Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative career, with commissions of hundreds or even thousands of dollars per sale. So how can you earn such lucrative commissions?
I’ve been in the affiliate marketing industry for over a decade and even sold a six-figure affiliate marketing website. I’ve learned a lot of secrets to making big commissions—and I’m going to teach you how to do it, too.
Below, I’ll discuss high-paying affiliate marketing, share some examples of high-paying affiliate marketing programs, explain how to find high-paying affiliate programs, and show you how to earn big commissions yourself.
What is high-ticket affiliate marketing?
High-ticket affiliate marketing promotes products or services that require a high outlay. Outlays of $100 or more are considered "high-ticket," but can go up to five figures.
This is a way for affiliate marketers to make more money with fewer sales. You’ll need less traffic to make more money than with traditional affiliate marketing. However, your conversion rates will also typically be much lower.
High-priced products or services include:
- Courses or Memberships
- Insurance
- loan
- software
- mechanical
- Jewelry
- Electronics
- heavy metal
How Much Do High-Priced Affiliate Marketers Make?
We researched how much affiliate marketers earn and found that the majority of affiliate marketers (about 57%) earn less than $10,000 per year on average.
However, on the high end, 3.78% of affiliate marketers earn over $150,000 per year, and another 7.94% earn $100,000-150,000 per year (according to a study by Influencer Marketing Hub).
I can say that I make over six figures per year from high-ticket affiliate sales, and I know several other people who do the same.
The above study took into account the earnings of all affiliates, so here are some examples of high-paying affiliates.
15 Examples of High-Priced Affiliate Programs
Want to start earning high commissions? Here are 15 examples of high-paying affiliate programs you can join today.
1.Authorityhacker
Authority Hacker, led by Gael Breton and Mark Webster, is well known in SEO circles for its online marketing courses. However, less well known is that they have a high-priced affiliate program that earns $1,979 per sale plus lifetime commissions on future purchases. Affiliates can track their performance through the ThriveChart dashboard.
Key points:
- Up to $1,979 commission per sale
- Payment via Paypal via ThriveChart
- Cookie validity period is 60 days
2.Kinsta
Kinsta offers managed WordPress hosting and has a referral program where affiliates can earn up to $500 per referral and receive 10% of the monthly plan fee as long as the customer stays.
Affiliates can earn about $135 per month for each Pro plan member they refer. Kinsta also supports affiliates with marketing resources through its Affiliate Academy.
Key points:
- 5%–10% commission
- 10% monthly recurring income
- Cookie validity period is 60 days
3. Shopify
The Shopify Affiliate Program offers competitive commissions to educators, influencers, and content creators who target business and entrepreneurial audiences.
Shopify supports affiliates with creative assets, educational materials, and performance tracking through a personal dashboard.
Key points:
- Earn around $150 in commissions when you refer new merchants to the Shopify plan or Shopify POS Pro (depending on location)
- Cookie validity period is 30 days
4. Thinkific
Thinkific is an online platform that lets you create courses, sell memberships, digital products, and more. It’s a great choice if your audience is content creators, business leaders, or entrepreneurs.
Key points:
- $1,700 per referral per year
- 30% Lifetime Recurring Commission on all Monthly or Annual Plans
- 90 days cookie duration
5.Empireflippers
If you're looking to acquire an online business, Empire Flippers is one of the first places you should consider. It is the top online marketplace for buying and selling established websites and online businesses, and has facilitated over $500 million in sales since its founding in 2011.
Empire Flippers focuses on businesses valued between $100,000 and $1 million, providing a hands-on service that includes detailed business evaluations and support throughout the transaction process.
Key points:
- 20% Commission
- Unlimited commission
- Cookie validity period is 2 years
6. Flip
Flippa is a global platform where you can buy and sell online businesses, websites, and other digital assets. They have sold 450,000 businesses.
The platform offers a wide range of listings, including e-commerce websites, SaaS products, and blogs, making it easy for users to connect with potential buyers or sellers.
Key points:
- 20% referral commission of Flippa fees
- Can earn commissions for general referrals as well as for recommending specific assets
- Cookie validity period is 120 days
7. Bluehost
Bluehost is a well-known web hosting and domain registration company founded in 2003, serving more than 2 million websites worldwide. It is an officially recommended hosting provider by WordPress, offering a variety of hosting options including shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated hosting, and providing 24/7 customer support. Bluehost is known for its user-friendly interface and competitive pricing, and is particularly popular among beginners and small and medium-sized businesses looking to build an online business.
Key points:
- Earn at least 70% on each qualifying sale, capped at $100 per sale
- 90 days cookie duration
8.Villiersjets
Villiers Jets is a private jet charter company that provides luxury air travel services. As you can imagine, this type of high-ticket affiliate marketing can be very lucrative if you’re good at it.
Key points:
- Earn $1,000 for every flight you book
- 30% profit share for each flight
- Cookie validity period is 365 days
9. Villiersjets
WP Engine is a premium managed WordPress hosting provider specializing in high-performance hosting solutions for businesses of all sizes, powering over 1.5 million websites worldwide.
It offers features like automatic updates, top-tier security, and a fully managed environment to optimize website performance and reliability. By partnering with major cloud providers like AWS and Google Cloud, WP Engine ensures scalable and efficient hosting for WordPress applications.
Key points:
- Up to $200 commission or 100% of first month payment
- Cookie validity period is 180 days
10.Teachable
Teachable is an online platform where you can create and sell online courses, digital downloads, coaching products, and memberships. It is a well-designed platform with high earning potential due to recurring payments — something Pat Flynn calls “the holy grail of passive income.”
Key points:
- Up to 30% commission
- Send traffic once and get recurring commissions for the first year
- Cookie validity period is 30 days
11. Monday.com
Monday is one of the best-known online project and task management platforms, but it also has a generous, high-priced affiliate program.
Key points:
- Earn up to 100% commission on first-year sales from every referred client.
- Tiered commission model encourages more referrals
- 90 days cookie duration
12. HubSpot
HubSpot is a popular cloud-based platform that facilitates inbound marketing, sales, customer service, and business operations. It provides tools that help organizations attract visitors, convert leads, and engage customers.
Key points:
- 30% commission within one year
- Cookie validity period is 180 days
13. WPX
WPX Hosting was founded in Bulgaria in 2013 by Terry Kyle to provide a user-friendly experience and powerful customization capabilities for WordPress websites. It has a generous affiliate program.
Key points:
- Earn up to $20,000 per month
- Cookie validity period is 60 days
14. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software for small businesses, freelancers, and self-employed individuals. Its affiliate program is operated through the third-party affiliate network ShareASale.
Key points:
- Up to $200 per paying user
- Cookie validity period is 120 days
15.Superside
Superside is a subscription-based design service that provides scalable creative solutions for businesses and growing companies. You need to sign up for an account to refer others through the program. It's strictly a referral program - you need to share your email address within the platform to earn a high commission.
Key points:
- The full demo costs $200
- $5,000 per transaction completed per year
How to Start High-Price Affiliate Marketing (Seven Tips)
So, where do you start? Let’s dive in and learn how to reap the big rewards.
1. Find high-priced affiliate programs to promote
You can find high-priced affiliate programs through affiliate networks like AvantLink or Impact Radius , or try some of the examples mentioned above.
You can also use Ahrefs’ Web Explorer to find affiliate program opportunities. Here’s how.
- First navigate to Web Explorer and type in the high-priced affiliate marketing niche - I chose web hosting
- Then, add a filter for page URLs containing the phrase “affiliate-program”
- Click Search and you will get something like this:
Even with this basic search, you can find random affiliate programs with commissions over $100.
If you want to go a step further, try adding more filters. In the example below, I added a “ Page Title” filter to find keywords that mention “$ per” in the title.
This gives us 363 potential high-priced affiliate programs to investigate.
However, in my experience, if you want the absolute highest paying projects, you can usually find them through direct brand collaborations that aren’t always advertised**.**
If you know of a high-ticket item or service that you like and would like to promote, consider contacting the company to discuss a partnership.
Half of the battle in high-ticket affiliate marketing is finding a great product that’s worth the money. You need to have faith in the product, which is where the second tip comes in.
2. Focus on building trust and authority
It doesn’t take a genius to sell a $5 product on Amazon (and there’s nothing wrong with Amazon affiliate sites, of course), but if you want someone to buy a product worth thousands of dollars based on your recommendation, you need to convince them that you’re doing it.
Trust can be gained in a number of ways:
- Transparency – You are required by law to post an affiliate marketing disclaimer on your website. While you can hide it in the fine print, it’s better to be upfront about the fact that you will earn a commission from sales.
- Be honest – If a product or service isn’t the best, tell people – even if the company is paying you a ton of money to say so.
- A good "About" page - Tell readers who you are and why they should trust you. Have you actually used the product? If you're reviewing batteries, are you an electrician? Show your credentials. Better yet, make a video that showcases you personally so they know you're a real person with real experiences worth listening to.
For example, here’s the About page for The Wanderful, where Scott shows his face and his dog and talks a little about his expertise (living full-time in a van for five years).
He also includes some videos on his About page to show that he knows what Van Lifers care about and why his products and advice are worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URDqYGRux28&list=TLGGcq-8HLawuBMxMDAzMjAyMw
Not only do these factors help you sell expensive products, they also help with Google’s recently updated EEAT ( Experience , Expertise , Authoritativeness , and Trustworthiness ) metrics. Demonstrating these attributes improves your chances of ranking higher in Google search results.
3. Build high-quality backlinks to send out EEAT signals and improve rankings
Most successful affiliate marketers rely on search engines (primarily Google) to drive traffic and generate conversions. Backlinks are one of the most important factors in Google rankings, and they determine how well you rank for specific keywords.
If we go back to EEAT, Gary Illyes from Google says that backlinks have a huge impact on EAT (the previous version, excluding experience):
For example, here’s a link from Forbes’ high-priced affiliate site that signals to the EEAT:
Screenshot taken from the Backlinks report in Ahrefs Site Explorer . [](https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer)
If you don’t currently have a lot of good backlinks, here are some strategies you can use to start building more backlinks:
- Guest Blogger
- Resource Page Link Building
- HARO Link Building
4. Investment Video
I believe that video builds trust better than words on paper; if people can see your face and experience it firsthand, they will trust you more.
This works across all industries. You can use videos to promote your products on social media, boost the trustworthiness of your website, and even take up multiple positions on the SERPs.
Ahrefs already does this. For example, take a look at this SERP:
But how do you use video as an affiliate marketer?
One of my favorite examples of high-ticket affiliate marketing using video is Hobotech, which does in-depth reviews of electrical components like solar power stations and batteries.
This video, which has nearly 500,000 views, promotes a $1,600 product with a 10% commission rate ($160 per sale):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp9ofdbqnUw
His videos aren’t the prettiest or highest quality, and they’re pretty long (30+ minutes).
But he is very candid in his videos about which products work well, which don't, and whether he recommends you buy them. He explains the products in layman's terms and puts the batteries through rigorous testing, showing all the details on camera and giving professional feedback. He is very good at building trust through his videos.
5. Capture people at different stages of the funnel
As affiliate marketers, we often focus on commercial keywords related to product reviews or comparisons. However, when it comes to high-ticket items, these keywords are often very competitive and difficult to rank for.
For example, according to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, the keyword “best health insurance” has a KD score of 80 (which means you need a ton of backlinks to rank on page 1):
Compare this to the keyword “can a doctor treat a family member and pay for insurance” which has a KD of just 1 (which means you don’t need to care about backlinks to rank #1):
In the long run, you’ll build more trust (from your visitors and Google) by spreading your content throughout the marketing funnel— publishing blog posts on topics from the time people start to become interested to when they’re ready to make a purchasing decision.
This way, you’re also likely to get more sales over time because you’re engaging people before they get to the research stage of buying, and in some cases, you can skip the competition altogether.
For example, here are the keywords a buyer might search for at different stages of their buying journey when researching kayaks:
This way, you can get your brand in front of people before they even consider buying. Not only does this build trust, but it also leads those visitors into your email funnel, taking them through the entire process from awareness to purchase.
Comprehensive coverage is especially important for high-priced items where competition is high and potential buyers are few and far between.
Research shows that it takes anywhere from 28 to 62 (sometimes more) “touch points” before people actually buy a product. A touch point is a moment when someone sees a brand, whether it’s on a billboard or on your blog.
For more expensive items, the number of touchpoints may be higher because people need more persuasion before they buy.
Of course, not all touchpoints need to be yours. If a company spends a lot of money on advertising, you only need to be one of the last touchpoints before the user purchases to earn a commission. Most affiliate programs have cookies that last 30 days or more.
But the more touches you contribute, the more sales you’ll end up with.
That’s why, in addition to creating content for SEO, you should also grow your email list , be active on multiple social media platforms, and even consider running retargeting ads to drive people back to your content so you can make that final touch before someone buys.
The more "sticky" your brand is to your fans, the greater your chances of earning lucrative commissions. Get visitors to follow you on multiple channels and subscribe to your mailing list to keep your brand in their minds.
6. Only promote quality products
It's simple - don't try to trick people into buying expensive junk that does them no good. It may work in the short term, but it destroys the trust I'm always talking about. If you want a long-term, serious business, only promote products that you believe are useful and worth the investment.
7. Don’t be afraid to tell people not to buy
Your product may not be for everyone. But by being honest about it, you’ll earn more trust for the users who will actually benefit and increase conversions.
What I like most about Hobotech is that I mentioned before that if the product he promotes or reviews is not right for you, he will tell you not to buy it.
Take this video for example. He mentions who this product is for and who shouldn't buy it.
Final Thoughts
High-ticket affiliate marketing can yield higher earnings with fewer sales. Choosing a niche with high-ticket products can be very lucrative.
But to be successful, you have to be honest, build trust with your audience by regularly creating high-quality content, and show that you use these products or services yourself.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article contain affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click through to visit us, at no extra cost to you. See how SidelinePlay is funded, why it’s important, and how you can support us.
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