SurfShark Affiliate Program Review
Using a VPN these days is practically vital for lots of activities.
Whether you go on vacation to a different country and you’re still looking to continue using streaming services as if you were at home or you want to rely on a VPN to make sure that your financial information remains anonymous to the hotel you’re staying at, this type of service definitely comes in handy.
So, if you own a blog or website where you tend to write about digital products and services, enrolling in a VPN affiliate program might make sense for you. Here’s what you should know if you’d like to become a SurfShark affiliate.
SurfShark Affiliate Program Review
What is SurfShark?
As you might have been able to tell, SurfShark is a company operating in the VPN space. There are lots of competitors that the brand needs to battle, especially since in the past decade or so, people have started becoming more aware of the fact that they should protect their personal information.
Although it’s not one of the oldest companies in this niche, SurfShark does offer a number of quite attractive services that you, as an affiliate marketer, can easily recommend to your audience.
What services can you promote as a SurfShark VPN affiliate?
There are four main types of products that you can promote as an affiliate and you can basically earn the same rate on all of them. There’s obviously the SurfShark VPN, which is the main service offered by this brand, and which has been described as one of the most reliable options around.
The VPN ensures that all the user data remains securely hidden from anyone who may want to steal it and use it maliciously.
There’s also a SurfShark antivirus product that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. This one works on a variety of devices, operating on popular systems such as Windows, macOS, and Android. We particularly like the fact that it is extremely easy to install across all devices, so ease of use is one of its biggest selling points.
There is a free trial available with the virus but it only detects and gets rid of malware and other similar threats. The rest of the features come with the paid account. And from what we have noticed, the plans tend to differ a lot price-wise in terms of how a user decides to pay.
For example, the monthly cost of the antivirus is 13.46 euro per month, but if a user chooses to pay for the whole year, they will effectively get a discount of 62%, where the cost per month will become just 5.16 euro per month. If they get it for two years, the price will be even lower, billed at around 3.76 euro per month.
At the time we’re writing this, SurfShark was doing a discount on all of the packages.
Another interesting product offered by the company is called SurfShark Search. This one is not billed separately as it is included in one of the largest plans available for sale right now, which has the VPN, the antivirus, the SurfShark Alert, as well as the Search.
This large package costs 3.76 euro per month when you get the 24-month plan, but it is also priced at the classic 13.46 euro per month if you decide to first give it a shot.
Finally, another service that SurfShark makes available to its users is called Alert and basically involves effective protection for a person’s online accounts, whether that be accounts on various websites or their emails. Credit card information is also a part of this protection.
Thanks to SurfShark Alert, people receive a notification each time one of their accounts may be compromised so that they can change their password and secure them as quickly as possible.
Joining the SurfShark affiliate program
There are two main ways of becoming a SurfShark affiliate. You can send an email to affiliates@surfshark.com so that someone reviews your application manually right from the company’s website.
But probably the neatest thing about this program is that you can find it on many, many affiliate networks. Here are a few that we came across while doing our research in this sense:
- Impact Radius
- AvantLin
- Tunes
- VigLink
- MyLead
We wrote reviews of some of these networks, so if you have some time on your hands, perhaps consider giving them a read.
In any case, the point to all of this is that if you are already using, say, AvantLink for your affiliate marketing (which we wrote a review of here), all you have to do is to search for SurfShark there, join the program, and then you have everything in the same place.
It really makes no point to join and manage your stats and performance and activity on the brand’s own website, particularly if you are an affiliate of many other programs. It is more time effective to use an affiliate platform for all (or most) of them.
Read more: Top Australian affiliate programs and networks
How much can you earn with the SurfShark VPN affiliate program?
Here’s one of the most interesting things that you should know if you want to become a SurfShark affiliate. What are your SurfShark affiliate earnings likely to look like?
While we can’t give you a clear answer to this question as it obviously depends on your conversions, the amount of traffic you’re getting on your blog, and how convincing you are in your content, we will tell you everything you should know about the SurfShark affiliate commission.
You can make 40% out of every order placed through your affiliate links. That includes the monthly and yearly plans.
The tracking cookie lasts for thirty days and from what we were able to understand, you will not be paid a recurring commission each time one of your referred users renews their plan.
The payment methods that you can use depend on the network you will be utilizing for managing your activity. On some, you can be paid via PayPal while on others, you will need to make wire transfers or use Payoneer.
There is no limit in terms of your location. However, there is a minimum payment threshold in place and it’s $100 — a little higher than what we have seen with similar VPN affiliate programs.
You might also like: Flywheel affiliate program review
Pros and cons to being a SurfShark affiliate
When it comes to using affiliate marketing and joining a new program, you always have to compare the upsides and the downsides. Starting out with the pros, one of the most significant ones that we’d like to note is that this is a trustworthy company.
We haven’t found any specific negative reviews on either the program itself or the services offered by SurfShark. In fact, you also get to work with a personal affiliate manager in case you run into a problem. And let’s face it, that can make things a lot easier depending on your previous knowledge of affiliate marketing, networks, and everything else.
Another obvious advantage is the commission rate itself. Not many companies out there can make it possible for you to earn 40% out of the purchases made by your audience, right?
Moreover, since you can use a separate network to manage everything, you have all of your programs in a single place, including your stats and your performance.
When it comes to the cons, we only found something that might bother you, but it shouldn’t be deal-breaking — the fact that the commission isn’t a recurring one. It would have been nice to have say, a 40% commission on new purchases and a 5% or a 10% on renewals.
Read more: MasterClass affiliate program review
How does the SurfShark affiliate program compare to others?
Not all VPN services are the same when it comes to performance and quality. You can’t compare a good VPN like SurfShark to a browser extension that comes for free, both in terms of capabilities and security.
But when it comes to affiliate marketing, you need to choose the most lucrative program for you and also pick the one that you think will best resonate with your audience. So, in case you want to try something different, here are a few SurfShark alternatives.
NordVPN
We recently wrote a review of the NordVPN affiliate program, so we suggest you give it a read. In many ways, what this company has to offer is very similar to what SurfShark does for its affiliates. The commission is 40% on all purchases and the cookie also lasts for 30 days.
Something worth writing home about is that Nord VPN is indeed one of the best-known companies in this field, so people may have heard of it before. They also sponsor lots of influencers on a regular basis, so you may have a less hard time recommending the services to your readers.
We’d also like to note that the Nord VPN affiliate program works through CJ Affiliate, so if you already use that network, everything will be very easy and convenient.
OVPN
Although this company might not be as well-known as some of the others we’re including in this article, it does have a fairly decent affiliate program. The base commission rate with this one is 30%, so it’s lower, but depending on the value of the purchase made through your affiliate link, it can get as high as 50%.
The downside is that the tracking cookie lasts for just 17 days, so it is considerably lower than what we’ve seen with alternative programs. No recurring commissions are available with this one, either, unfortunately.
Express VPN
This one is slightly different from what you may be used to, in the sense that the brand doesn’t pay a percentage of the sale. The rate can therefore vary between $13 per sale and $36 per sale. While that may not seem like a lot, it’s actually pretty good.
In some cases, even if someone decides to get the yearly VPN plan, your 30% or 40% cut may not amount to $36. Another aspect that makes the Express VPN affiliate program worth considering is the fact that the cookie lasts for three whole months. So, if your audience tends to make up their mind a little slower, this one may be a good choice.
Fastest VPN
If you’re definitely not willing to sell yourself short and you want to become an affiliate of one of the highest earning programs out there, Fastest VPN might be right up your alley.
And the reason we’re saying this is that the commission rate you can expect with this one is 60%, so it’s much better than what other brands have to offer. The cookie lasts for 90 days, too, which is another pro.
Finally, there’s the fact that you can join the program through ShareASale, undoubtedly one of the largest and also most reputable affiliate networks in the world right now.
Norton VPN
We decided to add this one to our list simply because it’s very, very well-known. Several years ago, Norton had an antivirus that hundreds of thousands of people across the world used to rely on to protect their devices.
The good thing is that you can join the program through CJ Affiliate, but the bad thing is that the rate is just 20% on all purchases — and it doesn’t get higher than this. At least the cookie lasts for two months instead of one.
You might also like: Bluehost affiliate program review
Final thoughts
So, does becoming a SurfShark affiliate make sense for you? That is a question that only you can answer, but we’d say that it’s a pretty decent program.
The commission rate is fairly decent and the 30-day cookie is something you will undoubtedly encounter with other programs. There are lots of products and services that are effective and that you can suggest to your audience if you use SurfShark for affiliate marketing.
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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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