Elegant Themes Affiliate Program Review
If you have been running a website or a blog for quite a while now and you’re looking for new ways of monetizing it, you’ve come to the perfect place. We’ve written about many affiliate programs in the past, but for today, we’ve prepared a review of the Elegant Themes affiliate program.
We’ll go into what Elegant Themes is, the pros and cons of being an affiliate, what kind of money you can make, what tracking cookie you can expect and more. Read on for more information!
ElegantThemes Affiliate Program Review
Elegant Themes – The basics
As you might have been able to tell from the brand’s own name, even if you’ve never heard of the company before, Elegant Themes is in the business of creating WordPress themes and plugins.
What does set the service aside from some of its competitors is the fact that it’s been around for more than a decade now. More than 700,000 people out there have tried their products, so that goes to show just how much these individuals trust Elegant Themes.
There are two main plans that folks can opt for, but we will go into more detail on that in the section below.
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What services can you recommend to your audience?
The way everything works is perhaps a little unique when compared to other theme affiliate programs out there. There are two main plans available.
The largest one costs $249 and it offers lifetime access to a variety of features and products, whether that be the Divi, Extra, Bloom, and Monarch, or attractive things such as unlimited website usage, lifetime updates, or lifetime premium support.
For someone running a website and not wanting to handle the hassle of all of these parts, getting the one-time subscription can be a great solution.
There is another plan available and it is priced at $89 per year. It comes with most of the features that can be found in the more expensive version with the exception of lifetime updates.
The Divi Theme Builder is perhaps the most attractive feature that Elegant Themes have to offer right now, since it makes customizing a website super easy.
Users have complete control over everything in terms of design and they can also make the most of their online presence with social media marketing, lead generation, and online marketing thanks to Monarch and Bloom.
The toolkit also comes in handy for anyone who wants to build an online shop or is already running one and they’re looking to simplify the whole process.
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How can you become an Elegant Themes affiliate?
We’ve noticed this with many other programs in the same niche and it’s the fact that they are self-managed. This means that you are not going to come across Elegant Themes on any of the networks that we might have reviewed in the past, whether that be JVZoo, ClickBank, ShareASale, or any other.
On the one hand, this is a disadvantage since some affiliate marketers literally have dozens of websites in different niches, so using a network is made a lot easier for everyone involved.
On the other hand, this does give Elegant Themes more control when it comes to affiliate management. What we mean by this is that they can easily check the websites the banners and other promotional materials show up on and see whether they stick to the rules or not.
Although it might seem like a hassle to check on your dashboard once every several days, we don’t think that this is a significant drawback, so it shouldn’t deter you from considering becoming an affiliate.
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Read more: Top affiliate programs in South Africa
Elegant Themes affiliate income
This is the part that you’ve probably been waiting for, so let’s clearly say how much you can earn with this program.
The commission rate actually makes this option one of the best you have available right now. You make 50% out of every sale you refer to the site, but there are some caveats. For example, when someone uses your link to buy a membership, whether a yearly or a lifetime one, you make half of whatever they are paying to Elegant Themes.
To turn this into actual money, that means a $44.5 commission for you for the yearly plan and an amazing $124.5 commission for the lifetime one.
We mentioned the caveats, so let’s get into them. While you can also make 50% on Divi Cloud purchases, whatever someone buys from the Divi Marketplace will earn you a 15% commission. Still, that’s not bad if you compare the program with others (and we will get into that in the last part of our article).
Every affiliate program comes with a tracking cookie, and its duration can vary a lot from one to the next. Even though the cookie of this program lasts for just 30 days, you still get the opportunity to make recurring commissions for the remainder of someone’s subscription.
So that means that even if the cookie expires, but they decide to renew their plan or purchase something from the Divi Marketplace later down the line, you’ll still get a commission for that.
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Pros and cons to being an Elegant Themes affiliate
One of the first obvious benefits when it comes to using Elegant Themes for affiliate marketing or even for increasing your occasional side income is the commission rate. Not a lot of other programs can offer you as much as 50% out of the value of their plans.
Another advantage is the fact that as an affiliate, you get a manager that you get to work with in case you run into a problem that you can’t solve on your own.
There are plenty of ElegantThemes affiliate banners and other promotional materials and you are even allowed to create your own if that’s what you feel would lead to better conversions for you.
The dashboard is very user-friendly, so even someone who doesn’t have a lot of technical skills can easily tell what their earnings are, where they’re getting their visits from, and what commissions are approved and can therefore be withdrawn.
Since there are good things and bad things when it comes to using any affiliate program out there, we thought we’d mention some of the drawbacks, too.
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The cookie is the first that we’d like to note here. 30 days might not be enough for all affiliate marketers, and the fact that other options, such as Thrive Themes, have cookies that last for up to two years definitely makes you look at the program differently.
On top of everything, PayPal is the only way of getting your money that you have available. So, if you do not have a PayPal account or for some reason, you can’t use the service any longer, you literally have no means of withdrawing your earnings.
PayPal also has some hefty commissions when you transfer the money to your normal bank account, so that is another caveat that you ought to consider.
Finally, the minimum payout threshold is another significant disadvantage. Until you make $200 in commissions, you will basically not be allowed to get your hard-earned cash — and that can be a serious con for lots of affiliates, especially those that have blogs that aren’t getting too much traffic or whose conversion rates aren’t through the roof.
You might also like: Teachable affiliate program review
Rules you shouldn’t break as an ElegantThemes affiliate
Even though we did expect a set of rules to exist because that’s what every affiliate program needs in order to ensure that their brand name doesn’t end up on shady websites, there are quite a lot of them.
First of all, you are not allowed to incentivize people to click on your affiliate link in any way. Of course, you should disclose that your links can earn you some commissions, but you basically have no other way of recommending Elegant Themes services other than by making a review of them.
Any websites promoting any kind of violence or adult content are not allowed into the program, but that’s something that will become clear right after their owners apply for the first time.
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You are also not allowed to use coupons, fake discounts, sweepstakes, or any other such bizarre marketing method. We couldn’t find any information on whether or not you can use PPC, but given what we know about similar affiliate programs, you are probably not allowed to use the brand’s name in your ads.
iFrames or pop-ups are a no-go, too, so you can’t use them either for boosting your traffic or making your readers click on your affiliate link.
But if all this does not sound unreasonable to you and you think you can stick to the rules and have a chance to make some decent side income, we’d advise you to consider the program.
The tracking is very easy to understand and you also get to benefit from 24/7 support if your links or codes somehow end up being broken. Based on some affiliate reviews that we have consulted for the article, it seems that the customer service is actually quite helpful and can assist you in solving any issue.
Read more: What is email automation?
What other choices do you have?
As you might imagine, the Elegant Themes affiliate program is not the only option you have at your disposal. If your website’s or blog’s niche allows you to promote such services, you might want to check out the following alternatives, too.
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Astra
The rates can vary when it comes to this one, but they can go up to $200 or more (for each sale). Naturally, it all depends on exactly what your readers opt for. The cookie period is two months and you can get all your earnings through PayPal, which is also what Elegant Themes relies on now.
As for popularity, we’d like to note that there are more than one million websites now using the Astra theme — and that the company has paid more than $1 million in commissions to their affiliates until now.
GeneratePress
This is another service that has been used by thousands of people across the world, especially in the past decade or so. Unfortunately, it is overall a less impressive option when comparing it to Elegant Themes.
The commission rate you get with GeneratePress is 30% out of every purchase referred by you. Unfortunately, the cookie lasts for just 30 days, which is quite low when compared to others, including the Elegant Themes affiliate tracking cookie.
MyThemeShop
Although this one is not as well-known as some of the other programs in this niche, it is definitely worth looking into — and the reason we’re saying this is the 55% commission rate.
The payout happens every single month, so you will not be forced to wait for a Net60 period, for example. To make things even sweeter, MyThemeShop is probably the only program that does not have a minimum payout threshold.
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ThemeIsle
As a ThemeIsle affiliate, you can actually make more – the commission rate is 55% out of every sale. The fact that the cookie lasts for an entire year is another bonus, so we definitely urge you to consider this program.
Other highlights that we like to note here range from the wide variety of promotional materials to the fact that you get a dedicated affiliate support team.
Thrive Themes
There are quite a few nice things about the Thrive Themes affiliate program, which we have reviewed recently, too. Although the commission is lower, meaning that you can make 35% out of every sale, you also get a recurring rate of 25% on everyone who renews their subscription.
On top of that, the tracking cookie lasts for two years, which is downright incredible. All the payments are processed through PayPal, the same service that Elegant Themes use.
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StudioPress
There are a few differences between this one and the Elegant Themes affiliate program. The main one is the commission rate that you can expect — with StudioPress, you can make 35% out of what your audience pays after clicking on your affiliate links.
Then, there’s the fact that the payments are sent out either through cheque or through direct deposit (unlike Elegant Themes, with the company using only PayPal). In case you also refer other marketers to the affiliate program, you can make $1 per referral.
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Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.
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