Shopify Affiliate Program Review – How Does it Work?

Trying to make money promoting Shopify as an affiliate and looking for a Shopify affiliate program review before you join it in order to find out if this program is worth your time and effort and if you can make money online with it?

You have come to the right place!

I have been a Shopify affiliate for more than three years now.

And I will show you in this review all what you need to know before you join the Shopify affiliate program, what you need in order to join it, how you can promote it and make money with it, how much you will get paid, and if it was worth the time and money to invest in promoting it.

And at the end of this Shopify affiliate review, I will tell you about the best alternatives to this affiliate program in case that you couldn’t make money with it, and will provide you with some resources and tools that would help you in your journey as a Shopify affiliate or partner.

 

Shopify Affiliate Program Review Summary

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• Name: Shopify Affiliate Program
• Website: www.Shopify.com/affiliates
• Founders: Shopify, founded by Tobias “Tobi” Lütke
• Price: Free to join
• Legit/Scam: Legit

Overall OnlinePassiveIncomeGuide.com Rating: 94 of 100

Summary: Shopify affiliate program is legit, and you can make money with it as one of the many ways of making money with Shopify if you know how to target people interested in starting an ecommerce business or the existing online store owners and convince them with the benefits of using Shopify to build and host their online stores.

What makes your job easier as a Shopify affiliate is that Shopify provides a great platform that is easy to use, highly reliable and comes with great support for both, store owners and Shopify affiliates.

 

What Is Shopify Affiliate Program?

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Shopify Affiliate Program is the program that you need to join and get accepted in order to get a unique link (affiliate link) that you can use in order to promote the Shopify platform to people who can use it to easily and efficiently build and manage online stores, and you will get a commission of $58-$2,000 per each new paying user (referral) that you bring through your link depending on the plan they choose.

Shopify Referral Program

This is the same Shopify affiliate program, but sometimes people call it Shopify referral program.

What Is Shopify Partner Program?

This is very similar to Shopify Affiliate Program, but with the Shopify affiliate program, you only promote Shopify through your link, and your referrals build their stores by themselves, and you get paid a one-time bounty commission that is equal to 200% of their first month payment.

While with the Shopify Partner Program, you actually build your customer’s stores for them through your Shopify partner dashboard, and you get two sources of income:

• Monthly recurring commission that is equal to 20% of what your referral pays every month to Shopify.
• You can get paid a fee from the referral for your services of building the stores for them and even for managing the technical side of the store on the long run.

This is what is nice about Shopify’s affiliate program, you have the option to get paid one-time commissions as an affiliate, or a recurring commission as a partner in addition to selling your services to those who want someone to help them create and manage their stores.

 

How Does Shopify Affiliate Program Work?

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1 – Sign Up For Shopify Affiliate Program & Get Your Affiliate Link

This is the usual process for joining any affiliate program out there.

There’s an application form that you need to fill in before you get your Shopify affiliate links.

This form includes details such as: your name, address, phone number, your bank account details, your website(s), …etc.

And you should wait for a couple of days while your request is being reviewed by Shopify’s team before you get access to your Shopify Partner (affiliate) dashboard.

This mainly depends on the website you own if it was well-established and if you were active in publishing content on it.

No worries if you don’t have this yet, check the last section of this Shopify affiliate program review in order to learn how to start with this.

2 – Start Promoting Shopify Through Your Affiliate Link

Once you receive the email about approving your request, you can now access your Shopify affiliate account and get your affiliate links in order to start promoting Shopify as an affiliate and make money.

And in order to promote Shopify to potential clients, you can do that in many different ways such as:

1. Creating content on your blog (preferred method) where you teach people how to create online stores or ecommerce businesses using Shopify without coding or any technical experience, and you share your affiliate link inside your content.
2. Creating video tutorials and courses and uploading them to your YouTube channel showing people how they can use Shopify in order to easily setup and manage ecommerce stores and from there, you lead them to your website where you have your affiliate links.
3. Email marketing campaigns to people interested in making money online educating them about different models of ecommerce and telling them how Shopify can to help them start their own ecommerce stores in few minutes without technical knowledge.
4. Offering people interested in starting an ecommerce business the opportunity to build online stores for them using Shopify and doing that as a Shopify partner so that you get recurring commission from Shopify, in addition to the fee you charge your customers for building the stores on their behalf.
5. Help out people on Q&A platforms and forums and answering their questions that are related to creating ecommerce stores, and then, promote Shopify as the best way to starting an online store without technical knowledge.

And many other ways of doing affiliate marketing without a website.

But in my opinion, and if you want to do affiliate marketing the right way, then having your own website it the best way to make money with Shopify as an affiliate because you own your website and no one can take from you.

And when you create content on your website, you optimize your blog posts for search engines in order to show up on Google when someone is searching for the info you provide.

This is how you get the free traffic, which is the one that converts the best by far, and then, you can use many other ways to increase the traffic to your blog for free.

And don’t worry if you don’t have experience with creating blogs or websites because you don’t need any prior experience order to start thanks to the great website builders like the one at Wealthy Affiliate, which allows you to build a WordPress website in under 30 seconds, and they give you a training on how to add content to it and how to monetize your blog with the great affiliate marketing training courses they provide you with.

More on that in the last section of this review of the Shopify affiliate program.

3 – Earn A Commission Everytime One Of Your Shopify Referrals Becomes A Paying User

Now that you have created and published the quality content that helps people with starting an ecommerce store, and that you drove traffic to your content in the different effective ways, someone from your audience might find that Shopify is for them and might click on your Shopify affiliate link in order to try it for themselves.

And after the 14-day trial ends, if your Shopify referral upgrades to one of the paid plans, you will get a commission that is equal to the first two months of their paid membership.

And that’s how Shopify affiliate program works and how you can make money with Shopify as an affiliate marketer, which is one of the many ways of making money with Shopify.

 

How To Become A Shopify Affiliate In 5 Steps?

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Here are some tips on how to get approved for Shopify affiliate program:

1 – Build A Niche Website

This is a must as in Shopify’s help center regarding their affiliate program.

You need to have an established website in order to show Shopify that you are a serious affiliate and that you will represent their brand properly.

And this is the right way if you want to succeed at affiliate marketing with any affiliate program, whether it was Shopify or not.

As I mentioned earlier, you can check the last section of this Shopify affiliate review in order to see how you can easily start your website and with no prior experience or technical requirements.

And you need to choose a niche for your affiliate website in order to build an audience that will read your content.

2 – Create Helpful Content

Now that you have chosen your niche, you need to research what people in your niche need help with, and how they can benefit from using Shopify to solve their problems.

For example, if you have your niche about helping people to sell their own products online, then you can educate them about the importance of having their own online store in order to show their products and receive payments from buyers.

And that’s where you can promote Shopify through your affiliate link as the best platform to start an online store.

3 – Apply For The Shopify Affiliate Program

Now that you have your website in place, and you have original and helpful content on it, you have better chances in getting approved for the Shopify affiliate program.

Apply through the Shopify affiliate program signup page and include enter the name and address of your website and wait for them to review and approve your request.

This might take a few days before they reply. And if they don’t approve your request, then don’t worry, you can always try again later.

But most important is that you can find other web hosting affiliate programs to join through the different ways of researching affiliate programs.

4 – Get Your Links & Place Them Strategically

Now that you are approved to promote Shopify as an affiliate, you can login to your dashboard and grab your affiliate link to the Shopify home page, or you can generate “deep affiliate links” to any page on the Shopify website.

And you need to place your affiliate links strategically inside your content where it is possible to get people click through in order to start their 14-day trial with Shopify.

5 – Earn Commissions Everytime Someone Upgrades To A Paid Shopify Plan

After the 14-days trial of your referral ends, Shopify will deduct the monthly fee based on the plan they have signed up for as long as they want to continue using Shopify for their online stores.

And you will get credited a commission once your referral pays for the first two months of their Shopify membership, which will be held for 30 days before it is released to you through PayPal.

 

Shopify Affiliate Program Features

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Here are some of the key components of the Shopify affiliate program that you should know before you join them:

1 – Shopify Affiliate Commission Payout

Shopify pays an affiliate commission that depends on the plan for which your referral has signed up.

For the normal Shopify plans, you get a commission that is equal to the first 2 months fees of each Shopify plan, as follows:

• Your referral starts with the Basic Shopify plan ($29/month), you get a $58 commission.
• Your referral starts with the Shopify plan ($79/month), you get a $158 commission.
• Your referral starts with the Advanced Shopify plan ($299/month), you get a $598 commission.
• Your referral starts with the Shopify Plus plan (custom price), you get up to $2,000 commission.

This is when it comes to the Shopify affiliate commissions that you get if someone clicked on your Shopify affiliate link and started with Shopify by themselves.

However, if you build a Shopify store for someone as a Shopify partner, then instead of the 200% bounty mentioned above, you get a recurring commission of 20% of the monthly payment of that user as long as they are paying Shopify for one of its paid plans.

This is in addition to the fact that you can make money from the users themselves by charging them for the services you provide by building the stores for them through your Shopify partner dashboard.

2 – Shopify Affiliate Payment Method

Currently, Shopify pays their affiliate commissions through PayPal only.

3 – Shopify Affiliate Cookie Duration

Shopify’s affiliate cookie lasts 30 days from someone clicking on your affiliate link, which means that if someone clicks on your link today, but doesn’t signup for the trial until 29 days from now, you still get credit for that referral, and you get a commission after they end the free trial and start paying for one of the paid Shopify plans.

4 – Shopify Affiliate Resources

Shopify provides you inside the partner dashboard with many resources such as promotional banners, articles and free training courses and guides on how to become successful by promoting Shopify as an affiliate and how to attract customers as a Shopify partner.

5 – Deep Linking

Shopify allows you to create affiliate links to almost any page on their website, which might help convert your referrals into Shopify users as they will go directly to the page you want them to visit instead of having everyone go to the home page and trying to find their way by themselves.

6 – Shopify Partner Dashboard

Like with the A2 Hosting affiliate program, Shopify affiliate/partner program offers a very clean and easy-to-use partner dashboard that will show you the necessary starts about your link clicks, your referrals, commissions, payouts, …etc.

Also, this dashboard will provide you with all the training and guides on how to efficiently promote Shopify, create stores and manage them on behalf of your clients so that you get the recurring 20% commission as long as they stay as Shopify users.

7 – Shopify Affiliate Program Cost To Join

Shopify affiliate program is free to join, but it has its own conditions such as having an established website and audience as explained earlier.

In the last section of this Shopify affiliate review, you can learn how you can start an affiliate website even for free and get the necessary training on how to research and create content and where you can get all the necessary tools at one place and for the lowest possible cost.

 

5 Reasons Why You Should Join The Shopify Affiliate Program

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Here are some of the benefits of joining Shopify’s affiliate program

1 – Different Plans & Good Pricing

From the $9/month Shopify Lite plan that allows you to add a Shopify buy button to your normal website or even Facebook based store, to the Shopify Plus plan that might get you up to $2,000 commission per new referral, you can promote Shopify to various categories of people looking for a way to sell stuff online and receive payments using a reliable platform.

2 – The Partner Option

Want to make more money as a Shopify affiliate on the long run?

As a Shopify Partner, you can create stores for your clients from your dashboard, transfer the stores’ ownership to them and charge them for the work you have done, and then, enjoy a recurring 20% commission of whatever they pay to Shopify in the future.

3 – Quality Product With Great Customer Support

Nothing is worse than recommending a service that your referrals would later complain about.

That might ruin your reputation and make people stop trusting your recommendations in the future.

But by promoting Shopify as reliable service for building ecom stores, your audiences will be happy because Shopify offers a really top-notch product with a high reliability and good price compared to other available service providers in the same industry.

This would help increase conversions if you show your audience how they can easily build their own online stores and manage them with Shopify.

4 – Partner/Affiliate Dashboard & Marketing Resources

Shopify’s partner dashboard is clean and easy to navigate and it offers you with lots helpful material, training courses and creatives that you can use in order to efficiently promote Shopify and make money as an affiliate.

5 – Free Trial Is Available

The 14-day trial is a great benefit of the Shopify affiliate program as it makes it easier for people to try it without paying, and when they see how easy it is to use even for non-techie people, they may easily stick with it for a long time as paying users.

 

What I Don’t Like about Shopify Affiliate Program

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Shopify’s affiliate program also has some weakness points such as:

1 – It Is Not an Open Source CMS

This means that the platform and technology used to build Shopify stores is completely owned by the company itself, and when someone wants to move their store from Shopify to another hosting service, they would need to do put in some work in order to do so as they will be using a different content management system (CMS).

This is unlike what happens if it was based on an open source CMS such as Magento or OpenCart, where someone can easily move their store from one hosting company to another.

This might lead to fewer conversions as some people would feel “locked-in” if they use Shopify to build their stores.

2 – PayPal Is Currently The Only Available Method for Affiliate Payouts

This is not a big deal, but some of the affiliates like to receive their commissions in the form of bank transfers or checks instead.

 

Who Is Shopify Affiliate Program for?

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You can join the Shopify affiliate program and make money with it if you already have an established website and you publish content regularly, and you want to educate your audience about how they can sell stuff online, with digital products or physical products through dropshipping or through any other ecom model.

The Best Shopify Affiliate Program Alternatives

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There are many alternatives to Shopify that you can promote and make money with them as an affiliate in case they didn’t approve your application, such as:

1 – A2 Hosting Affiliate Program: Which offers a wide variety of products related to web hosting from shared hosting, to VPS, to cloud hosting, to managed hosting, to ecommerce hosting, …etc.

2 – SiteGround Affiliate Program: Which is similar to A2 hosting in regard to what plans they offer.

3 – Wealthy Affiliate: Wealthy Affiliate is a platform that was originally created to help affiliate marketers build their online business, and it offers them, in addition to the training, with a managed WordPress hosting for up to 25 websites with free SSL certificates and Guru support.

You can promote them to those looking for a managed web hosting for WP websites, which could also be used as ecommerce websites by utilizing one of the available plugins.

 

Conclusion – Is The Shopify Affiliate Program Worth it To Join?

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Absolutely, Shopify’s affiliate program is one of the best affiliate programs in the web hosting industry as it provides a unique and high quality solution that people would love to use and stick with, thanks to its reliability and ease of use for normal people, which makes your job as an affiliate much easier.

• Name: Shopify Affiliate Program
• Website: www.Shopify.com/affiliates
• Founders: Shopify, founded by Tobias “Tobi” Lütke
• Price: Free to join
• Legit/Scam: Legit

Overall OnlinePassiveIncomeGuide.com Rating: 94 of 100

I highly recommend you to join the Shopify Affiliate/Partner Program if you have an established website and start promoting it if you get approved.

And if they don’t approve your request, you can check the other alternatives mentioned earlier in the previous section above.

That’s my final conclusion for this Shopify affiliate program review.

 

But wait, before you go…

A Great Affiliate Program Without The Right, Targeted Traffic Won’t Really Make You Money

As I mentioned earlier, you need to have a website in order to promote Shopify as an affiliate, and you need people to visit that website.

And even if you do have a website already, you may need to learn how to bring more people to it in order to see your promotions, and how to convert them into users of Shopify.

And that requires you to learn some skills on how to find content opportunities, how to write content that converts, and how to optimize it for search engines in order to get the traffic from Google.

Also, you might need to find other affiliate programs to promote.

I used to think that joining one good paying affiliate program like Shopify’s affiliate program was enough in order to make lots of money with it, but I was wrong!

Affiliate marketing is about building a real business and I wasn’t able to make any money at the beginning because I lacked the proper direction and the necessary skills.

However, this all changed when I found this amazing community where I learned, from scratch, how to do affiliate marketing the right way and how to make money by doing the necessary steps they have taught me.

This community and platform has provided me with all of what I need in one place, such as:

• The complete step-by-step affiliate marketing training courses & affiliate marketing tools.
• Weekly interactive live webinars.
• An advanced keyword research tool and many other affiliate marketing tools such as the affiliate program research tool.
• A premium, state of art web hosting for up to 10 websites with FREE SSL with an amazing Guru support.
• An amazingly supportive community of more than 2 million online entrepreneurs that are willing to help me whenever I ask for help in my journey.

And much more.

And all of this only for the cost of the training program that is already very affordable to join.

Even better, this platform provides you with a COMPLETELY FREE Starter Plan to start with, which will grant you an access to a good part of the training and the tools that you would benefit from getting even if you don’t go for the premium plan.

Give yourself five minutes and read this review about the platform and community and maybe, join for the free membership in order to get whatever you can get from them, which would definitely help you in your journey as an affiliate marketer, exactly as it helped in the beginning of my journey.

It’s completely up to you.

And if you have any questions or you want to add anything to this Shopify affiliate program review, please, feel free to do so in the comments’ section below, and I will be coming back to you asap 🙂

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