21 Best Web Hosting Affiliate Programs (Listed By My Experience & Commissions)

These hosting affiliate programs make me 6 figures/year.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from doing speed optimization and affiliate marketing for 10 years, it’s you have to choose the right affiliates.

Otherwise, you lose people’s trust… and that means less sales. Obviously the “best” hosting affiliate depends on your audience (location, technical ability, budget, etc). You know them better than me, but I know my readers then to have been around the block. No way I’m telling them to use Bluehost, Hostinger, or even SiteGround. Cloud hosting and LiteSpeed all the way!

Instead of just listing commissions and stats about them which you can probably find on their websites, I’ll share my personal experience promoting (most) of these hosting companies.

I’ll also share some pleasant and unpleasant things I’ve learned about them over the years, since I do a lot of research in Facebook Groups before deciding on which company I promote. Anyway, here’s my list of hosting affiliate programs and the reasoning for listing them this way.

Hosting Affiliate Program	Commission	Recurring	2 Tier
Rocket.net	$150	x	x
Cloudways	$50 – $150+	✓	✓
NameHero	$50 – $125+	x	x
A2 Hosting	$55 – $125	x	✓
ChemiCloud	$50 – $125	x	x
Scala Hosting	$50 – $200	x	x
Vultr	$35	x	x
FastComet	$50 – $200	✓	✓
CloudPages	1x monthly rate	✓	✓
JohnnyVPS	2x monthly rate	x	x
Kinsta	$50 – $500	✓	x
SiteGround	$50 – $100+	x	x
Bluehost	$65+	x	x
WPX	$70 – $100+	x	x
Elementor Cloud Hosting	$70	x	x
WP Engine	$200+	x	✓
Flywheel	3x monthly rate	x	x
GoDaddy	10-15% of sale	x	x
HostGator	$65 – $125+	x	x
Liquid Web	$150+	x	x
GreenGeeks	$50 – $100+	x	x
Hostinger	60% of sale	x	x

 

1. Rocket.net Affiliate Program

Rocket.net is where I see the most potential of all hosting affiliate programs.

They’re the fastest WordPress hosting I’ve come across and who I currently use, averaging a <100ms global TTFB which you can measure in tools like KeyCDN. The reason they’re so fast is because their specs and Cloudways Enterprise are better than nearly any host with NVMe SSDs, 32 cores + 128GB RAM, Redis, LiteSpeed’s PHP, full page cache, Argo Smart Routing, WAF, image optimization, Brotli, etc. View the table below and you’ll see why Rocket.net is so much faster. They are also a top performer on WordPress Hosting Benchmarks (tests done by Kevin Ohashi).

They’re still small but have a perfect TrustPilot rating and CEO (Ben Gabler) has an extensive background with hosting and CDNs. Support is also just as good as Rocket.net’s performance.

All I can say is, benchmark your own scores/load times and test them against Rocket.net. Feel free to test my site in whatever tool you want or click through posts and see how fast they load. Once people see how fast your site is (and your global TTFB), your  results should do the talking.

Compare specs, talk to Ben, and read my Rocket.net review is the best advice I can give.

• Commission: $150/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

If Kinsta is a premium host, what does that make Rocket.net?

	SiteGround	Kinsta	WPX	Cloudways Vultr High Frequency	Rocket.net
Hosting type	Shared	Cloud	Shared	Cloud	Private cloud
CPU cores + RAM	Not listed	12 cores + 8GB	Not listed	1 core + 1GB	32 cores + 128GB
Storage	SATA	SATA	SATA	NVMe	NVMe
Storage (GB)	40	10	15	32	10
Object cache	Memcached	Redis ($100/mo)	x	Redis (Pro)	Redis
Server	Apache + Nginx	Nginx	LiteSpeed	Apache	Apache + Nginx
PHP processing	FastCGI	FastCGI	FastCGI	PHP-FPM	LiteSpeed
Bandwidth (or monthly visits)	5TB	25k visits/mo	200GB	1TB	50GB + 250k visits/mo
CDN	SiteGround CDN	Cloudflare Enterprise	QUIC.cloud or XDN	Cloudflare Enterprise	Cloudflare Enterprise
CDN PoPs	14	270	73	270	270
Full page caching	✓	✓	✓	Coming soon	✓
HTTP/3	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
WAF	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Argo smart routing	x	x	x	✓	✓
Load balancing	x	x	x	✓	✓
Image optimization	Limited	x	✓	✓	✓
Compression	Brotli	Brotli	Brotli	GZIP	Brotli
CDN price	Freemium	Free	$.01 – $.04/GB	$5/mo	Free
CPU limits	Common	Low PHP workers	At their discretion	Average	None
Cache plugin	SG Optimizer	x	LSC or W3TC	Breeze	x
Email hosting	✓	x	Very limited	x	x
Major incidents	Google blocked DNS for 4 days	None	Worldwide outage	None	None
Free migration	$30/site	Unlimited free	5-35 sites free	1 free	Unlimited free
Renewals	Yearly (high)	Monthly	Monthly	Monthly	Monthly
TrustPilot rating	4.6/5	4.4/5	4.9/5	4.6/5	4.9/5
Price	$3-8/mo (1 year) then $15-40/mo	$29/mo (yearly)	$20.83 (yearly)	$18/mo (with CF Enterprise)	$25/mo (yearly)
Specs	View specs	View specs	View specs	View specs	View specs

 

2. Cloudways Affiliate Program

Cloudways is who I used before Rocket.net since moving from SiteGround in 2019.

They’re good if you don’t have the budget for Rocket.net since even the 1GB Vultr HF plan has 1TB bandwidth + 32GB NVMe storage. However, they’re not as fast since they use less CPU/RAM, slower GZIP compression, and PHP-FPM instead of LiteSpeed’s PHP (fast, just not as fast). The affiliate manager (Umair) is also great to work with and I still have monthly meetings with him.

It was easy to promote them since the results speak for themselves. Cloudways also has a lot of positive feedback in Facebook Groups and were #1 in several Facebook polls taken on “the best hosting.” After an hour long Skype session with SiteGround’s affiliate manager who told me the plans to ‘position themselves as a higher quality host,’ I quickly jumped on the Cloudways train.

• Commission: $50 – $150+/sale
• Recurring Commissions: Yes (only on hybrid plan)

I still promote them to this day:

You can read my Cloudways review to see how I promote them. I show screenshots of my migration results, other people’s migrations, and Facebook polls. I also talk about Vultr High Frequency, Cloudflare Enterprise, Redis Object Cache Pro, and things to make them stand out.

Their affiliate program lets you choose between slab and hybrid (I do slab).

• Slab: flat commission per sale
• Hybrid: small upfront commission + recurring commissions

The Cloudways community manager Umair Qureshi is very involved with his affiliates on making sure they have everything to succeed and (sometimes) sharing upcoming features.

 

3. NameHero Affiliate Program

Some people are hell-bent on using LiteSpeed in which case, I usually recommend NameHero (along with ChemiCloud, Scala Hosting, and Krystal Hosting which all 4 use LiteSpeed servers).

I like NameHero because they use LiteSpeed servers and have more CPU/RAM compared to A2/Hostinger if you check their hosting page. And it’s still about the same price or even cheaper.

The major con is they only have US and EU data centers. Otherwise, I found their dashboard, support, and pretty much everything about them to be cheap and easy. I also found them to be a great alternative for people not willing to spend as much, but still want fast LiteSpeed hosting. Ryan (the NameHero founder) is also a down to earth guy if you check out his YouTube channel.

• Commission: $50 – $125+/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

4. A2 Hosting Affiliate Program

A2 Hosting is a decent cheap option.

The main problem is only their higher plans use LiteSpeed servers and can have frequent downtimes. They also have high renewals and are pretty typical of a shared host. However, they’ve been said to be a decent alternative to SiteGround and have a fair amount of positive feedback in Facebook Groups. You can make $55-$125+ per sale with their affiliate program but you’ll have to climb tiers to get commissions raised. I referred a big website to A2 and frequently get 2-tier commissions, but it’s only $5/sale. Still, promoting their affiliate program can pay off.

• Commission: $55 – $125+/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

5. ChemiCloud Affiliate Program

Another LiteSpeed host with more data centers than NameHero, perfect 5/5 start TrustPilot rating, but they use SATA SSDs on their plans (only their cloud VPS plans use NVMe storage). Only made a couple sales with ChemiCloud but it seems like most people are happy with them.

• Commission: $50 – $125/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

6. Scala Hosting Affiliate Program

Scala Hosting offers a whopping $200/sale when you refer 10+ VPS hosting plans per month.

The only other hosting company I know offering these commissions is WP Engine. I can also vouch that Chris (the founder) is very passionate about his company and goes out of his way to make sure customers/affiliates are happy. They offer VPS hosting from Scala’s own data centers, AWS, and DigitalOcean. They also have their own custom-built SPanel. Emit.Reviews already started making video reviews about them (who you should know about if you’re doing hosting). At the time of writing this, Scala also has a perfect 5/5 star TrustPilot rating which is unheard of.

• Commission: $50 – $200/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

7. Vultr Affiliate Program

A lot of people buy Vultr directly through the website and connect it to a control panel like RunCloud to save money. It’s only $35/sale and your users get $100 in credits to test it out. It’s probably not the most lucrative but considering there’s a large amount of people doing this, it may be worth listing as an option. I also plan on writing more tutorials on control panels myself.

• Commission: $35/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

8. FastComet Affiliate Program

Haven’t tested them but they look good with LiteSpeed, AMD EPYC servers, and more CPU/RAM than NameHero/ChemiCloud (more than I’ve seen especially for such a cheap intro price). They have almost perfect TrustPilot reviews and most members in Facebook Groups posted they’re happy with them. I’ll be testing them soon because at least on the surface, they look promising. They also give you higher commissions if you refer people to higher plans which is a nice bonus.

• Commission: $50 – $200/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

9. CloudPages Affiliate Program

CloudPages is a relatively new control panel which uses LiteSpeed.

You can launch a server from Vultr, Heztner, DigitalOcean, AWS Lightsail, UpCloud, or deploy a server manually. The price is $10 – $40/month or $72 – $420/year, then you make 100% of the first invoice + 20% recurring. This is actually a pretty solid affiliate program especially because of the 20% recurring payment. It also seems like a solid control panel and worth checking out.

• Commission: 1x monthly rate
• Recurring Commissions: 20%

 

10. JohnnyVPS Affiliate Program

This is WP Johnny’s hosting company.

People have hyped it up in Facebook Groups which isn’t surprising because WP Johnny clearly knows about speed optimization. I would call it “boutique” because you’re not going to get 24/7 support because their team maybe isn’t large enough (yet) to offer those kinds of things. But for performance, I doubt you’re going to get much better than this. I was lucky enough to hire WP Johnny to work on my website and not only does he know his stuff but he’s very detail oriented.

• Commission: 2x monthly rate
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

11. Kinsta Affiliate Program

Kinsta is comparable to Rocket.net only slower and more expensive.

They have low limits on PHP workers and monthly visits if you check the specs. This (and the low amount of CPU/RAM, $100/month Redis, and increased prices) makes Kinsta expensive. Look at them for what they are… a marketing company who turned into a hosting company.

They use all the big brands like Google Cloud C2, Cloudflare Enterprise, and Amazon Route 53 DNS, but don’t let it fool you. They’re not only more expensive, but a lot slower than Rocket.net.

• Starter Plan: $50
• Pro Plan: $100
• Business Plan: $150
• Enterprise Plans: $500

 

12. SiteGround Affiliate Program

I made almost $400,000 with SiteGround’s affiliate program.

When they started going downhill in 2020, I openly addressed their issues and moved away from their hosting. Not only did they cancel my affiliate account, they threatened me unless I take down all mentions of their trademark “SiteGround” from my blog. Their affiliate TOS literally says they can do this, but I chose not to because it’s freedom of speech and my reviews are backed by evidence. Either way, don’t get caught up in the mess I did. SiteGround will do anything to protect their reputation – you shouldn’t dare mention negative things about them. Their community manager and affiliates are also admins for a lot of Facebook Groups (not cool).

Aside from SiteGround’s agenda to take down negative reviews and control Facebook Groups, they actually have gone downhill with a slower TTFB, CPU limits, declined support, banning affiliate accounts in certain countries, increasing prices… the list goes on. They were a great choice before 2020, but things change and there are much better hosts & programs out there.

• Commission: $50 – $100+/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

13. Bluehost Affiliate Program

Don’t be another “how to start a blog” YouTuber promoting Bluehost.

There are too many out there already and we all know they’re not a good choice. They’re also owned by EIG who has a horrible reputation for buying hosting companies and running them into the ground. Even though EIG spends big money to be listed #1 on recommended WordPress hosts, most people are learning to stay away. There are still many affiliates promoting Bluehost, but they could be making more money (and earning more trust with readers) by recommending someone else. I’d spare your reputation and don’t even sign up for Bluehost’s affiliate program.

• Commission: $65+/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

• Commission Rate: $65/sale.
• Recurring Commissions: No.

14. WPX Affiliate Program

Is the Matthew Woodward crowd done hyping up WPX as the fastest WordPress host?

The problem is Matthew didn’t test any other LiteSpeed host but WPX or even Vultr High Frequency. It goes to show that no matter how flawed a test is, you can still get tons of sales!

WPX has its place but I wouldn’t call it the fastest/best host. Plus, it only pays around $70 – $100/sale. The only data centers are in Chicago and Sydney so I can only assume Matthew’s test used locations near there as well as XDN. It’s not that WPX is bad… the speed, dashboard, and support are fine. But they’re not the fastest and don’t have a high commission affiliate program.

• Commission: $70 – $100+/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

15. Elementor Cloud Hosting Affiliate Program

$70/sale is a great commission considering the hosting itself is only $99/year.

Elementor’s cloud hosting is relatively new but uses the Google Cloud C2 machine family (same one Kinsta uses) but significantly cheaper. I haven’t gotten around to trying it out yet and will probably wait until it’s more established. But I’ll bet conversions would be high since Elementor has such a large following. At least put it on your radar… I could very well be promoting it soon.

• Commission: $75/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

16. WP Engine Affiliate Program

You see a lot of people promoting WP Engine because they offer $200/sale without having to climb tiers, plus a two-tier program which makes $50/sale.

But who actually uses them? Most people I see already moved from WP Engine to Rocket.net, Kinsta, RunCloud, or another similar host. It’s pretty well-known WP Engine is run by VCs who pour millions of dollars into the company. They’re expensive, not as fast as other hosts, and have awful support IMO. They’re also expensive and last time I checked, reversal rates are high.

• Commission: $200 + bonuses
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

17. Flywheel Affiliate Program

Flywheel joined WP Engine in 2019.

Flywheel seems to have a better reputation but I still wouldn’t put my blog in the hands of WP Engine. They ran StudioPress and Genesis Framework into the ground with ridiculous prices and I wouldn’t put it past them to do something similar with Flywheel. But by all means, promote them if you really want. Commissions are decent and they’re not nearly as expensive.

• Commission: 3x monthly rate
• Recurring Commissions: No

18. GoDaddy Affiliate Program

Some people hate them, others actually do like them.

Commissions are only 10-15% which is very lower considering how cheap they are (at least initially). So you will need to refer a lot of people to GoDaddy to make a living. One example of this can be found on YouTube with the class “how to make a website” video. It was very clever to put a domain search on their website that leads to GoDaddy with an affiliate link which I’m sure makes them a lot of money, but the video also has 14M+ views. Unless you’re targeting the mass market, I’d lean towards different hosting. Most people know to stay away from GoDaddy.

• Commission: 10-15% of sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

19. HostGator Affiliate Program

Tyler Moore is a classic example of how you can make a ton of money with terrible hosting companies.

He creates YouTube videos on how to make a website which usually have 5M+ views. In his videos, he refers people to HostGator with his coupon code (and as long as people use it, he gets a commission even when they don’t click his affiliate link). I assume he chose HostGator because they’re cheap and gave him a coupon code, otherwise we all know how bad they are.

• Commission: $65 – $125/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

How he makes money – he begins his hosting pitch at 4m34s, but at 9m31s he presents his HostGator coupon code which not only saves viewers money, but it credits him for the sale (without people even having to click any affiliate link). That’s why coupon codes are so powerful for YouTubers. Don’t use HostGator though; they’re cheap but a slow/terrible hosting company.

I would only promote HostGator if you’re targeting complete beginners, because I can personally tell you I’ve had readers who say how horrible conversions were when promoting them (because people know better). So unless you’re making beginner tutorials for the masses, it’s a big no. It’s another EIG brand with bad speeds, support, upsells, and even Sitelock scams.

• Commission Rate: $50 – $125/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No.

 

20. Liquid Web Affiliate Program

Liquid Web offers a minimum $150/sale.

They also have some of the best support I’ve experienced, however there have been recent reports it went downhill if you check recent TrustPilot reviews. Still, Liquid Web has a 4.7/5 star rating and their hosting plans aren’t ridiculously expensive. High commissions typically come with expensive hosting, but Liquid Web is one of the few cases where that’s not completely true.

• Commission: $150/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

21. GreenGeeks Affiliate Program

As Adrian mentioned in the comments, GreekGeeks has screwed affiliates over by cancelling their account and not paying them, sometimes with 1000s of dollars in pending commissions.

I’ll never support any company who pulls this stuff and you shouldn’t either. For this reason, I knocked them to the bottom of the list. I wanted to like them with their LiteSpeed servers and green initiatives with cheap pricing, but it sounds like GreekGeeks also has a dark side to them.

• Commission: $50 – $100+/sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

 

20. Hostinger Affiliate Program

Hostinger is at the bottom of the list because they built their company on fake reviews and conning people into buying their hosting.

They were banned from the WordPress Hosting Facebook Group for voting for themselves in Facebook polls. I used to monitor Facebook Groups/Twitter and they would constantly pose as customers saying how happy they are with Hostinger, but they wouldn’t disclose they’re an employee. Then they would send their army of employees to like the post and basically give false social proof that Hostinger was a good company. So many people got tricked by Hostinger.

• Commission: 60% of sale
• Recurring Commissions: No

When Hostinger was caught and publicly called out, their CEO not only openly admitted to doing this, but he encouraged it and said it’s they’re right to do so. I can handle some bad ethical decisions, but this is too much. Shame on all the affiliates who promote this company.

What are the best hosting affiliate programs?

Cloudways, Rocket.net, and Kinsta are popular cloud hosting affiliate programs while NameHero, Bluehost, and SiteGround are popular shared hosting affiliate programs.

What is the highest paying hosting affiliate program?

WP Engine and Scala Hosting offer up to $200/sale and are some of the highest commission hosting affiliate programs.

Which hosting affiliate programs offer recurring commissions?

Kinsta, Cloudways, and CloudPages all have affiliate programs with recurring commissions.

Which affiliate programs do you like? Let me know :)

Cheers,
Tom