If you have been looking for a good affiliate program in the web hosting niche and you’ve run out of ideas, then this article is for you. We’ve put together a comprehensive review of the GreenGeeks affiliate program where we give you all the info you need, from how much you can earn through this opportunity to how you can get paid.
GreenGeeks is a Canadian web hosting company that’s one of the most user-friendly and eco-friendly ones out there. It’s also one of the most affordable options that people can opt for these days, with some of the plans starting at just $1.99 per month.
The servers used by GreenGeeks are based in Toronto and Montreal. Based on the info we found about it, it seems that the brand is very much into offering scalable, fast, and secure web hosting without having a significant impact on the environment by producing energy at the same time.
Although it is somewhat of a newer company, we’d say that recommending GreenGeeks services to your followers might make sense, particularly if you know for a fact that they might be interested in trying out eco-friendly hosting.
In terms of performance, their speed is pretty good because they rely on a variety of technologies, whether that be MariaDB, PHP7, free CDN, or LiteSpeed or LSCache. They do a pretty good job when it comes to security, too, so that’s one less thing to worry about.
The plans that you’ll come across if you check out the GreenGeeks website are more than budget-friendly for all of the types of hosting that the brand sells right now. Of course, at the time we’re writing this, the company had a sale, so the cost was even lower for all of the subscriptions, including the more generous ones.
The Lite is often sold for $1.99 per month but its regular price is actually $10.95 per month — this one gives people features such as standard performance, 50GB of web space, 50 email accounts, free nightly backup, a free domain name for a whole year, a free CDN, as well as a free SSL certificate. Every plan comes with one tree planted.
The Pro plan is among the most popular ones sold by GreenGeeks right now and it includes some of the previously noted features, along with neat stuff like unlimited databases, unlimited transfer, unlimited email accounts, and unlimited web space. This one is billed at $15.95 per month.
As for their Premium plan, this one costs $29.95 per month and comes with the best performance, unlimited websites, unmetered transfer, a free dedicated IP, object caching, as well as a free AlphaSSL. All of the rest of the features from the Pro can be found in this one, too.
We are not going to go into a lot of detail in terms of the other types of hosting, but when it comes to the WordPress one, there are three main plans and they are priced the same as in the case of the classic web hosting option.
The VPS hosting is of course a little more expensive, with the 2GB plan costing $39.95 per month and offering 2 GB of ram, 50 GB SSD Disk space, 10 TB transfer, 4 vCPU, and much more. The two other options available for this service are the 4GB one, billed at $59.95 per month, and the 8GB one, billed at $109.95 per month — the largest one including all sorts of nifty features, of course, from 150GB SSD disk space to 6 vCPU.
The prices of the reseller hosting plans range from $32.99 per month for the RH-25 to $67.99 per month for the RH-80.
From the information that we gathered on this, it looks like this affiliate program is self-managed. Therefore, you are not going to encounter it on any separate affiliate network, whether that be ClickBank, ShareASale, Awin, or anything else.
This can be a bit of a drawback for hardcore affiliates who have dozens and dozens of niche websites and who find no point in checking their stats and performance on dozens and dozens of separate websites every day.
But it also gives the company a little more control when it comes to who is promoting their services. Also, in case you run into an issue whatsoever, you’ll be able to talk to an affiliate manager at GreenGeeks directly instead of needing to have a conversation with the middleman.
To join the program, you will have to fill out a form with some basic information such as your first and last name, your email, and how you intend to promote GreenGeeks services. You’ll get your reply in a few working days as to whether they have accepted you into the program or not.
Here’s where things start to get quite interesting. GreenGeeks have a commission structure that’s based on the number of new customers you refer to their services every single month.
If you manage to make just one sale, you’ll be paid a rate of $50. If you get two sales, your rate is increased to $60. At more than 6 sales per month, you can make $100 per sale, which we’d say is not a bad commission rate at all.
The only thing that could have been slightly better would be a recurring rate, even at $5 per month for each customer or something like this — or the option of you picking between a model where you get paid per sale or you get a recurring rate over a period of one to two years depending on however long your referrals’ subscriptions last.
We couldn’t find any specific info as to how long the tracking cookie is, though, so you’ll need to do a bit of research on your own on that.
There are three basic payout methods when it comes to this affiliate program. The first is PayPal, something that lots of hosting companies that use affiliate marketing as a way to advertise themselves use, and it has its pros and cons.
We did not come across any limitations in terms of how much you need to make before being able to receive your earnings through PayPal.
The other payment method is cheque, which we think is available for North America (since GreenGeeks is a Canadian company). When you earn $1,000 or more per month with the program, you can switch to the wire transfer payment method.
While other brands use a Net60 model for payments, you’ll be happy to know that you will have to wait for just 30 days with this one — payments are processed on the 15th of every month. The waiting period makes perfect sense, though, since there’s a 30-day money back guarantee, so it wouldn’t be fair for you to receive a commission even for purchases on which users ask for refunds.
This is a fairly good alternative to the GreenGeeks affiliate program and the reason we’re saying this is that you can make a pretty decent side income with WPX hosting. For the first 25 referrals you send out their way, you’ll get a flat rate of $70 per referral.
Once you hit the 100 referral mark, you can earn $100 in commissions for every sale made through your affiliate link. One thing we do have to note about the program is that an affiliate manager from WPX Hosting will take the time to verify your commissions, so you’ll be paid between the 15 and 30 of every month once that happens.
The Bluehost affiliate program now seems a little less excellent when comparing it to other earning opportunities, especially since the minimum rate you can expect with it is $65.
It is true that your commission can be increased to $100 depending on your performance, but the truth is that it can be a little challenging because you need to consistently send customers to Bluehost on a regular basis.
With the Bluehost affiliate program, you can expect to get your earnings on the 16th of every single month. Unfortunately, there’s only one type of payment method available and it’s PayPal.
This is another interesting alternative to the GreenGeeks affiliate program, but you are not going to be able to make a fortune with it — the reason for this statement is the fact that Namecheap, unlike some of the other brands that we have already mentioned, pays its affiliates a percentage of whatever sale they refer to them.
Naturally, if you manage to convince someone to get the yearly or even the 2-year plan for SSL or VPN, you’ll make more thanks to the 35% to 50% commission — but if someone gets the monthly payment model, you’re not going to get rich with the affordable rates that Namecheap sells some of its products for. Still, even the VPN trial can make you a $2 commission, which is still better than nothing.
Read more: Best WordPress Hosting – WPX Hosting Review
The Scala Hosting affiliate program is more than decent in our opinion. You can earn both on the web hosting and the VPS hosting and the minimum commission rate you can expect with the first is $50. The rate can go up to $200 or more depending on your performance.
For the VPS, for example, if you refer more than 10 people per month, your rate is definitely going to be $200. For the web hosting, anything between 11 and 20 referrals per month will make you $100 and if you manage to make more than 21 sales, you can negotiate your rate.
As is the case with many of the other programs listed here, though, the main drawback is that the main payment method employed by Scala Hosting is PayPal.
You might also like: Cloudways Affiliate Program Review
We might have mentioned the A2 Hosting affiliate program not just because it is among the most lucrative ones we’ve come across, but also because the brand is very well-known, so you might have a bit less trouble recommending their services to your followers.
As an A2 Hosting affiliate, you can make anything from $55 to $125 depending on your performance. If you convince more than 21 people to get A2 Hosting for a brand new website or switch to the company’s services, your rate will be increased to $125.
Like some of the others we’ve showcased before, A2 Hosting uses PayPal to process the payments they need to make to their affiliates. There is the option of you getting your earnings through wire transfers, but changing the payment method can be a bit of a pain since you need to contact an affiliate manager and ask them to do it for you — the change is not automatic.
The model employed by SiteGround is in many ways similar to what we have talked about when describing the previously noted affiliate programs, too. The only difference is that the rate is slightly lower, since you’ll be paid a $50 commission for anything between 1 and 5 sales and a $100 one for 11 to 20 referred sales.
You can negotiate your rate once you start referring more than 21 customers to SiteGround per month. PayPal is the only payout method currently used by SiteGround, so unless you have a working account on the platform, we’d say that you shouldn’t even bother with this one.
Read more: Scala Hosting Affiliate Program Review
The HostGator affiliate program somewhat resembles what the A2 Hosting one has to offer to affiliates in that even the commissions are quite similar — but the minimum one with HostGator is $65, though.
The area where this program truly shines, especially when comparing it to the others, is that HostGator has nothing against paying you through a variety of methods. You can withdraw your earnings through anything ranging from PayPal, ACH, or cheque, and you are also allowed to utilize a Payoneer account if that seems more up your alley.
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