Recruiting affiliates to promote your products is one of the best ways to rapidly increase your traffic and sales. Affiliates with large audiences can boost your reputation, increase your brand visibility, and promote your products at no extra cost to you.
There are a number of ways to set up and manage an affiliate program. You can join an affiliate network, or you can download software to set up your own affiliate program on your own website.
The benefit of the latter is that you have more flexibility and control over your affiliate campaigns. That way, you can quickly attain your short term business goals.
Today, we will be looking at six self-hosted affiliate management software that you can use.
Best Self-Hosted Affiliate Software
1. iDevAffiliate
iDevAffiliate is one of the most well-known self-hosted affiliate management software. Let’s take a look at things such as commissioning, marketing tools, reporting, security, and more.
With iDevAffiliate, you can set up different affiliate commission structures.
For example, you can pay a percentage or a flat rate for each sale. You can also choose whether you want to pay a commission for each lead, sale, or other action.
You can set up different commission structures for different products or different websites. There are a number of non-traditional commission structures you can set up with iDevAffiliate, such as rewarding affiliates for offline or telephone sales that they bring in.
You can also set up a multi-tier affiliate system, where affiliates get rewarded for other affiliates they recruit and add to their downline.
Another thing you can do is set up different commissions for different affiliates. For example, affiliates who bring in a larger amount of traffic on a consistent basis can be rewarded with higher commissions.
You can provide your affiliates with different promotional and marketing materials, such as banners, text ads, videos they can use, and other social media material.
You can also provide them with email templates, lightboxes and popups, QR codes, and more.
Another thing you can do is set up coupon codes that your affiliates can use to promote your products without ever using an affiliate link or affiliate ID.
When a customer uses the coupon code at checkout, they will get a discount and the affiliate who that coupon code “belongs to” will get a commission.
All of your affiliate templates can be customized by using their language packs, HTML and CSS templates, color schemes, and more.
You will get access to a wide range of charts and graphs with detailed analytics about the clicks and sales that your affiliates are bringing in. You can organize your reports based on date ranges, and you can also export them in a PDF, CSV, or Excel format.
As an affiliate manager, security is going to be a top priority of yours. You are going to want to make sure that affiliates are not sending you fake or bot traffic or even fake leads.
iDevAffiliate has built-in fraud protection features to protect you from all that and from things such as duplicate commissions and reporting.
iDevAffiliate integrates with many tools and platforms, such as WooCommerce, Shopify, Paypal, Stripe, Weebly, Magento, Instapage, and more. There are a total of 177 integrations available.
There are built-in shopping cart integrations with most checkout systems so that you can continue to use your existing system with iDevAffiliate. There are a total of 164 checkout system integrations.
iDevAffiliate also has a number of plugins that you can use. For example, there is an SEO plugin that will boost your SEO by shortening all affiliate links into small and simple URLs.
There are other plugins as well, such as one that allows you to add language packs to give your affiliates additional promotional materials. You can even add affiliate training videos.
Not all plugins will be available for free on all plans.
iDevAffiliate has an extensive FAQ section and Knowledge Base, with nine common questions and 73 articles. There is also a video library with 60 videos.
You can contact the support team for technical support during normal business hours (PST). You can either send them a message through the contact form on their site or call their toll free number.
iDevAffiliate has a few pricing options: Three cloud options and one self-hosted option. Before signing up, you can see a demo of both the affiliate dashboard and the admin dashboard.
The cloud option plans are:
- $39/month
- $59/month
- $79/month
All three plans will give you unlimited affiliates, unlimited traffic, unlimited commissions, and SSL encryption. The difference is which plugins will be available.
For those who want a self-hosted affiliate program, it will cost a one-time fee of $279 for the Standard Edition or $399 for the Black Edition. Of course, you will have to have your own web hosting account.
With this option, you will get a license key, which will allow you to download the software and install it on your own website. Upgrades will be available for free for up to one year after your purchase.
2. Jrox
Jrox is a company that produces both ecommerce management software and affiliate management software.
The Jrox affiliate management software can be used on your own server. Also, it has a cloud-hosted version; hence, you don’t have to worry about web hosting costs.
You can set up commission structures to pay affiliates for each sale or for each specific action. You can create different commission rates for different products or create a special reward for one specific action.
You can also set up different commission levels for different affiliates.
You can set up either percentage-based commissions or flat rates. You can also set up flat rates for purchases that fall within a specific price range only.
You can create groups to add your affiliates to. You can also create different tiers so that your affiliates can use network marketing to generate a downline.
If an affiliate reaches a certain goal, you can either reward them with a bonus or add them to a higher paying affiliate level (or both).
If you wish, you can set up lifetime tracking links with no expiring cookies as an incentive for your affiliates. All affiliate links are 301 redirects so that they do not hurt your SEO.
There is support for many marketing tools as well. You can add banners of all shapes and sizes.
Other tools you can add include text links, text ads, HTML ads, lightbox ads, page peel ads, email ad templates, article ad templates, and social sharing links. You can also add affiliate events.
You can let affiliates embed their affiliate links into your Youtube videos. You can also add ebooks or PDF guides that your affiliates can give away for free.
Your affiliates can use QR codes for offline marketing purposes. You can also give them access to a unique direct link that does not contain any affiliate ID.
You can keep up with your affiliates with automated email follow-ups.
Jrox integrates with many popular carts and payment gateways, such as Woocommerce, Opencart, Paypal, CubeCart, Shopify, XCart, ZenCart, and more.
You can pay your affiliates through Paypal, Payza, Skrill, Dwolla, and even Coinbase (for cryptocurrency payments). You can use the built-in email service to keep in touch with your affiliates, or you can integrate it with Mailchimp, Constant Contact, GetResponse, or Aweber.
You will get detailed reporting. You will get stats on clicks, commissions, and sales, with the ability to set up alert notifications and archive your reports for later viewing.
You can easily manage your affiliates and add or delete them as you wish.
Jrox has an extensive Affiliate Manager Knowledge Base with a wide range of articles to help you get started. There is also a FAQs section and a Youtube channel with instructional videos.
If you need help on technical issues, you can visit the support forums to get help from other users or from moderators. To contact Jrox customer service directly, you can submit a ticket on their website.
There are a few pricing options for Jrox.
If you opt for the cloud-based software, it will cost $27/month. While you can use your own domain, it will be hosted by them, and you will have limited space and traffic limits.
For the self-hosted affiliate software, you have two options.
The first is a monthly leased license, which costs only $17/month. The other option is a one-time payment of $179/which lets you download and fully own the software.
3. All Affiliate Pro
All Affiliate Pro has self-hosted affiliate management software solutions for home-based and medium-sized businesses.
You can set different commission rates for each product in your store. You can also use their lead tracking software to track leads as they go through your funnel and reward your affiliates with a fixed amount for each stage the lead goes through or a commission when a sale is finally achieved.
You can also set up multi-level affiliate support. This way, your affiliates can earn by adding members to their downline, with support for up to 12 tiers.
In addition, you can offer scaled commissions for recurring billing. Instead of offering a fixed commission for each rebill, you can change it so that future commissions go up or down (for example, 50 percent for the first rebill but only 40 percent for the second rebill).
You can also set up different levels of affiliate performance (up to 10 levels). This allows you to give bonuses to high-performing affiliates; for example, you can give them an additional 5 percent commission if they bring in more than $2000 in sales and an additional 5 percent if they bring in over $4000 in sales.
You can also set individual affiliate rates for specific affiliates. If you are trying to win over high-performing affiliates, you can use this to offer them a good deal.
You can set up one affiliate network to promote all of your sites if you have more than one.
You can use deep linking to allow your affiliates to link directly to a specific page on your site.
To allow your affiliates to promote you with offline marketing, you can offer them three options. You can set up subdomains, you can set up access codes, or you can give them specific coupon codes to distribute.
You can use cookies to choose how long after a click you want to reward your affiliates. You can also delay commissions, which is useful if you offer a money back guarantee.
You can also choose to approve all commissions manually.
You will get real-time statistics with automatic sales, clicks, and order tracking.
You can pay your affiliates through Paypal, mass pay, or check. You can set up your own payment schedule.
All Affiliate Pro has a number of plans and options.
The first solution is for micro-businesses or home-based businesses. Plans are as follows (all are one-time fees but include different features):
- Budget: $537
- Basic: $895
- Intermediate: $1,360
- Advanced: $1,945
There is also a solution for small and medium enterprises. Plans are as follows:
- Basic: $1,945
- Intermediate: $5,495
- Advanced: $9,495
There are also custom options for resellers and agencies.
4. Affiliate Pro
Affiliate Pro is a unique SAAS platform for affiliate marketing professionals. It’s an open-source software, which means you can self-host.
You can opt for Affiliate Pro if you need a simple service, void of the complexities common with affiliate marketing. The software aims to help users increase sales and profits.
Affiliate Pro provides you with an affiliate script you can scale and implement as you want. It supports revenue models like pay per click, pay per lead, and pay per acquisition.
Furthermore, you can natively integrate with eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, OpenCart, and BigCommerce, to name a few.
Interestingly, you don’t need to be an expert at affiliate marketing to use Affiliate Pro. The software demands minimal skills and experience.
Another thing to love about Affiliate Pro is the mobile app. The platform has a mobile app for client-side management.
In other words, if you run an affiliate marketing program, your affiliate marketers can easily campaign with their mobile phone. The app is available for Apple and Android devices.
As a new user, you can try the Affiliate Pro demo for free. You can also completely integrate the demo on your website or store at no charge.
However, ultimately, you need to pay for the software. Affiliate Pro is available on CodeCanyon, where you can purchase a license. The Affiliate Pro mobile app is also a paid app.
Furthermore, if you don’t have a web hosting plan on platforms like Pressable or Bluehost, you can purchase shared hosting on A2 Hosting via Affiliate Pro. You get interesting discounts when you go – up to 72 percent off with the 36 months plan.
5. Affiliate WP
Affiliate WP is another WordPress plugin.
You can choose between percentage based and flat rate commissions for different affiliate groups.
Your affiliates will be able to use an affiliate link generator to generate affiliate links. You can also allow them to use pretty links and shortened URLs.
They will have access to a full dashboard where their stats will be displayed.
You can give them unlimited creatives which they can use for promotional means. You can also set up coupon codes to distribute, which will be tied to their affiliate account.
You can manage your affiliates from your own dashboard. You can choose to manually approve affiliates, and on the other hand, you can automatically create an affiliate account for anyone who signs up for an account on your membership site.
There is extensive real-time reporting for all visits and actions.
Affiliate WP has many supported integrations. Here are some of them:
- Paypal
- GiveWP
- Woocommerce
- EasyDigitalDownloads
- Ninja Forms
- Restrict Content Pro
- Optimize Member
- Contact Form 7
- WP Invoice
- Member Press
- Easy Cart
There are also many free and pro add-ons. Some free add-ons include:
- Affiliate Area Tabs
- Allowed Products (limit which of your products are included in your affiliate program)
- Affiliate Product Rates (set different commission rates for individual affiliates)
- Blocks
Pro add-ons include:
- Affiliate Landing Pages
- Zapier for Affiliate WP
- Custom Affiliate Slugs
- Direct Link Tracking
- PayPal Payouts
There are also third-party add-ons developed by third parties, such as:
- GamiPress
- Social Warfare
- Payout Statements
- WP1099
There is an extensive help area with many useful articles. To get specific help, you can submit a ticket.
Affiliate WP does not charge a one-time free. Instead, it has three recurring plans:
- Personal: $149.50/year (one site)
- Plus: $199.50/year (three sites)
- Professional: $299.50/year (same as one-time fee plan)
Note: A subscription provides you with access to all features, all official add-ons, future add-ons, and lifetime support.
6. PeerClick
PeerClick is a good affiliate software option if you need a tracker. The tool works not for tracking alone, but also for analyzing, optimizing, and scaling affiliate marketing campaigns.
In particular, PeerClick lets you track over 30 different data points. You get dependable and insightful insights on every impression, visit, or click on your affiliate campaigns.
The software is easy to set up, even if you choose to self-host. Thanks to the anti-fraud protection system, you don’t have to worry about bots that can hijack your campaigns. Furthermore, PeerClick has AI tools that facilitate automation.
PeerClick is a freemium software. You can use the free account forever, but it only gives you access to basic tracker features. Aside from the free plan, PeerClick has three paid plans.
You can pay monthly, per six months, per 12 months, or per 24 months. Notably, the longer the duration of your subscription, the higher your discount. Furthermore, you can try the plans free on trial before subscription.
Check out the plans below:
Basic+ Plan
- $99 per month
- $90 per month with the six months plan
- $80 per month with the 12 months plan
- $70 per month with the 24 months plan
Advanced Plan:
- $249 per month
- $225 per month with the six months plan
- $200 per month with the 12 months plan
- $175 per month with the 24 months plan
Exclusive Plan:
- $649 per month
- $585 per month with the six months plan
- $520 per month with the 12 months plan
- $455 per month with the 24 months plan
Wrapping It Up
As you can see, you have many options for setting up an affiliate program on your own site. All of them are solid options, though All Affiliate Pro is a bit pricey.
Before purchasing any of the above programs, request a demo so you can see how the affiliate dashboard will look from the affiliate side and how the admin dashboard will look from your side. If you like the way it looks, and the program has the features and integrations you need, go for it!
Benjamin Levin is a digital marketing professional with 4+ years of experience with inbound and outbound marketing. He helps small businesses reach their content creation, social media marketing, email marketing, and paid advertising goals. His hobbies include reading and traveling.