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

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. LiteSpeed and cloud hosting all the way!

Instead of just listing commissions and stats about them which you can probably find on their website, 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
Kinsta	$50 – $500	✓	x
A2 Hosting	$55 – $125	x	✓
Vultr	$35	x	x
SiteGround	$50 – $100+	x	x
Bluehost	$65+	x	x
WPX	$70 – $100+	x	x
GreenGeeks	$50 – $100+	x	x
CloudPages	1x monthly rate	✓	✓
JohnnyVPS	2x monthly rate	x	x
Scala Hosting	$50 – $200	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
Hostinger	60% of sale	x	x

 

1. Rocket.net Affiliate Program

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

They average a <100ms global TTFB with Cloudways Enterprise and full page caching. They were also a top performer on WP Hosting Benchmarks by Kevin Ohashi. CEO Ben Gabler knows the “edge” very well with top positions at StackPath, HostGator (back when it was good), and GoDaddy. Ben even answers support calls because customer satisfaction is their #1 priority.

When you compare their specs and the amount of resources you get with Rocket.net (CPU cores, RAM, monthly visits, no PHP worker limits, Redis), you realize why Rocket.net is far beyond hosts like Kinsta, Cloudways, and SiteGround. Plus, you don’t have to climb affiliate tiers. I’ll put my money that hosting affiliates like Matthew / Darrel will get on the Rocket.net train very soon. Without overhyping it too much, I would get in on it before they get too big.

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, Rocket.net is godlike:

	Kinsta	Rocket.net
CPU Cores	12 Cores	32 Cores
RAM	8GB	128GB
Staging CPU Cores	1 Core	32 Cores
Staging RAM	8GB	128GB
PHP Worker Limits	Yes	No
Monthly Visits ($30-$35/mo plan)	25,000	250,000
Redis	$100/mo	Free
Storage	Network SSDs	NVMe
TrustPilot Rating	4.3/5	4.9/5

 

1. Cloudways Affiliate Program

Cloudways is who I’ve been using for the last few years and made the most money from since I moved from SiteGround in 2019.

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 – $125+/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 before they’re released. We have Skype meetings somewhat frequently and he’s a good dude.

 

2. NameHero Affiliate Program

My 2nd highest paying hosting affiliate is NameHero, but it doesn’t come close to Cloudways.

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. 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

 

5. 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

 

6. 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

 

7. 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

 

8. 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.

9. 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

10. GreenGeeks Affiliate Program

GreenGeeks is a pretty typical shared hosting company.

They offer cheap shared hosting with data centers in the US, CA, and NL. They also have LiteSpeed servers (big plus) with an easy to use dashboard. A big plus to their affiliate program is you only have to make 6+ sales to get $100/sale, which means you only have to get a few sales per month to make an extra $600+/month. Not a bad option, but I personally prefer NameHero.

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

 

11. 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%

12. 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

 

13. 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

 

14. 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

 

15. 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

 

16. 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

17. 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

 

18. 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.

 

19. 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

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 offer affiliate programs with recurring commissions.

I hope this helped you make a decision. Even though I mainly promote Cloudways and NameHero, I’m planning on trying quite a few others including Rocket.net, Vultr, CloudPages, and Elementor Cloud Websites (pretty much all cloud hosting). What about you? Let me know :)

Cheers,
Tom