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How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2021 Stats)

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28 Apr

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2021 Stats) - iAffiliate Club

Affiliate marketing commission rates vary; we all know that. We all want to get into affiliate marketing because it’s a lucrative business, but how much do people make there? How rare are “top earners,” and can beginner affiliates even compete? Let’s take a look at the cold stats to find out!

How much can you make in affiliate marketing in 2021? Or, instead, how much can you really make in the affiliate marketing business?

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)

On the one hand, we all see the famous “dot com moguls” and top affiliate marketers like Jeremy Schoemaker, John Chow, and others. They earn crazy money from their affiliate marketing business. We got so excited and inspired. On the other hand, we follow all the tips they teach us, we (seemingly) do the same, yet… We never even earn enough to be eligible for a payout. So, does affiliate marketing really make money?

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2021 Stats) - iAffiliate Club

Why is that?

There are many reasons, and in this blog post, we will cover the actual affiliate marketing statistics, payouts, and affiliate mistakes, and see what you can do to maximize your profit potential.

How much can you make from affiliate marketing? (2021 Update)

  • Top affiliates and influencers make over $100k a month from affiliate sales (influencers such as Pat Flynn, John Chow, Rae Hoffman, Mark Ling, Kristy McCubbin, and Shawn Collins).
  • Middle-class affiliates make anywhere between $1k to $10k a month.
  • New affiliates generally have ZERO affiliate earnings.

Anil Agarwal from Bloggers Passion made $200k in sales just from just one affiliate marketing product, see a screenshot of his earnings below. Yes, affiliate marketing profits can be this good.

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)

James Njenga from Freelancing Hackers made over $7876 last year through the Amazon Associates affiliate program have a look at his inspirational screenshot.

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)

1 – How Do You Get Paid in Affiliate Marketing?

How much you earn directly correlates with how much you get paid. 

By that, I mean the percentage you earn from the affiliate sale. Are you promoting a $5 Amazon product and getting a 2% commission, or do you promote a hosting server and get a fixed $220 commission per sale? You will need to sell so many more $5 products with a low affiliate percentage payout, compared to referring customers who will purchase just one hosting deal. Affiliate marketing commission rates aren’t equal across all affiliate networks, nor for the same products.

This also means you need to put in significantly more effort and build a higher-traffic website to reach the same amount of revenue. This brings us to our first affiliate marketing tip of the day:

Affiliate marketing tip: work smarter, not harder.

Read also:

  • How to make money online for beginners
  • Affiliate marketing without a website

2 – Is Affiliate Marketing Still Profitable?

To answer this question, we need to explore some cold facts. or watch the legendary Jeremy Schoemaker:

Undoubtedly, we have all seen infographics from 2010 where profits were insane, and internet moguls were wealthy. But that was 10 years ago. Since then, the affiliate marketing scene has changed, competition is like never before, and business models change rapidly. We have to look at 2021 stats to get a better picture.

3 – Affiliate Marketing Stats and Facts

Let’s start with 15 facts about affiliate marketing in 2021; you never knew before.

  • Affiliate marketing in the US reached $6.8 billion in 2021 (Source: Statista)
How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)
  • 15%–30% of companies’ sales come from referral programs or affiliate marketing plans.
How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)
Source Sales Camp
  • 48% of affiliate marketers globally earn $20k a year (which is $1660 a month).
  • Only 3% of all affiliate marketers are making over $150k a year.
  • Only 34% percent of affiliate marketers are willing to invest in PPC to generate traffic and exposure. (Source: Affiliate Marketing Benchmark Report)
How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)
  • Most affiliate marketers promote between 1 to 10 products only and only 7.53% of the affiliate marketers promote over 300 products (remember – work smarter, not harder).
  • 80% of all brands leverage affiliate marketing in order to generate leads. (Source: Mediakix)
  • 84% of bloggers use affiliate marketing to monetize their content. (Source: Rakuten Marketing)
  • The affiliate marketing industry is worth $12 billion (as of 2021).
  • The fashion and retail affiliate niche generates the highest revenue % globally. (Source: AM Navigator)
  • The US affiliate marketing spending is perceived to grow by 10.1% each year. (Source: Mediakix)
  • Interest in the search term “affiliate marketing” has consistently increased over the past five years. (Source: Google Trends)
Google Trends search term "affiliate marketing"
Google Trends search term “affiliate marketing”
  • In most affiliate marketing programs, 10% of affiliates contribute 90% of sales (which is even less than the famous Pareto principle). (Source: AM Navigator)
  • 45% of bloggers prefer affiliate marketing because it doesn’t harm the UX on their website, unlike ads. (Source: VigLink)
How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)
Image source: VigLink
  • Digital products usually offer 50% affiliate commissions because they can be replicated at zero expense. (Source: Neil Patel) 

What can we learn from these (apparently random) stats? What does it tell us about our primary question – how much can you make from affiliate marketing in 2021?

  1. Making money from affiliate marketing is hard because everyone is doing it, and the competition is fierce.
  2. Most affiliate sales run “invisibly” through coupons, deals, offers, review blog posts, and other sources where the author recommends the product instead of trying to flog it or use a display ad.
  3. Promoting digital and virtual products is profitable because there are no shipping or handling fees, and commissions are generally a lot higher. For example, at Scaleo we offer 30% lifetime commissions on all our plans, only because we are selling an affiliate marketing software and can afford to reward our affiliates more.
  4. Half of all affiliate marketers earn approximately $1660 a month, on average.

Affiliate marketing is an extremely lucrative niche, with billions of dollars in circulation, but not everyone makes it to the top.

Also check out our other popular articles:

  • Find The Most Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niche For Your Business
  • How To Find Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niches?
  • Is Affiliate Marketing Software Worth It?
  • Performance marketing software
  • B2B Marketing in 2020: Connecting Online

The fierce competition resulted in many spam websites, spam emails, fake reviews, and fraud marketing schemes, all for the sake of ripping a piece from a very creamy cake we call “affiliate marketing revenue.”

Check out Scaleo’s Anti Fraud Logic and see what it does.

After trying out in an affiliate marketing business, many people give up simply because they cannot earn enough even to cover the costs of their websites.

How do you make it to the top 3%?

That’s a million-dollar question, literally.

If you want to maximize your affiliate revenue, you have to study the market and the competition.

How to choose a profitable niche for affiliate marketing?

Before talking about how much affiliate marketers make, it’s important to note that niche makes a big difference. Picking a topic just because you love it isn’t a great idea. Imagine wasting so much time and energy, building an affiliate website on a topic that you like only to discover that there aren’t many valuable goods you can promote and sell.

If you love your niche – it’s great, but remember that you have to make money. That’s where you should begin, find a topic or a niche that is packed with useful products, so you will know you can make a profit there, even though it’s more convenient to write and work in a niche you like.

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)
Image source: VigLink

However, having an interest in your niche will make it easier for you to know your future audience, produce better content, and be more creative. This will help you market your website and your affiliate products, and you will see that when you make a significant increase in revenue.

Not all niches are equally profitable. According to Jeff Lenney, the most profitable affiliate marketing niches are:

  1. Health Niche (weight loss, quit smoking, yoga, muscle building, etc.)
  2. Dating Niche (dating advice, online dating apps, etc.)
  3. Making Money Online Niche (blogging, marketing, affiliate marketing, SMM, etc.)
  4. The ‘Learn to sing or play an instrument’ niche. 
  5. Learn to speak another language
  6. Green Energy Niche (solar power, alternative energy, recycling)
  7. Spirituality and Alternative Beliefs (personal development, manifestation, astrology, tarot, etc.)
  8. The Survival Niche (home defense, grow your own food, and recently, coronavirus).
How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2021 Stats) - iAffiliate Club

Read our post on how to find a profitable affiliate marketing niche.

This list doesn’t mean you cannot promote other products or dive into a different niche. This simply means that these are highly competitive niches, where payouts per sale is generally higher. 

While you can make money through affiliate marketing in (probably) every niche, as we said earlier, it pays out to work smarter. Why not look into a niche that is already converting and selling well?

Choosing The Best Affiliate Network

According to the most recent statistics (2021), the most popular affiliate networks are:

  • ShareASale: This network has more than 2,500 CPA programs to choose from. Looking through ShareASale’s offers, you will definitely find a product in your niche to promote.
  • Commission Junction: CJ works with more than 3,000 brands that you can promote and make money off of. This is by far the largest pool of affiliate offers.
  • ClickBank: ClickBank is similar to ShareASale – getting started is simple, thanks to its consumer-focused UI and approach. Some ClickBank top earners make as much as 10K a month.
  • Amazon: It should come as no surprise that Amazon is always a safe bet for many affiliate e-shops. There are literally millions of products to promote, and you receive a commission from the customer’s entire purchase (not only the item you promoted). Check out our ultimate guide to affiliate marketing on Amazon.

Watch Nate O’Brien’s video on the Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Programs For 2021:

In the chart below, you can also see, which affiliate marketing platforms are the most popular:

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing? (2020)

As you can see, the network you choose to operate in can have a direct impact on your earnings. Bigger networks tend to have a wider variety of vendors you can promote, more organized payouts, and typically more flexibility. If you are just starting out, I recommend you join one of the top affiliate marketing networks. You will find them easy to use, therefore easy to get started with affiliate marketing in general, and a higher chance of closing a sale because the tracking system would be flawless.

Is affiliate marketing still profitable in 2021?

Taking into account all the statistics we have shown here and not only the affiliate marketing trends for 2021, but also the potential of the industry, it is safe to say that affiliate marketing is still profitable in 2021 and will continue to be profitable in 2021. As long as people will still be shopping online (as they definitely will be), there will be more than enough affiliate offers to promote. This can also answer the corresponding pressing question “Is affiliate marketing worth it?”. Of course, it does. If so many millions can be made in this industry, and you can see in this post how much affiliate marketers make, it should definitely be worth giving affiliate marketing a try and get your share of this lucrative pie.

How to maximize your affiliate earnings on a blog? 

How to maximize your affiliate earnings on a blog?

When incorporating affiliate links in your content, keep in mind social a few tips that will help you make more money with affiliate marketing, regardless of the niche you promote or the network you work with:

  • Only promote items that you would have bought yourself.
  • Build trust with your readers. Don’t try to sell right away.
  • Be honest and personal. There is no replacement for your own voice, tone, and style.
  • Storytelling: Your readers need to hear the “story” behind the items you wear/buy/promote, not just see a bunch of hyperlinked keywords in the context.
  • Build relationships with your audience; engage with them on social media or via email.
  • Make it clear to your readers that you live your dream life – they would want a piece of it too.
  • Focus on a micro-niche (we have a great blog post about it!)
  • Be open about how you earn money on your blog or on social media. Let your audience know what happens when they click on your affiliate link. If they trust you and want to support you, they’ll be pleased to buy through your affiliate links. Check for example Starbucks marketing strategy to learn from this case study.

How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing – FAQ

How long does it take to make money from affiliate marketing?

Generally speaking, you can start earning money the same day you get started, assuming you are doing everything right. The only delay is when it comes to payouts, some companies only roll out payments once a month or require their affiliates to meet the minimum threshold. How much traffic do you need for affiliate marketing?

Generally speaking, if your campaign is extremely optimized and very well planned, you can make a lot of money even with very little traffic, because your conversion rate will be very high. Larger traffic volumes are required for campaigns with a low conversion rate or a very small CPL or CPA (which means you only get a few cents per conversion).

How long does it take to be a successful affiliate marketer?

There is really no way of saying what is the ultimate time frame for becoming successful at anything, however, generally speaking, it takes between 3 to 5 years to establish authority and become a recognizable brand in your industry.

Is affiliate marketing easy?

Yes and no. Affiliate marketing can seem very easy for those who have been in this business for years and may seem extremely daunting for new affiliates. Bear in mind that if so many people around the world manage to do it, then probably so can you.

Can you make money online with affiliate marketing?

Of course. Moreover, this is one of the most popular ways to make money online in 2021. Affiliate marketing is increasingly growing and you see this multi-billion dollar industry as a perfect opportunity to get in and get your cut. The best part is, you can make money with affiliate marketing even while you sleep.

Does affiliate marketing work?

Beyond asking “does affiliate marketing work”, because it does, the main question you should ask is, “Will affiliate marketing work for ME?” The simple truth is that affiliate marketing will only function with individuals with specific characteristics and abilities. Of course, anyone can have success with affiliate marketing and make money out of it, but the chances of success really rely on your personality and skill.
Think about the following points and how they relate to you to decide whether or not you are likely to be effective with affiliate marketing.

Is affiliate marketing dead?

No. affiliate marketing is not dead. Affiliate marketing began in 1989 and has been growing steadily ever since. Affiliate marketing is simply changing, and that is good news. It’s getting better and bigger.

Is affiliate marketing worth it?

Despite a dubious reputation for those who aren’t in the know, affiliate marketing is a completely legit, legal and profitable way to make money. Yes, affiliate marketing is worth it. The vast majority of the world’s population has access to the internet, and online purchases in all categories are steadily growing. Affiliate marketers can reach levels of performance ranging from fair to unbelievable with the right skills and attitude. Why shouldn’t you take part in it as well?

What are the affiliate marketing average earnings?

The average “affiliate marketing earnings” is hard to calculate, because we have a very small group of people earning high six-figure incomes, and an enormous number of affiliates struggling to make a dime. If we take one affiliate who makes $100.000 and the other who makes $1 per month, will the average income of $50.000 really be adequate? Nonetheless, according to PayScale, the average affiliate marketing earnings stand at about $50k / year. According to Taboola, the bottom 10% of affiliate marketers make $37,000, while the top 10% make $71,000.

Affiliate marketing average income in India?

Average affiliate marketing income in India varies. It’s important to remember that many affiliates are companies and not individuals, and the revenue splits. They also have a lot of money to invest in paid ads. On average – companies are earning ₹4300000/day and top individuals are earning ₹100000/day. Affiliate Marketing Salaries in India are reported to be at least ₹11,064 / mo.

How much money can you earn from affiliate marketing in India?

While generally, when it comes to affiliate marketing – the sky is the limit, on average top affiliates are earning up to ₹100000/day

Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?

No, I’m afraid it’s not. While the internet has changed everything, including the way businesses operate, affiliate marketing still works well. As long as you understand the basics, you should be able to build up a successful campaign. Here’s my top tip: Don’t expect instant results. Building a profitable affiliate site takes time. Just keep plugging away and eventually you’ll see positive returns.

What Is the Average Commission Rate in Affiliate Marketing?


Commission rate refers to what percentage of the sale price goes back to the merchant/product owner. It varies depending upon which program you use. For example, with Clickbank, they pay 70%, while Google Adsense pays 30%. However, with both programs, you don’t need to worry about paying taxes since these companies handle them for you.
There are many different types of commissions: fixed-rate, variable-rate, tiered, lifetime, performance-based, CPA, PPC, etc. There are two main reasons why merchants choose one type over another:

1) They may prefer a certain payout method,
2) Some offer more flexibility than others.

For instance, if you sell physical goods, you might only receive payment when someone makes their purchase. However, if you sell digital downloads, you may receive payments every day until the customer completes his transaction.

In general, most affiliate networks pay between 5%-15% of sales generated by any given link. So, let’s say you refer 100 customers who buy a total value of $1,500 worth of merchandise. Your cut would be anywhere from $75-$150. Not bad. Most affiliate networks give you access to multiple links so you can create additional streams of passive income. I just don’t think this is limited to online stores either. Any company offering services or information has the potential to become an affiliate partner.How Much Do Affiliates Make Online?

The average annual income for an affiliate marketer is $20,000 per year. That means you’re making about $2 per hour of work. If you have 10 hours of work each week, then you’ll be earning around $2400 per month or $25,200 per annum. This figure doesn’t include other sources of revenue such as sponsorships, product launches, etc.How Much Money Do Affiliates Make Per Month?

The average income for an affiliate marketer is $0-$100 per day. The top 10% of affiliate marketers earn over $1,000 per month. That means if you’re in the top 1%, your monthly earnings could be as high as $10k or higher. If you’re not already making this kind of cash, then I don’t think you should expect to start right away. You’ll have to work hard before you see any significant results. But once you’ve got some experience under your belt, you may just surprise yourself by earning way more than what you thought was possible. 

Conclusion – How Much Can You Make in Affiliate Marketing in 2021?

how much you can make

If you are planning to start affiliate marketing in the near future, be sure to bookmark this page, as we will frequently update it with new statistics and data, as it comes.

The affiliate marketing industry is expanding consistently. Many people ask themselves, is affiliate marketing worth it? According to Statista, spending in affiliate marketing in the U.S. alone is expected to hit the top $8.2 billion benchmark in 2022. There is definitely enough room for everyone to make money, but you have to study the market and know what you are doing. Is affiliate marketing profitable in 2021? Yes. Is affiliate marketing (going to be) profitable in 2021? Of course. Good luck!

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