Wix Affiliate Program Review

Introduction

Are you looking for a website builder/hosting to promote so you can earn affiliate commissions? Are you considering Wix? This review should give you all the information you need to make an informed choice.

What is Wix?

Due to the recent television advertising blitz Wix is arguably one of the most famous website builder/hosting companies in the world. It is particularly attractive to beginners since it has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop page builder built-in. The Wix editor allows you to start from scratch or select one of their 500 premade templates.

Wix offers a free plan with a number of limitations such as adverts appearing on every page of your website. If you want to get something that looks more professional and has its own domain then you would need to stump up for one of their premium accounts.

More than a hundred million people have now created a website using Wix.

Wix Affiliate Program

If you are able to successfully promote Wix to your audience then you will receive a one-off bonus of $100 for every successful sale. As a headline figure this sounds quite attractive, however web hosting is something that people use for a long time. Therefore you may find it better to look at programs offering a recurring commission if you are looking for longer term and higher earnings.

Wix operate a 30 day cookie, this should be generous enough for you to capture sales. Few people will purchase a product on first viewing. On the other hand they are probably unlikely to take more than 30 days to decide, unless it is an extremely expensive purchase.

Wix will provide you with a variety of creative assets to help you promote their product.

The affiliate program details can be accessed here.

Like every affiliate program, Wix have a number of terms and conditions regarding the content of your site. For example your site should not contain anything that is illegal, pornographic, defamatory etc, etc.

Topics such as gambling will cause your site to be unsuitable.

As with most affiliate programs you aren’t able to promote Wix using any of their trademarks. Your domain names can’t include Wix or variations of and you are unable to promote any special offers by Wix.

Should you be deemed unacceptable when you apply, you can address the issues on your site and reapply at a later date.

Interestingly Wix specify a minimum monthly threshold for affiliate commissions. Currently this is set at $300. Should you fail to make that level of sales in the month then Wix reserve the right to terminate your participation in the program. If you were terminated for such failure then you would be allowed to rejoin the program for six months!

In the terms and conditions it also states that if you are sending emails to promote Wix then you can only include Wix related content in the email.

Another criteria specified in the terms and conditions is your site should have sufficient volume of traffic.

Clearly the main affiliate program is designed for people who are going to be able to refer new customers at volume. Wix run a program called Arena for low volume referrals. If your site doesn’t currently receive much traffic, or you are an agency perhaps looking to refer a few clients then you should look at Arena.

Should you be due any commissions they will be paid approximately 45 days after the end of the calendar month in which they were earned. It would appear the only payment method at the moment is wire transfer.

How to Join

Just fill in the Wix affiliate sign up form.

Apparently, it can take quite a while to receive a response up to 30 business days so you may need to be patient.

How to Promote

This would depend largely upon the audience that you currently have or are able to cultivate.

If you already have an existing email list then could set up an automated sequence extolling the virtues of Wix. Then add links to some simple training on your website.

If you currently run a web design business then you could start developing new sites on Wix as a case study to show prospective clients what can be done.

You could set up a site around designing websites or blogs. Then create training materials showing how you use Wix to create your own personal or business blog.

Depending on what you have created you could then try targeting social media groups for new businesses or new bloggers. Either create posts linking to your content or consider paid ads that do the same.

Note if you are using paid ads you would need to be careful to avoid infringing on the copyright of Wix trademarks. E.g. you would need to avoid mentioning Wix directly in the ads.

Wix Affiliate Program: Pros and Cons

Pros

$100 commission per referral irrespective of the plan they purchase
30 day cookie
Selection of promotional creatives
Beginner friendly

Cons

non-recurring commission
minimum monthly sales requirement
Not as customisable as some other platforms e.g. WordPress
Niggly add-ons for features that are often included with other providers

Alternatives

Squarespace Affiliate Program

Squarespace offer a similar product to Wix, however their prices start slightly higher. Squarespace also offer an affiliate program although you have to apply in order to find out the commission structure. According to other sites on the Internet Squarespace will pay out between $100 and $200 for paid subscription plans. It doesn’t payout for other purchases such as domains. You get a 45 day cookie so slightly better than Wix. The trust pilot rating is a cause for concern, Currently two thirds of the reviews rate Squarespace as either poor or bad. The Squarespace program is run by impact radius a well-known affiliate management network.

Weebly Affiliate Program

Weeblys affiliate program is well promoted on their website. Offering a 30% commission and the 120 day cookie window it works out to approximately $60 EPC (earnings per click). Weebly have passed responsibility for their affiliate program to ShareASale. They are one of the larger affiliate program management companies. Which should give reassurance to any potential affiliates.

Payments occur via multiple methods on the 20th of every month assuming you have at least $50 of earnings to pay out.

Note that Weebly was purchased by Squarespace in 2018. While the trust pilot ratings are better than Squarespace and Wix, they are not really anything to shout about.

Bluehost Affiliate Program

One of the most popular affiliate programs in web hosting. It has become somewhat a victim of its own success with increasing rates of dissatisfaction and complaint. It does offer very competitive pricing for its shared hosting which is why a lot of new bloggers sign up. It offers a $65 commission on paid plans.

Siteground Affiliate Program

They offer a tiered structure with commissions that increase based on the number of monthly sales you make.

Monthly Sales	Commission per sale
1-5	£30
6-10	£50
11-20	£65
21+	Custom

Kinsta Affiliate program

One of the host that offers a recurring commission, although only 10%. You do also receive a one-off bounty which could be anything from $50-$500. With monthly fees starting at $30. So lets assume a customer signs up via your referral link with kinsta and maintained that subscription for five years. That would give you a total commission of $230 even at their lowest monthly rate.

While both Bluehost and Siteground offer lower commission levels they don’t have the minimum monthly sales criteria. This means you won’t necessarily get booted off the program for one bad month. If you are promoting to beginners the disadvantage would be having to learn WordPress. In addition they would have to learn a page builder such as Elementor to give similar functionality to the way that Wix works. The long term advantage would be that WordPress is more customisable as the users needs develop.

If you are looking solely at the potential income then Kinsta is likely to be the best bet of the three hosting companies.

Other Features

You can create your own affiliate programs using the Wix affiliate plug-in from idevdirect (from $39 / month). Unless your audience have their own products to sell then this is unlikely to be very useful for them. There Are a number of other affiliate programs for Wix sites that are available.

Can Wix sites be used for affiliate marketing?

It is possible to develop an affiliate marketing website on the Wix platform. I think you would be better served by using a standard web hosting plan with WordPress. It is much more flexible when it comes to configuring for SEO. Should you become dissatisfied with the host it would be much easier to move than using a service like Wix.

Wix is better suited to small businesses or hobby bloggers. They just want a basic web presence and want to spend as little time maintaining the site as possible.

Wix Affiliate Program Review: Conclusion

Really it comes down to the type of visitors that you have to your site. Wix is attractive to beginners since it offers a short learning curve. If your audience fits that criteria then they may find Wix useful. Personally I think it is too restrictive for many people and therefore would not be so quick to recommend it. The cost is also likely to rise quite quickly when you start adding some features that most people are likely to want as their needs mature.

Their trust pilot rating is also a concern with almost 2500 reviews they currently sit at 1.5 out of 5 (Almost 3/4 of respondents rate Wix as either poor or bad)

As an affiliate program the big drawback for me would be the fact that you can be kicked off for not meeting their minimum threshold. If you are relatively new to affiliate marketing there is little point signing up till you have a decent amount of website traffic.

Overall I would recommend promoting a more standard hosting account along with a page builder such as Elementor. (this also offers affiliate commission).

James