NordVPN Affiliate Program Review

If you own a blog or website and you tend to write about digital products of various types, becoming an affiliate for a VPN service might be right up your alley. But which one should you pick from the plethora that exists today? 

Well, today’s article is everything you should know about NordVPN affiliate marketing — from how much money you can make, how easy or difficult it is to sign up, and whether or not the cookie has a limited lifetime. 

NordVPN Affiliate Program Review

What is NordVPN?

As the name of this company already suggests, if you’ve never heard of it before, it’s pretty clear that its biggest selling point is a VPN service. 

NordVPN has become hugely popular over the past decade or so and that’s because they had a very smart marketing campaign that involved reaching out to influencers on networks like YouTube and sometimes even Instagram. 

But NordVPN has been around ever since 2012, when it was founded by several buddies. To date, the brand has more than five thousand servers available across fifty different countries, so the sky’s the limit when it comes to what you can pick when you’re on vacation. 

Their user data suggests that this is also the most widely used VPN service out there as there are several millions of people now using it on a regular basis. 

What services can you promote as an affiliate?

There are three main types of products that this brand sells, but one can actually be split into two. What we mean by this is while anyone can get the basic NordVPN subscription that protects a specific personal device (or more) when they are out of the country, there’s also a version designed specifically for businesses. 

As you can imagine, that one, called NordVPN Teams, is much more powerful and secure, and it ensures that anyone utilizing a specific network is completely protected. 

This can be a feature that lots of startups might be interested in trying out, especially if they have several different employees that work remotely from all over the world. 

The next service that you can promote as a NordVPN affiliate is known as NordPass and it’s basically an app that functions very similarly to another quite popular one in the same category, LastPass. 

Therefore, this one can be utilized for storing passwords and auto-fills and making sure that folks can access their online accounts regardless of their location across the globe. 

Finally, the last product that this company makes available to their customers is called NordLocker and it is arguably one of the best file encryption tools out there, one that makes it possible for folks to store potentially sensitive data without worrying that it might be leaked or stolen by hackers. 

In short, NordVPN is a company that strives to make the Internet a safe place for everyone, so that is the reason why most of the brand’s services are heavily focused on privacy. 

Signing up for Nord VPN service affiliate marketing 

Becoming a NordVPN affiliate is much easier compared to what we have seen with other programs, and the reason we’re saying this is that you can use the company’s website to create an account and start from there or you can use a separate affiliate network. 

We couldn’t help noticing that lots of brands in the digital space still expect their affiliates to use their own websites in order to sign up for the programs. 

And in the end, this can be a really important drawback, especially if you’re a seasoned affiliate marketer and have several niche websites so you’re a member of several different programs. 

Probably the best thing about this program is that it can be found on a number of networks, and they range from huge names such as Awin, CJ Affiliate, or Impact Radius to FlexOffers and Cuelinks. 

You will have to do a bit of research on your own because all of these affiliate platforms work a little differently, use unique payment methods, and the commission might even differ from one to the other. In general, though, the rate you can expect is the one that we have specified in the section about your NordVPN affiliate commission. 

NordVPN affiliate earnings – How much money can you make?

Now we’ve finally reached the most interesting part of our review because this is where you can find out whether the NordVPN affiliate program is a lucrative one or not. 

And we have only one thing to say about that — it is one of the highest earning affiliate programs that we were able to come across and we’ve reviewed hundreds, if not thousands of them in the past. 

First of all, there’s nothing you should worry about when it comes to the cookie duration because all of your commissions can be recurring ones. 

What we mean by this is that it depends on the plans that your audience picks and purchases. For monthly plans, you will receive a 100% commission. But hold on, some of the plans are quite affordable, with a few of them being priced at less than $5 per month. 

When a person renews their plan, you will also earn a 30% commission. So in a sense, there is no tracking cookie to speak of, although you obviously can’t be paid a commission rate of 100% continuously (they’d probably go out of business if they were to pay their affiliates that high). 

To make things even better, NordVPN has made it possible for affiliates to be paid a minimum amount regardless of the plans that people renew over a certain period of time. 

For example, if someone remains a user but they get a cheap product every month, but they do so for a period of 2 years, during that amount of time, you’ll be paid a fixed $3 commission every single month anyway. That is switched to 10% of that customer’s monthly bill after the 2-year period. 

In a nutshell, the Nord VPN recurring affiliate payment combined with the fact that there’s no ‘cookie’ per se are two factors that make this program definitely worth writing home about. 

You do have 30 days at your disposal to convince someone to make a purchase, but after that, you don’t have to worry about anything else. 

Payment information

We found some pretty confusing information regarding the payment methods and the threshold that you can expect with this program, and the reason for that is that it tends to differ largely from one affiliate network to the next. 

On some, you can expect your payment threshold to be just $10 while on others, you’ll need to rack up $50 in commissions before being able to be paid for whatever sales you’ve referred to NordVPN. 

You might also like: Liquid Web affiliate program

As for how you can actually get your money, that’s one less thing to worry about. You can be paid through PayPal (which can be convenient especially for affiliates located in countries other than those in North America or the UK) or you can get your hard-earned cash directly sent out to your bank account. 

There are several currencies available, although from what we gathered, creating a Payoneer account and using the virtual bank accounts you get from there is also possible. 

Pros of joining the Nord VPN affiliate program

Pretty much most of what we have already described should have convinced you to try out this affiliate program, especially since it is free to join and there are no limits in terms of the country you might be based in or even the amount of traffic that your blog is getting. 

One of the first notable advantages would have to be the fact that NordVPN tends to accept most affiliates. About 5% out of all of the people that try to join it are not accepted into the program, though, but that’s what NordVPN affiliate managers are there for, after all. 

Read more: Refersion affiliate marketplace review

By the way, you get a dedicated affiliate manager when you join, so there will be someone who will be able to answer your questions in case you run into, say, a technical issue. 

Another obvious pro is the fact that this program can be joined by affiliates using several different networks. Some of them, such as CJ Affiliate, have superior tracking information, which means that you will be able to look at all of the stats you might need to consult in order to improve your performance. 

On top of everything, the fact that this brand is so well-known these days for offering excellent services should make it easier for you to recommend the VPN to your readership. NordVPN also has an influencer program, so if you’re a successful YouTuber, you may need to read more info on that, too. 

Are there any cons to becoming a NordVPN affiliate?

Perhaps the only drawback to becoming a Nord VPN affiliate would have to be the fact that deep linking is not available — at least not at the time we’re writing this. 

Also, on the vast range of affiliate platforms that are now working with the company, we couldn’t find any marketing materials, whether banners or something else, in any other language than English. So if you blog in a different language and you’d like to use some marketing materials, you will have to create them yourself and use your affiliate link with them. 

Sharing your NordVPN affiliate link

Although you will have to do a bit of reading by yourself as to where you can actually share your NordVPN affiliate link, we would like to note that the program doesn’t have any specific restrictions with regard to social media or other such websites. 

The terms and conditions do clearly state that you are not allowed in any way to promote NordVPN by using scammy or shady tactics, and we think that this claim probably involves PPC while using the company name. 

Also, if you make a review of one of their services, you will have to keep it as realistic as possible as there’s a line in the terms and conditions document as to unrealistic claims. 

Do consider that violating any of these requests can get you booted out of the program, so unless you want to lose a steady stream of passive income, we suggest sticking to the rules. 

You might also like: A2 Hosting affiliate program review

Nord VPN affiliate program alternatives

SurfShark

This one is somewhat similar in that the commission is relatively decent, since you can make as much as 40% out of every sale that you refer to the company. However, the cookie clearly lasts for 30 days and we couldn’t find any specific info as to whether or not the commission is recurring or not. 

What we would like to note about this one is that, compared to NordVPN, which obviously has a much better rate, SurfShark is not the cheapest VPN out there, which means that even if the rate is lower, you still have the chance to make decent money. 

Tunnelbear

The program created by Tunnelbear should be right up your alley if you’re looking for one that works through CJ Affiliate. Other than that, you can expect a rate of 50% out of the value of all of the subscriptions that your audience opts for with a cookie lasting for 45-days. 

As is the case with SurfShark, we couldn’t find out whether this one has recurring commissions, so it’s safe to assume that it does not, at least not at this time. All in all, it looks like the NordVPN affiliate program is the better one until now. 

Read more: LeadDyno Review

TorGuard

This one does offer recurring commissions, so that detail might be something you may be interested in. Being a TorGuard affiliate is pretty lucrative in that your commissions are going to be 30% for the duration of any one of your referral’s subscriptions. 

The cookie lasts for 60 days, so you have two months at your disposal after someone clicks your affiliate link to register a sale. The downside is that this one isn’t managed by any network, so you’ll have to join and run everything on the TorGuard website. This one is a pretty good competitor of NordVPN, at least when it comes to affiliate marketing. 

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author avatar
Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years. In this time I have gained extensive knowledge in the subject of SEO and have build up a wealth of experience in SEO and other digital marketing services.

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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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