Ivona MikulčićNovember 27, 202518 min readLast update: Oct 7, 2026
10+ Best SaaS Affiliate Programs in 2026
Most affiliate programs pay you once and then forget your name. SaaS programs keep paying while the customer keeps their subscription, which is why a single referral can quietly earn you money for a year. And the pool of products to promote keeps getting bigger. Precedence Research estimates the global SaaS market was worth $408.21 billion in 2025 and projects $465.03 billion in 2026, with a longer-term forecast of roughly $1.37 trillion by 2035 at a 12.85% compound annual growth rate. Every one of those subscriptions was sold to someone. Some of them could be sold by you.
In this article, I’ll show you the 10+ SaaS affiliate programs worth joining in 2026, the criteria I use to judge whether a program is actually worth your traffic, and the content formats that convert for SaaS affiliates. I’ve run the numbers on commission rates, cookie windows, and payout thresholds for every program on this list, including the one I work on.
Why join a SaaS affiliate program
1. It’s the best paid industry.
Software-as-a-service products have way bigger profit margins than physical goods, and they pass some of that margin to you. As a SaaS affiliate, 30% commissions are normal rather than exceptional.
2. Commissions recur.
This is the part that changes the math. Traditional affiliate programs pay one-time payouts per sale, lead, or click. SaaS programs pay you every month or every quarter for at least a year, sometimes for the lifetime of the account. Ten referrals that each stick around for 12 months beat a hundred one-off sales on a consumer goods program.
3. SaaS products keep improving.
SaaS companies ship new features constantly to keep customers engaged. Your review from March doesn’t go stale, because the product it points to got better. There’s no physical inventory either, so nothing you promote goes out of stock.
4. SaaS is very SEO-compatible.
Comparison keywords are a gift. “Product alternative,” “product 1 vs product 2,” “product review,” all of it carries buying intent and all of it ranks. I’ll come back to this later, because it’s where most affiliate income actually comes from.
5. You promote sticky products.
A sticky product has a high retention rate. Customers find it valuable, use it weekly, and stay. That usually comes from a usable interface, functionality people depend on, and updates that keep pace with what they need. Stickiness drives satisfaction and cuts churn, and in SaaS it translates directly into recurring revenue. Satisfied users also recommend the tool to other people, which compounds your referrals without extra work from you. For an affiliate, promoting sticky products is simply more profitable than any other category.
Affiliate program or partner program? They’re not the same thing
Before you apply anywhere, know what you’re applying to. Companies run several partnership models and they pay very differently.
An affiliate program pays you a commission on customers who buy through your tracked link. You don’t touch the account after the sale. A referral program is usually a lighter version of the same thing, often with one-time rewards. A reseller or partner program means you sell, implement, or manage the product on the client’s behalf, and the commission is bigger because the work is bigger. White-label goes further still: you sell the software under your own brand.
lemlist runs two of these side by side, which makes the difference easy to see. The Affiliation Program grants a commission on clients you refer and is aimed at implementation consultants, content creators, and marketplaces. The Service Partners Program is a deeper collaboration format that grants a commission plus a set of benefits built for established sales and outbound agencies. (Partner program)
If you write content, record videos, or have an audience, you want the affiliate side. If you run campaigns for clients, the partner side pays more.
What to look for in a SaaS affiliate program
I score every program against four things. Use the same four on anything you find outside this list.
Commission type and rate. Recurring beats one-time, every time. A 20% recurring commission for 12 months will out-earn a 50% one-time payout on most B2B tools. Check how long “recurring” lasts: 12 months, lifetime, or until the first renewal.
Cookie duration. This is how long you get credit after someone clicks. Thirty days is the floor. Ninety to 120 days is generous, and it matters more in B2B, where buying committees take weeks to decide.
Payout threshold and schedule. A $150 minimum payout on a 35% commission can mean waiting months for your first transfer. Look for thresholds under $50 and monthly payments. Also check the lock period, meaning how long the company waits before a commission becomes irreversible.
Support and materials. A dedicated affiliate manager, a media kit, banners, and early access to features are the difference between guessing and shipping. Programs with weak materials make you do the company’s marketing for free.
Now the list.
1. lemlist affiliate program
lemlist is an AI outbound platform that puts lead data, intent signals, enrichment, and multichannel outreach in one workspace, so teams can find buyers and run campaigns across email, LinkedIn, and calls without stitching five tools together.
The affiliate program runs on a revenue share model and is built as a long-term partnership rather than a one-off payout. Communication is fast, feedback gets acted on, and the community and support teams are known for actually answering, which helps at every stage of your promo work. lemlist is rated 4.6 stars from 1,424 verified reviews on G2, so you’re recommending something your audience will thank you for.
The headline terms: a 25% commission for 12 months on each lemlist license purchased through your link, with 30-day cookie tracking. (lemlist Affiliate Program) Worth knowing before you promote: the lemlist Help Center documents commission rates by billing cycle, at 18% recurring for monthly plans, 20% for quarterly, and 22% for yearly, all running for 12 months (How to join the lemlist affiliate program). Confirm your rate with the team when you’re approved so your content quotes the right number.
Here’s how the program works in practice:
Apply through the form. Applications are reviewed weekly, and lemlist asks about your content links and audience before approving you. (lemlist Affiliate Program)
Get your unique link and share it with your network.
Log into your affiliate dashboard to track clicks, conversions, and commissions.
Pull banners and assets from the media kit to build your content around.
To see what that’s worth before you apply, lemlist publishes a live earnings calculator on its affiliate page. At 50 referrals on the Multichannel Expert plan at $109/month, it shows $1,238 per month. (lemlist Affiliate Program) Run the slider against your own audience size and you’ll get a realistic number instead of a fantasy one. You can check the plan prices it’s based on on the lemlist pricing page.
The program fits B2B content creators, tech and SaaS reviewers, salespeople, outbound consultants, and sales trainers.
Affiliate program details:
Commission: 25% for 12 months on each lemlist license purchased through your link.
Getting paid: payments are verified 30 days after the purchase and paid out the month after. (lemlist Affiliate Program)
Payment method: PayPal, Stripe, or direct deposit in certain countries, via PartnerStack. (lemlist Affiliate Program)
Cookie duration: 30 days.
Payout threshold: payments go out monthly once you reach the minimum threshold, usually $50. (How to join the lemlist affiliate program)
What affiliates actually earn: one partner made 14 referrals, generated $4,289 in revenue, and earned more than $600 in commissions. Another made ten referrals, generated $3,759 in revenue, and earned $824. Both run outreach for clients, so lemlist was already in their stack before it was in their content.
Four things make this program stand out:
Fair commission. lemlist pays 25%, against 20% from Apollo.
Recurring income. You’re paid every month (or quarter) for the full year, not once.
Expansion revenue. If a referred team buys additional seats, that counts as an additional transaction and generates a reward, as long as the customer signed up within the year. (lemlist Affiliate Program)
Add-ons. Affiliates get free lemlist credits, incentives, merch, and more.
The Verdict:
lemlist is a profitable SaaS affiliate program for sales, growth, social selling, and marketing professionals. Outreach experts and software reviewers do well with it too.
What makes it easy money is the product itself. Promoting lemlist fits directly into your multichannel outreach, which means the thing you’re selling is also the thing selling it.
2. NordVPN affiliate program
NordVPN is a VPN service that offers secure and private internet access. It protects online data with an encrypted connection for anyone who wants peace of mind on public Wi-Fi.
NordVPN offers military-grade encryption, a CyberSec feature for added security, a strict no-logs policy, and 7,400+ servers covering 118 countries according to its server list.
Its affiliate program is among the highest paying in SaaS, and the rate depends entirely on which plan your referral buys. On the 1-month offer, new sign-ups pay 100% and renewals pay 30%. On the 1-year and 2-year offers, new sign-ups pay 40% and renewals pay 30%. So: 40% to 100% upfront, 30% forever after.
It’s the best fit for tech bloggers, YouTubers, streamers, and social media creators whose audience cares about privacy.
Affiliate program details:
Commission: 40% to 100% on new sign-ups depending on plan length, 30% on all renewals.
Getting paid: NordVPN has a $10 payout threshold. It uses CJ Affiliate and Impact, so payout periods depend on your chosen network.
Payment method: PayPal or wire transfer.
Cookie duration: 30 days.
The Verdict:
For content creators in tech, this is close to the ceiling of what affiliate marketing pays. A 100% first-payment commission plus lifetime renewal share is rare, and the brand converts on its own reputation.
3. HubSpot affiliate program
HubSpot is a popular CRM platform known for its Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS, and Operations Hubs.
HubSpot’s products sit on the expensive side (prices start from $50/month and stack up fast), which works in your favor as an affiliate. Bigger contract, bigger commission.
Joining is free and open to everyone. You don’t have to be a HubSpot customer.
There are three affiliate tiers:
Starting point: 30% recurring payouts for up to a year
100-200 signups/month: 30% recurring payouts for up to a year, plus bonuses
200+ signups/month: custom payouts
HubSpot states there are no minimum sales targets for earning a commission.
Its affiliate partners promote links through blogging, SEO, pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, YouTube, and WordPress.
Affiliate program details:
Commission: 30% recurring for one year
Cookie duration: 180 days
Getting paid: direct deposit (EFT) or PayPal, with a $10 minimum balance before withdrawal
Payment method: direct deposit (EFT) or PayPal
The Verdict:
That 180-day cookie is the longest on this list, and it matters when you’re selling to buying committees. Join if you’re a software reviewer, content creator, or online educator writing for business professionals.
4. Webflow affiliate program
Webflow is a no-code web and design tool that also hosts what you build. You can design and edit websites, landing pages, and blogs in it.
The commission is seriously generous. Webflow affiliate partners earn 50% back for 12 months when a new customer signs up for a first Webflow subscription through their link. The offer is valid for up to 12 transactions and applies to all subscription plans.
It works well for bloggers and writers monetizing their content, and even better for web developers who can drop affiliate links alongside Webflow templates and component listings.
Once you’re approved, the process is straightforward. Log into your affiliate dashboard and your referral link sits on the left side of the page. The link is unique to your account and points to the Webflow homepage. If someone visits Webflow through it and hasn’t been there before, they get tagged as your referral. This tag lasts for 90 days, the cookie window.
Affiliate program details:
Commission: 50% for 12 months, up to 12 transactions
Cookie duration: 90 days
Getting paid: commission payments arrive by the 15th of each month
Payment method: PayPal or Stripe
The Verdict:
One of the highest commission rates you’ll find, with the 12-transaction cap as the only real ceiling. Educational videos, blogs, online courses, podcasts, UI/UX component kits, and microsites all work as promo channels.
Designers who build their own Webflow sites have the easiest path here, because the affiliate link is just a footnote on work they were doing anyway.
5. Pipedrive affiliate program
Pipedrive is an easy-to-use CRM with an affiliate program that has a lot of potential.
As an affiliate, you earn 20% of Pipedrive’s year-one revenue from each new paying customer you refer.
What’s unique here is that Pipedrive does not cap earnings. Your income potential has no ceiling.
The program suits website publishers, industry influencers, independent consultants, VCs and incubators, trade groups, and associations.
Pipedrive also gives you marketing strategy resources, plus banners, logos, photos, fonts, guidelines, and a media kit.
Affiliate program details:
Commission: 20% for 12 months
Cookie duration: 90 days
Getting paid: commission amounts for new paying customers are locked by the 7th day of the month, two months after the customer’s transaction. You receive them on the 13th of each month.
Payment method: via PartnerStack. You can withdraw once you’ve earned over $5.
The Verdict:
Pipedrive pays less per referral than HubSpot. It also never caps you, and the $5 withdrawal floor is the lowest on this list, which makes it a sensible long-term program to build on.
6. Unbounce affiliate program
Unbounce is a landing page builder aimed at conversion. It serves SaaS businesses, agencies, and e-commerce sites.
Affiliate partners earn 20% to 35% commission for the first 12 months once a referred customer subscribes, starting the moment they convert from free trial to paid.
You get a custom tracking dashboard for results, referral strategy, URL clicks, and payouts. You also get early access to Unbounce features, so you can educate your community before everyone else does.
The program works for growth experts, marketing educators, community leaders, and content creators built around audience engagement.
Affiliate program details:
Commission: 25-35% of recurring revenue on your referrals for up to 12 months per customer
Cookie duration: 90 days
Getting paid: your referrals get the same 14-day free trial as every Unbounce customer. Once they pay for their first month, you start earning. Payments are verified and paid out within 60 days after your referral starts a new trial.
Payment method: PayPal or Stripe, in the currency of your choice. (Exchange rates are subject to conversion from USD via Stripe Connect/PartnerStack.)
The Verdict:
A payout rate reaching 35% puts Unbounce near the top of the SaaS pack. If landing pages are your niche, this one’s worth a try.
7. Frase affiliate program
Frase is an AI content marketing tool built to drive organic traffic. It analyzes search queries and generates research-driven SEO content.
The program pays 30% recurring commission on all paid Frase subscriptions. There’s no limit on when you receive payouts and commissions are uncapped, so it can be steady income for years.
The downside is the cookie. Yours lasts 60 days, against the usual 90.
On the plus side, Frase runs bonuses for top performers, like a $50 cash bonus for referring 100 new customers.
The catch: you need a running website. According to Frase, succeeding without one is difficult, and social media channels alone won’t cut it.
Best suited to SEO and content marketers, existing Frase customers, agencies, and freelancers.
Affiliate program details:
Commissions: 30% recurring on all referred plans
Cookie lifespan: 60 days
Getting paid: monthly, within 30 days after the end of each month. Note: you need more than one active referred customer to receive commissions.
Payment method: PayPal, once commissions due exceed $100
The Verdict:
A 30% recurring commission is solid, but read the conditions twice. Short cookie, website required, and you need more than one active client before you see a cent. Fine if that matches your setup.
8. Semrush affiliate program
Semrush is a leading SaaS platform for online visibility management and content marketing. It runs 17 billion URL crawls every day, compiled into a database of 310 million ads and 20 billion keywords.
No wonder this heavyweight has become the default for SEO agencies and digital marketers running competitor analysis and PPC.
With 7 million clients, Semrush is a gem for affiliate marketers looking for a profitable partnership. Its program is praised for commissions, affiliate resources, and a long cookie window.
Partners get paid $200 to $350 per sale depending on volume, plus $10 for every new trial activation.
There are four commission tiers based on sales per quarter:
0 to 4 sales/quarter: $200 payout
5 to 19 sales/quarter: $250
20 to 49 sales/quarter: $300
More than 50 sales/quarter: $350
Affiliate program details:
Commission rate: $200 to $350 per sale, plus $10 for every new trial
Cookie duration: 120 days
Getting paid: hosted on the Impact network. Transaction locking happens 27 days after the end of the month, and transactions are paid 21 days after the end of the month they were locked.
Payment method: electronic funds transfer or PayPal
The Verdict:
Flat-fee payouts at every stage, a 120-day cookie, and last-click attribution. It’s also one of the easiest programs to get started with, which is why so many SEO blogs run it.
9. Mangools affiliate program
Mangools is a five-in-one toolkit covering rank tracking, backlink analysis, and domain analysis.
It’s nowhere near as popular as Semrush, but its SEO-focused program has recurring payments and strong commissions.
The best part is lifetime earnings. You can receive up to 35% commission on every monthly or annual payment made by a user who registers through your link, for the entire duration of their subscription. That adds up.
There’s also no approval process for affiliate registrations, so you can start promoting immediately. All you need is a free Mangools account, then copy one of the example links from the Affiliate section of the dashboard.
If that sounds too good to be true, here’s the catch. Cookies last only 30 days (against the usual 60, 90, or 120), so your referral has to register within a month of clicking.
Promo materials exist, including dynamic affiliate banners, but they’re limited next to what Semrush offers.
Earnings depend on your effort, though the Mangools website states their average monthly payout is $487.
Affiliate program details:
Commission rate: 35%
Cookie duration: 30 days
Getting paid: request a payout at a minimum threshold of $150. Mangools can postpone until you refer at least two different users, to prevent self-referrals.
Payment method: PayPal
The Verdict:
A 35% lifetime commission is genuinely good, and you can start promoting the same day you sign up. The $150 threshold and 30-day cookie are among the worst terms in the market, though.
Make sure you actually like the product too, because the brand name will do little of the selling for you.
10. BoldDesk affiliate program
BoldDesk is modern help desk software by Syncfusion, a company that has been helping developers build line-of-business software for over 22 years.
With it, teams organize support requests, collaborate with customers and teammates, automate repetitive tasks, and improve the overall customer experience.
The affiliate program pays 30% commission for 12 months on every paying customer.
The cookie period is good too. Your referrals have 90 days to buy.
As a bonus, you get a dedicated affiliate manager who helps you get started and find the best way to promote your links.
BoldDesk pays out around the 20th of each month for verified sales from the previous month. Watch the $100 minimum payout threshold, which applies to all payment methods.
Affiliate program details:
Commission rate: 30%
Cookie duration: 90 days
Getting paid: minimum payout threshold of $100
Payment method: all affiliates must have PayPal Business accounts
The Verdict:
A strong option if customer service is your niche. The 30% rate makes real money, as long as you can clear that $100 threshold consistently.
11. Zonka Feedback affiliate program
Zonka Feedback is a survey and feedback tool that lets businesses collect, analyze, and act on customer feedback in real time.
Users design customized surveys, track NPS, CSAT, and CES scores, and automate workflows around the results.
Affiliates earn a 25% lifetime commission for each new customer they refer, with a 120-day cookie duration. Lifetime plus 120 days is an unusually affiliate-friendly combination.
It suits SaaS influencers, bloggers, and digital marketers who can place links inside their content naturally.
Affiliate program details:
Commission: 25% lifetime commission
Cookie duration: 120 days
Getting paid: monthly, via PayPal or Stripe
Payment method: PayPal or Stripe
The Verdict:
A competitive structure with one of the longest cookies on this list. Blog posts, videos, and email all work as promo channels, and the product is easy enough to demo that reviews write themselves.
More great SaaS affiliate programs to try out in 2026
My list of 10 isn’t the whole market. Plenty of other partnerships deserve a look.
Here are 20 more SaaS affiliate programs:
Close affiliate program
Reply.io affiliate program
Reply.io affiliate program
SiteGround affiliate program
Where SaaS affiliate traffic actually comes from
Joining a program takes ten minutes. Getting clicks takes longer. Here’s what works, in rough order of how much money it makes per hour of effort.
Comparison and alternative posts. “Tool A vs Tool B” and “best X alternatives” attract people who have already decided to buy something and are choosing between options. Highest intent, highest conversion, hardest to write well. You need to have used both tools or your readers will smell it.
Review videos and walkthroughs. Screen recordings of you doing real work inside the product. These rank on YouTube and get embedded in your posts, so one recording works twice. Programs like NordVPN explicitly welcome affiliates with no website as long as they have a channel.
Listicles and roundups. The piece you’re reading. They scale across a whole category and pick up long-tail traffic for years.
Newsletters and communities. Smaller audiences, much warmer. One recommendation to 800 people who trust you can beat 50,000 cold pageviews.
Templates and free resources. Give away something people use, then mention the tool inside it. If you’re promoting outreach software, publishing cold email templates your readers can copy does the demonstration for you.
The thread running through all of them: show the product doing work, don’t describe it. Affiliates who use the tools they promote out-earn the ones who summarize feature pages, and it’s not close.
Which SaaS affiliate programs pay the most?
Because SaaS affiliate programs involve high-ticket, sticky products, they’re already the highest-paying programs out there.
Unlike low-ticket programs, SaaS companies charge recurring monthly, quarterly, or yearly fees. And SaaS customers aren’t single individuals. They’re teams, companies, and enterprises buying multiple seats.
Every SaaS deal is therefore worth more than a one-time retail purchase. That’s why SaaS affiliates earn the biggest payouts, recurring for at least a year or a lifetime.
Meanwhile, affiliates promoting single-purchase consumer goods, such as Sephora partners, get a one-time 5% payout per sale. Nothing recurs. They need to push more links and more products constantly just to generate a comparable income.
These SaaS affiliate programs pay the most in 2026:
Semrush pays from $200 to $350 per sale, scaling with quarterly volume.
ActiveCampaign’s average affiliate earns more than $1,300 per referral.
NordVPN offers 40% to 100% on new sign-ups, plus 30% on renewals for life.
Mangools offers 35% recurring for a lifetime, with only a 30-day cookie window.
lemlist offers 25% recurring (higher than tools like Apollo), plus extra rewards and support at every stage. Its real advantage is that the program folds into your own multichannel outreach, so your affiliate marketing and your prospecting run on the same engine.
Coursera offers up to 45% commission, with only a 30-day cookie duration.
Running a SaaS company and want your own affiliate program?
Half the people searching for this topic aren’t looking to join a program. They’re looking to launch one.
If that’s you, the list above doubles as a competitive benchmark. Read it as a spec sheet: 25-30% recurring for 12 months is the market rate in B2B SaaS, 90 days is a competitive cookie, and a payout threshold above $100 will cost you affiliates who never reach it.
Three things decide whether your program works. A commission that survives your own unit economics, tracking your affiliates trust (PartnerStack and Impact are the defaults for a reason), and materials that let a creator publish in an afternoon instead of a week. Then split your partners by what they actually do. People with an audience go into an affiliate program. Agencies running campaigns for clients need a partner track with deeper margins and real enablement, which is exactly why lemlist runs the Affiliate Program and the Service Partners Program separately rather than forcing both groups into one set of terms.
Over to you
Pick two programs, not ten. Choose tools you already use, because your content will be better and your conversions will follow. Then write the comparison post you wish existed when you were choosing between them.
If outbound is your niche, the lemlist affiliate program pays you for recommending a tool your audience is already searching for. Want to see what you’d actually be promoting before you apply? Start a 14-day free trial. No credit card required, cancel anytime.
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