Shopify is one of the easiest and most popular ways to start an online store. They power over one million businesses in more than 175 countries.
All those Shopify users are looking for ways to improve their online store and increase their number of visitors, sales, and revenue. And that’s something that a go-getter affiliate marketer like you can turn into a juicy commission, right?
That’s why we created this list of affiliate programs for Shopify apps, tools, and other programs that help online entrepreneurs boost the performance of their shop.
Do you have a tool or program that should be included in this list? We’d love to hear from you.
Table of Contents
The Best Shopify Affiliate Programs
In this article, we’ll look at affiliate programs for tools and apps that Shopify store owners can leverage to boost their business. This distinguishes these programs from the software you can use to do your own affiliate marketing for your Shopify store.
In other words, we’ll focus on interesting affiliate programs to promote amongst Shopify owners. So that you, dear affiliate marketer, can pick the ones that best suit your content, channels, and audience.
Shopify shines as an affiliate favorite in e-commerce. Its user-friendly interface, diverse affiliate program offerings, and generous commissions make it a top niche for affiliates seeking profitable partnerships.
1. Shopify Partner Program
We’ll kick off this list with an obvious one: Shopify’s own affiliate program. This is for that part of your audience that wants to sell stuff online but doesn’t have an online presence or webshop yet.
The Shopify affiliate program features a wonderful commission structure. How much do Shopify partners make? If someone who’s been referred by you signs up for the free trial and then turns into a full-paying customer, you’ll get a $150 USD commission.
This is another way of saying that the first two months’ fee of this customer goes directly into your digital pocket. Shopify was founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake.
The idea originated in 2004 when they wanted to sell snowboards and snowboarding accessories online but could not find a good enough ecommerce solution. It inspired Tobias to build an ecommerce platform, and two months later, they opened their store called Snowdevil.
Tobias, Daniel, and Scott realized they could help countless other entrepreneurs launch their stores. And two years later, in 2006, they opened the platform they developed to host Snowdevil as Shopify to the public.
Shopify was an overnight success. It was listed on May 21, 2015, on the New York (NYSE: SHOP) and Toronto stock exchanges. While writing this, Shopify’s market capitalization exceeds $61 billion.
- Commission model: CPS
- Shopify affiliate commission rates: $150 USD for all full-price plan referrals*
- Cookie lifetime: 30 days
- Available on: Impact (integration available with wecantrack) and Shopify partner dashboard
2. Pixel Union and Out of the Sandbox
With a brick-and-mortar store, the shop window is the first thing customers will see. Similarly, the chosen theme is one of the most important aspects of any Shopify store. It determines the look and feel of the store and, hence, customers’ experience.
Since the theme is an important and definable decision, people will look for tips and inspiration. This means that opting into a Shopify themes affiliate program can be lucrative.
Pixel Union and Out of the Sandbox are creators of premium Shopify themes that have decided to combine their affiliate programs. This means that you’ll find a wide range of high-quality Shopify themes to promote in a single program.
Tiny, a Canadian technology holding company, founded Pixel Union in 2009 and sold a majority stake to Teligence Capital in 2014. However, in 2019, Tiny repurchased Teligence Capital’s shares in Pixel Union.
Tiny (founded in 2007) stopped founding new companies in 2014 and opted to acquire existing companies instead. Besides Pixel Union, one of the 35 companies they have a controlling stake in is Out of the Sandbox (founded in 2011), making Pixel Union and Out of the Sandbox sister companies.
- Commission model: CPA
- Average compensation: 15%
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
3. ThemeForest
ThemeForest is another marketplace where people can buy great HTML templates, including but not limited to Shopify themes. This means that the people you’ll send here won’t be restricted to buying Shopify themes, but also for any other online platforms they might use.
What’s even better: ThemeForest is part of Envato Market, one of the biggest marketplaces for digital assets. So you might even earn extra commission when your audience decides to also shop for some nice pictures, animations, or fonts to pimp their online presence even further.
Not only does ThemeForest have over 1,600 Shopify themes and templates, but you can also buy HTML templates as well as themes for popular CMS products like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.
- Commission model: CPA
- Average compensation: 30%
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
4. ReCharge
This tool is excellent for selling subscription boxes or other monthly recurring products online. Since more and more businesses are moving towards subscription-based business models, ReCharge might be just what your audience has been looking for.
ReCharge is a recurring billing app that’s built specifically for Shopify. It’s perfectly tailored to help users analyze, customize, and manage repeat orders. It ranks amongst the best-rated Shopify apps in the “order and shipping” category. This makes it an even more interesting affiliate program to promote.
ReCharge by RechargePayments.com (not to be confused with Recharge.com) was founded in 2014 by Oisin O’Connor and Mike Flynn.
The company was self-funded for over five years before accepting outside financing. In 2021, it raised $277 million in growth capital from Summit Partners, ICONIQ Growth and Bain Capital Ventures at a $2.1 billion evaluation.
“Our partnership with Summit Partners, ICONIQ Growth and Bain Capital Ventures equips us with both capital and company building expertise that helps to solve new customer challenges and expand our reach through new products and services.”
– Oisin O’Connor
ReCharge has processed over $10 billion in merchandise and powers subscriptions for 15,000+ merchants.
- Commission model: lifetime revenue share
- Average compensation: 10%
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
5. Bold Commerce
Why promote singular apps and tools when you can also promote one Shopify affiliate program that includes everything your audience could need? Bold Commerce offers different apps that will help Shopify users supercharge their store, encompassing checkout, subscription management, and pricing and discounting.
Wondering what the chances for conversion are with the Bold Commerce program? No need to worry: with over 90,000 users from all around the world, Bold Commerce has proven time and again that they’re perfectly capable of gaining the trust of their visitors. The company chose to bootstrap its growth for the first seven years.
In January 2019, it raised CAD 22 million ($16.5 million) in funding from Whitecap Venture Partners and Round13 Capital. In January 2021, it raised CAD 35 million ($27 million) in an all-equity round led by OMERS Ventures in which past investors Whitecap Venture Partners and Round 13 Capital participated.
“Our technology, our team, and our passion is focused on delivering checkout innovation that drives growth for our customers in the anywhere, everywhere ecommerce era.”
– Yvan Boisjoli (co-founder)
- Commission model: lifetime revenue share
- Average compensation: 10% of every app installed
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
6. Loox
Good looks can be deceiving, but ratings don’t lie. With a 4.8 out of over 5,000 reviews, Loox is amongst the top-performing product review apps in the Shopify app store. In other words, Loox is putting its money where its mouth is by showing the importance of good reviews firsthand.
The aim of Loox is to increase conversions by adding social proof. They do this by allowing users to add photo reviews to their products, showcasing real people using them.
Co-founders Yoni Elbaz and Moran Benisty first met in 2012 in Israel. After a few years, they decided to start their own company when they noticed a trend where many merchants were abandoning Amazon and eBay to open stores on platforms like Shopify. And in 2015, Loox was born.
Yoni and Moran did not want to raise funds as they felt raising funds would require them to focus less on their customers and more on the value they could bring to investors. However, in 2016, they raised $50K from the ZEP Fund to fund the company.
Today, Loox serves 100,000+ merchants from over 180 countries who have used Loox to collect 31+ million reviews.
- Commission model: one-year revenue share
- Average compensation: 20% (or a 20% discount for your referrals)
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
7. LeadDyno
If you’re reading this, that means you understand the power of affiliate marketing, right? Why not share that love with your audience and get them on the affiliate train?
With LeadDyno, Shopify store owners can easily set up their own affiliate program and start bringing affiliates on board to promote their products.
The LeadDyno Shopify app provides everything affiliate partners need to promote a store and its products, from affiliate link sharing for Facebook and Instagram to commission tracking.
LeadDyno was founded in 2014 by Mike Machado, Brett Owens, and Carson Gross, who sold the company in 2021 to investment firm SureSwift Capital for an undisclosed amount.
Since 2014, LeadDyno has tracked 309+ million referrals. Their clients generated more than $161 million in affiliate sales in 2022.
- Commission model: lifetime revenue share
- Average compensation: 30%
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
8. Printify
Printify is the perfect solution for anyone trying to sell products with their designs or other pictures. This platform connects Shopify merchants to over 90 print providers and helps entrepreneurs handle printing and shipping.
This makes Printify a perfect tool for an online store with a strong overarching theme and, thus, a very interesting Shopify affiliate program to promote. Whether you reach an audience of cat lovers, sports enthusiasts, or science fiction geeks: Printify will help to fill that Shopify shop with products those people will go crazy for.
Printify was founded in 2015 by James Berdigans to connect people to some of the best product makers.
The company raised $3 million in 2019 and a further $50 million in 2021 to expand its print-on-demand marketplace.Today, Printify has over 6 million merchants generating $500+ million in products delivered from 110+ printing locations.
- Commission model: 12-month revenue share
- Average compensation: 5% on every order your customer makes
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
9. Expert Village Media
Like Bold Commerce, Expert Village Media provides many powerful add-ons and apps to boost any Shopify store. They get an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 on their products, which makes their affiliate program a worthy addition to any Shopify affiliate promotion.
The Expert Village Media apps cover a wide range of aspects that are essential to any online store. Web design, web development, CMS solutions, and search engine optimization: the Expert Media affiliate program for Shopify sells an app for that.
Expert Village Media was founded 2011 by Amit Porwal and has become a full-service ecommerce, web design, and digital marketing company.Over 22,000 Shopify brands trust Expert Village Media and have 12 Shopify apps.
- Commission model: CPA
- Average compensation: 20% on every sale
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
10. Spocket
What is a store without products? Finding the right thing to sell online can be tricky, but it can be even trickier to find the right wholesale partner when you’ve opted for dropshipping. This is where Spocket comes in.
Spocket helps merchants find products from US, Europe, Canada, and Asia suppliers and easily add them to their Shopify store. They help their users with (guaranteed) fast shipping and low prices: products on Spocket have a 30-60% discount on the retail price. And you, as an affiliate marketer, can earn a handsome commission of 15% for as long as your referral uses Sprocket.
Spocket was founded in 2017 by Saba Mohebpour, and over 100,000+ entrepreneurs trust it.
“With the help of Machine Learning, Spocket is set to revolutionize the dropshipping market and aid online retailers to compete with Amazon – by removing the need to hold inventory and erasing upfront costs for retailers.”
– Saba Mohebpour
- Commission model: lifetime revenue share
- Average compensation: 15%
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
11. Fiverr
The Fiverr Affiliate Program is a great opportunity for those who want to earn money by referring others to the Fiverr platform. From learning new skills to covering your freelancing logistics, Fiverr has a product fit for every audience!
The program allows you to refer others to Fiverr, and if they sign up and make a purchase, you will earn a commission. The commission structure for the Fiverr affiliate program is very generous.
For each referral that results in a purchase, you will earn a commission of 10% – 30% of the sale. Fiverr was founded in 2010 by Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger and has grown into one of the top freelancing marketplaces with 4+ million active buyers.
It became a public company in June 2019 when it debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the FVRR ticker. While writing this, Fiverr has a market capitalization of $1.35 billion.
- Commission model: CPA or Lifetime Revenue Share
- Average compensation: 10% – 30% or $15 – $150
- Cookie lifetime: n.k.
- Available on: own platform
Key Takeaways
the vast array of Shopify affiliate programs offers something for everyone. Whether you specialize in a particular niche or promote a more general selection of products, there’s a program out there that aligns with your content and target audience.
By carefully considering factors that influence you and your business, you can choose the programs that best suit your affiliate marketing goals and maximize your earning potential.
Remember, the most successful Shopify affiliate programs are built on strong partnerships and a genuine interest in promoting high-quality products. So do your research, identify the right fit, and get started on building a successful affiliate marketing strategy!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I do affiliate marketing on Shopify?
Yes, you can do affiliate marketing on Shopify. Shopify facilitates affiliate marketing through integrations with third-party affiliate platforms and networks. Many of these networks have their app on Shopify, making it easier for Shopify users to integrate affiliate marketing into their existing Shopify dashboard. Remember that this is focused on leveraging affiliate marketing to promote products in your Shopify store.
How to add affiliate products to Shopify?
Adding affiliate products to Shopify can be done by replacing a product’s add-to-cart button with a link that takes your customers toward the affiliate product. This might be challenging for people without knowledge or confidence in coding because it takes some fiddling with template codes.
How do you create an affiliate link for Shopify?
You can create an affiliate link for Shopify to promote the products you’re selling on Shopify by using one of the third-party affiliate program integrations. To add an affiliate link to a product to promote said link via your Shopify store, you must make some changes to the product template, which requires basic coding.
