affiliate Marketing By Secomapp
UpPromote by Secomapp is a fully featured affiliate app for Shopify that offers a pay per conversion cost structure. In other words, you are charged based on the number of affiliate sales you generate.
With Secomapp, you can create groups of commission tiers with completely separate commission structures. Affiliates can automatically be moved to different tiers based on performance to incentivize more product sales.
Probably the most unique feature that Secomapp offers is the ability to automatically convert customers to affiliates. In addition, affiliates can invite other affiliates under them to create a multi-level marketing network.
What I like about Secomapp is their transparent pricing and the fact that they offer a free tier for smaller shops.
The app is free for up to 200 orders per month. After that, their plans max out at $120/month for unlimited orders.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 6 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Secomapp For Free
LeadDyno
LeadDyno is a Shopify affiliate app that allows you to run and manage an affiliate program for your online store.
LeadDyno offers a 30 day risk free trial and feature wise, LeadDyno does everything that Secomapp and Refersion has to offer but the pricing structure is different.
Instead of charging based on affiliate conversions, you are charged based on the traffic to your Shopify store.
For example, it costs $29/month for up to 2000 unique visitors per month.
Other notable features of LeadDyno are that you can send affiliate newsletters and create time based incentives to create a sense of urgency for your affiliates.
In addition, you can send automated emails to invite customers to become affiliates and create email marketing drip campaigns as well.
But perhaps the most distinguishing feature is the ability to pay your affiliates in cryptocurrency with their Coinbase integration!
Overall, I’m not a huge fan of their pay per traffic pricing model but LeadDyno does offer some features like email that the other programs do not along with excellent support.
Chances are, you probably already have a separate email marketing platform for your ecommerce store like Klaviyo which makes LeadDyno’s email features a non-factor. As result, choosing LeadDyno basically comes down to price.
LeadDyno does not offer an affiliate network either.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 9 out of 10
- Price – 2 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try LeadDyno For Free
Referral Candy
Referral Candy is a Shopify affiliate app that helps businesses increase their customer base through referrals. It provides a way for customers to share a business with their friends, and gives businesses an incentive to offer for customers to make referrals.
What makes Referral Candy unique is that you can allow your customers to refer their friends in addition to running a fully featured affiliate program.
Referral Candy offers a free trial for 30 days after which it will cost you $49/month.
Depending on the plan, Referral Candy will also charge you an additional 1.5% – 5% commission fee on all referred sales.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 5 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Referral Candy For Free
Affiliatly
Affiliatly is a Shopify affiliate app that allows you to track the leads and purchases of your affiliates.
What I like about Affiliatly is that you aren’t charged based on affiliate orders or traffic. Instead, you pay a flat fee based on the number of affiliate partners you have signed up to your affiliate program.
Affiliatly starts at $16/month for up to 50 active affiliates which is more than enough for most small ecommerce stores. And when it comes to the sheer number of affiliates you have, the 80/20 rule always applies.
20% of your affiliates will generate more than 80% of your revenue. As a result, it’s a good practice to prune your non performing partners to save time and money.
Feature wise, Affiliatly covers all of the expected features of a fully featured affiliate program. In addition, they offer a 90 day free trial which is 3X longer than other similar apps.
Affiliatly does not offer an affiliate network.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 7 out of 10
- Price – 6 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Affiliatly For Free
Affilo
Affilo is an all in one Shopify affiliate app that tracks both customer referrals and referral sales. Feature wise, they are on par with the other apps mentioned in this post.
The main difference is that Affilo charges you based on an “all you can eat for 1 flat price model”.
For $24/month, you get unlimited affiliates, orders and unlimited clicks and traffic.
This makes Affilo one of the most economical Shopify affiliate apps available which does NOT scale higher as your store grows.
They also offer full support 7 days a week. The only downside is that they don’t have an affiliate network but you can’t beat the price!
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 7 out of 10
- Network -1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Affilo For Free
Enlistly
Enlistly is a barebones Shopify affiliate app that allows you to run a basic affiliate marketing program for your online store.
There’s nothing really special about Enlistly except for the price. It’s an app that does all of the basics that a Shopify affiliate app should have with no extra bells and whistles.
As a result, it’s also one of the cheapest affiliate apps on this list which makes it perfect for new store owners.
in fact, Enlistly is free for up to 3 active affiliates for unlimited orders(without discount codes) along with most of the features you’d expect from a quality affiliate program.
If you are dipping your toes in the influencer marketing space, then Enlistly is a great app for you to use to test the waters.
Even as your affiliate program grows, Enlistly is very economical. For $9/month, you get up to 25 active affiliates and 10 assigned discount codes with plans topping out at $99/month.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 6 out of 10
- Price – 8 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Enlistly For Free
Affiliate Marketing GoAffPro
GoAffPro is a free Shopify affiliate app that allows new shop owners to run an affiliate marketing program on a budget. The base app is 100% free and there are no limits to the number of affiliate partners, sales or traffic!
In fact, you can run a scalable affiliate program on Shopify on the free plan alone! The price (FREE) is what makes the GoAffPro app one of the most popular Shopify affiliate apps in the world.
However, in order to access some of the more advanced features, you’ll have to pay a flat $24/month.
Here are the missing features from the free plan.
- Targets and bonuses
- Multiple affiliate groups and sign up pages
- Automatic invoices
- Multi level marketing
- Bulk affiliate messaging
- Embedded affiliate store
If your store gets less than 100 orders per day, the free plan is probably all you need!
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 8 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try GoAffPro For Free
Share A Sale is both a Shopify affiliate app as well as an affiliate marketing network of brands.
Up until this point, only apps from the Shopify app store have been evaluated to implement an affiliate marketing program. But the problem with 99% of these apps is that they don’t have a large network of affiliates under the same roof.
Outside of Refersion which only has a moderately sized network, companies like ShareASale have gigantic networks that house some of the biggest brands in the ecommerce space.
As a blogger and affiliate marketer myself, I promote over 20+ brands under the ShareASale umbrella which makes the signup and payout process much more convenient.
For example, every month I get a single check from ShareASale for all of my affiliate conversions.
As a blogger who promotes hundreds of products, I’m very reluctant to sign up for standalone affiliate programs because it’s too much work to do the bookkeeping.
In order to convince me to sign up for your standalone affiliate program, I have to really believe in your product and have confidence that I can make significant money promoting your company. Otherwise, it’s not worth my time.
If you are reaching out to a high value influencer, chances are that they are promoting many products as well.
And you have a better chance of landing a high profile affiliate if you use an affiliate network like ShareASale.
However, having access to a large affiliate network comes at a price. To join ShareASale, you have to pay a $550 setup fee and a 20% fee based on the commission amount.
This is significantly more expensive than any standalone Shopify app!
But if you are serious about your affiliate program and you want to attract higher profile influencers, then signing up for a large affiliate network will make it a lot easier.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 9 out of 10
- Price – 1 out of 10
- Network – 9 out of 10
Shout Out
ShoutOut is a Shopify affiliate app that allows you to run an MLM or network marketing business with your ecommerce store.
You can setup multiple tier-based commission structures to allow your affiliates to have their own sub-affiliates with different payout percentages.
The base ShoutOut plan is 100% free for up to 30 transactions after which plans will run you between $39 – $79 per month.
There are no hidden fees or commission payments and you can run a fully featured MLM affiliate program on a budget.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 8 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try ShoutOut For Free
Social Snowball
Social Snowball is a Shopify affiliate app that allows your customers to refer their friends in return for money, prizes and discounts on future purchases.
When a new customer makes a purchase, an affiliate account + discount code is automatically generated on the thank you page. If a customer uses their link to refer a friend, they earn a commission.
Social Snowball charges a monthly recurring fee of $99/month with a 30 day free trial. On the lowest plan, you also have to pay a 3% commission fee on any referred sales.
Higher plans have the commission fees waived.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 6 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Social Snowball For Free
Simple Affiliate
Simple Affiliate is an inexpensive Shopify affiliate app that allows you to run a fully featured affiliate program from within the Shopify admin.
Unlike other affiliate platforms, your entire affiliate program is run in house on your own website.
With Simple Affiliate, you can track unlimited referrals with unlimited affiliates for a low monthly fee of $14/month.
However, you also have to pay $2.65 per affiliate and a commission fee of 3.9% per sale.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 7 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Simple Affiliate For Free
Buzzbassador
Buzzbassador is a mid-range app for managing & growing a successful affiliate program on Shopify.
With Buzzbassador, you can design a custom, drag-and-drop landing page on your Shopify store and custom onboarding forms for your affiliates.
From there, you can easily vet and approve your affiliates, assign different reward and commission tiers and automatically send emails about special offers.
Buzzbassador costs $39/month for the basic plan. If you want the Buzzbassador branding removed, you must pay $79/month.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 8 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Buzzbassador For Free
Everflow
Everflow is a Shopify affiliate app designed for enterprise users.
The Everflow Shopify app provides a suite of partner management tools to track and manage every affiliate, influencer and partner that drives sales to your online store.
All of your partner information, payment information, affiliate data etc… can be accessed from a single interface and platform.
While Everflow is powerful, it’s one of the more expensive affiliate apps for Shopify.
Everflow starts at $750/month with plans up to $1995/month.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 10 out of 10
- Price – 2 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Everflow For Free
Omnistar Affiliate (OSI)
Omnistar or OSI Affiliate is a Shopify affiliate app that allows you to increase sales with a referral program.
Featurewise, OSI Affiliate shares the same benefits as other top affiliate programs. But the main difference is that OSI Affiliate offers 24/7 customer support.
Omnistar support is available daily via phone and live chat from 10am – 7pm (ET) Monday to Friday. Over the weekend, email support is available 24/7.
OSI Affiliate costs $47/month and offers a free 14 day trial.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 7 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Omnistar Affiliate For Free
Tapfiliate
Tapfiliate is an affiliate tracking app for Shopify that integrates seamlessly with your online store at the push of a button.
With Tapfiliate, you can easily set goals based on sales or conversions to incentivize your affiliates. You can also set up tiered rewards, performance bonuses, team commissions as well as recurring commissions.
Tapfiliate starts at $59/month for a single user with higher level plans offering additional features like triggered notifications and support for more users.
Rating From 1-10(Best)
- Functionality – 8 out of 10
- Price – 6 out of 10
- Network – 1 out of 10
Click Here To Try Tapfiliate For Free
Which Shopify Affiliate App Should You Use?
On the surface, all of the features of every Shopify affiliate app blend together. At a base level, they all have similar functionality and you can run a powerful affiliate program with any of the apps listed above.
The primary distinguishing factors are the price, the size of the affiliate network and the level of support you’ll receive.
If you are brand new to affiliate marketing, I recommend the following apps because they are cheap or free.
- Affiliate Marketing GoAffPro – Free with a limited feature set that is pretty good
- Enlistly – Free for up to 3 affiliates. All features are included.
- Secomapp: Affiliate Marketing – Free for up to 200 orders.
If you want the most features out of an affiliate app and don’t like getting nickel and dimed, then go with…
- Affilo – All you can eat for $24/month
- Affiliatly – $16/month for up to 50 active affiliates
- Affiliate Marketing GoAffPro – All you can eat for $24/month
If you want to be able to pay your affiliates in cryptocurrency, go with…
If you want to have access to an affiliate network then go with…
- ShareASale – Over 200K affiliate partners and 1000s of brands
- Refersion – Over 5000 affiliate partners
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Steve Chou is a highly recognized influencer in the ecommerce space and has taught thousands of students how to effectively sell physical products online over at ProfitableOnlineStore.com.
His blog, MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, has been featured in Forbes, Inc, The New York Times, Entrepreneur and MSNBC.
He's also a contributing author for BigCommerce, Klaviyo, ManyChat, Printful, Privy, CXL, Ecommerce Fuel, GlockApps, Privy, Social Media Examiner, Web Designer Depot, Sumo and other leading business publications.
In addition, he runs a popular ecommerce podcast, My Wife Quit Her Job, which is a top 25 marketing show on all of Apple Podcasts.
To stay up to date with all of the latest ecommerce trends, Steve runs a 7 figure ecommerce store, BumblebeeLinens.com, with his wife and puts on an annual ecommerce conference called The Sellers Summit.
Steve carries both a bachelors and a masters degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Despite majoring in electrical engineering, he spent a good portion of his graduate education studying entrepreneurship and the mechanics of running small businesses.
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