Searching for the best website builder for affiliate marketing?
If you’re trying to monetize your site with affiliate marketing, you’ll have some unique needs that might make some website builders better than others.
What’s more, the terms of service at some website builders aren’t friendly to affiliate marketers, so it’s important to make sure your chosen tool gives you free rein when it comes to monetization.
To help you go straight to the top options, we’ve curated our list of the five best website builders for affiliate marketing.
For each tool, we’ll share a general introduction, some specifics on why it works well for affiliate marketing, and key pricing information.
We’ll also share some of the most important features that affiliate marketers should look for in a website builder, to help you focus your search.
📚 Table of contents:
- TL;DR: This is your top option
- Key website builder features for affiliate marketing
- Wix
- WordPress.com
- Webflow
- Shopify
- Squarespace
- Which is the best one for affiliate marketing?
TL;DR: Best website builder for affiliate marketing
If you’re in a rush, here’s a quick summary of our top picks – keep reading for a much more detailed look at each tool.
Website builder | Key focus | Starting price for affiliates |
---|---|---|
Wix | Solid all-around option | $12.50 / month |
WordPress.com | Solid all-around option + flexibility | $15 / month |
Webflow | Flexibility | $16 / month |
Shopify | Affiliate-based eCommerce stores | $29 / month |
Squarespace | Creative affiliate niches | $14 / month |
Key website builder features for affiliate marketing
When you’re choosing a website builder for affiliate marketing, a lot of the basic features that you’ll want won’t have anything to do with affiliate marketing itself.
For example, you probably want nice-looking templates, an easy-to-use yet flexible visual builder to design your core pages, and so on.
However, there are also some unique considerations for affiliate marketing that you’ll want to search out. Here are some of the most important…
- Affiliate-friendly terms of service – you’ll want to make sure that the terms of service at that website builder don’t put any onerous restrictions on affiliate marketing. While most website builders allow affiliate marketing, it’s not a universal rule.
- Flexible content editor and management – while one of the main draws of website builders is the visual, drag-and-drop builders, you probably won’t use those visual builders for most of your actual affiliate content. Instead, you’ll use the blogging editor (or equivalent), which means it’s important that the website builder offers a strong editing experience.
- Strong SEO features – while SEO is important for all sites, it’s especially important for affiliate marketing as you’ll probably attract most of your traffic using SEO.
- Detailed analytics – you’ll want detailed analytics to be able to optimize your affiliate marketing efforts. You could get this through a built-in analytics tool or the option to add Google Analytics to your site.
- Useful apps + large app marketplace – having a strong app store can give you a lot of useful affiliate marketing features. For example, you might be able to access marketing tools, link cloaking/management tools, affiliate integrations, and so on.
- Custom content structures – while this is a more advanced feature that not all affiliate marketers need, being able to create your own custom content structures opens up unique options for promoting affiliate products, such as automatically generating comparison tables based on custom data that you’ve collected about products.
A website builder doesn’t need to check every single box to work well for affiliate marketing, but you’ll want to look for as many of those features as possible.
1. Wix – A strong all-around option for affiliate marketing
Wix is one of the most popular website builders thanks to its flexibility and ease of use.
With Wix, you’re free to monetize your site with affiliate marketing, which makes it one of the top website builders for affiliate marketers.
In addition to creating blogs or content sites, Wix also lets you create eCommerce stores that sell affiliate products (more on this strategy later).
To create the main design of your site, Wix offers a number of templates and a visual, drag-and-drop builder. To manage blog posts and other more basic content, you also get a WYSIWYG editor that makes it easy to insert affiliate links.
If you want even more design flexibility, you can consider Editor X, which is a separate offering from Wix that gives you more advanced control over the design of your site.
Features for affiliate marketers
- Easy-to-use content editor – the WYSIWYG content editor makes it easy to publish long-form affiliate content and insert links.
- Wix App Marketplace – in addition to general apps for marketing, you can access some special apps to work with the popular Amazon Associates affiliate program.
- SEO features – as long as you use at least the Unlimited plan, you get access to SEO features to boost your site’s SEO rankings.
- Analytics support – Wix includes its own analytics tools and you can also add Google Analytics.
Pricing
While Wix does have cheaper plans, most affiliate marketers will want to go with at least the Unlimited plan because you need that plan to access important SEO and analytics features.
The Unlimited plan costs $27.00 per month.
👉 To learn more about Wix, check out these posts:
2. WordPress.com – A simple way to access the power of WordPress
![WordPress.com is the best website builder for affiliate marketing if you're interested in the WordPress software](https://mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com/cb:jC7e.37109/w:1024/h:500/q:eco/f:avif/https://themeisle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/wordpresscom.jpg)
If you’re into affiliate marketing, you’ve probably heard about WordPress.
WordPress is open-source software that anyone can install on their own hosting to create a website. It works great for affiliate marketing and many affiliate marketers use WordPress to drive affiliate traffic.
However, while it’s a great option for affiliate marketers, the open-source WordPress software doesn’t really count as a “website builder” because you need to install the software on your own hosting and you’re responsible for maintaining and securing your site.
WordPress.com changes that by creating a more website builder-like experience for WordPress. If you pay for the WordPress.com Pro plan, you can still access most of the flexibility of WordPress but you won’t need to mess around with installing or maintaining the software itself.
This makes it a great “happy middle” between self-hosted WordPress and other website builders.
There’s one caveat with WordPress.com. While you are allowed to use affiliate links on all plans, WordPress.com does not allow “sites that exist primarily to drive traffic to affiliate links:”
- If you’re mixing informational and affiliate content, you shouldn’t have any issues on WordPress.com.
- If almost all of your content will be affiliate content, then you should pick a different website builder just to be safe (or consider creating a self-hosted WordPress site if you feel up to that approach).
Features for affiliate marketers
- Strong content editor – the WordPress block editor makes it easy to insert affiliate links, as well as other elements such as buttons and tables.
- Install any WordPress plugin – you can still access all WordPress plugins, which means you can find tons of great affiliate marketing plugins for link management/insertion, product comparison tables, Amazon API integration, and so on.
- Flexible SEO – WordPress.com includes built-in tools for basic SEO and you can also install a dedicated SEO plugin to access more advanced features, such as support for schema markup.
- Supports Google Analytics
- Custom content management – create your own custom content structures, which opens up unique options for affiliate promotions.
Pricing
While WordPress.com does have a free plan that allows affiliate marketing, we don’t recommend it because it doesn’t let you install WordPress plugins and has other limitations. WordPress plugins are one of the key factors that makes WordPress.com one of the best website builders for affiliate marketing, so losing that ability is a pretty big negative.
To access the ability to install your own custom plugins and themes, you need the WordPress.com Pro plan, which costs $15 per month (billed annually at $180).
If you want to save money, you could also create a self-hosted WordPress site using cheap WordPress hosting. However, be aware that self-hosting the open-source WordPress software loses the “hands-off” website builder-like experience that WordPress.com offers.
3. Webflow – Powerful and flexible for custom affiliate sites
![Webflow](https://mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com/cb:jC7e.37109/w:1024/h:461/q:eco/f:avif/https://themeisle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/webflow.jpg)
Webflow is a more advanced website builder that gives you more control over your site’s design and content management.
While it’s not as simple as a tool like Wix, the advantage of Webflow is that you can create custom content structures, which gives you unique ways of promoting affiliate products that you might not be able to achieve with other website builders.
For example, you could create a directory of affiliate products and then dynamically insert details from those affiliate products.
If you just want to create a blog-like affiliate marketing site, that might be overkill (though Webflow can certainly handle creating a blog). But for more advanced use cases, Webflow opens up a lot of possibilities
Features for affiliate marketers
- Custom content management – create your own custom content structures, which opens up unique options for affiliate promotions.
- Visual, on-page editing – you can edit text on the page even when creating blog content. This makes it easy to add content and insert affiliate links.
- SEO features – you can easily set up SEO information and Open Graph settings.
- eCommerce affiliate stores – Webflow also supports eCommerce, which lets you create your own affiliate store if needed.
If your are still in doubt about what to choose for your next project, read our Webflow vs WordPress guide.
Pricing
For affiliate marketing, you’ll want at least the Webflow CMS plan. This plan costs $20 per month when billed monthly or $16 per month when paid annually.
4. Shopify – Great for affiliate product eCommerce stores
Shopify is a great website builder for affiliate marketing if you want to “sell” affiliate products using more of an eCommerce layout. This definitely won’t work for all affiliate marketers, but this approach can be effective if you do it well.
Essentially, you’ll create your own eCommerce store, which is what Shopify specializes in as a website builder.
Even though you have your own store, you won’t actually be selling any products yourself (though you can if you want). Instead, when someone clicks the equivalent of the “Add to Cart” button on the product page, they’ll be taken to the actual seller’s website via your affiliate link. If they make a purchase at that site, you’ll earn an affiliate commission.
You can also find apps to help you achieve this, such as an app that helps you easily add Amazon affiliate products to your “store”.
However, if you don’t want to use this eCommerce-like approach to affiliate marketing, you should not use Shopify.
Features for affiliate marketers
- Link products to affiliate offers – with some tweaking, you can link individual products from Shopify to the relevant affiliate offer.
- Flexible app marketplace – Shopify has a huge app marketplace that can help you improve SEO, add more detailed analytics, and automatically insert affiliate products from popular marketplaces such as Amazon.
- Blogging support – in addition to your affiliate eCommerce store, you can also create a blog to promote affiliate products with more long-form content (though this isn’t Shopify’s strong point).
- Strong SEO functionality – Shopify gives you lots of options and apps to boost your organic rankings.
Pricing
Shopify’s full-featured plan starts at $25.00 per month. To learn more about relevant costs, you can read our full guide to Shopify pricing.
👉 To learn more about Shopify in general, check out these posts:
5. Squarespace – Great for creative affiliate blogs
Squarespace is a good website builder for affiliate marketers in more creative and lifestyle spaces. While there’s nothing preventing other types of affiliate sites from using it, Squarespace’s general aesthetic (and most of its templates) is focused on these types of sites.
It also has one of the better blogging tools in a website builder, which can make it a good option if you’re primarily going to promote affiliate products via a blog.
It’s also super easy to create your site – you just choose from one of the many premade templates and then customize your core pages using a visual builder.
Features for affiliate marketers
- Strong content editor – in addition to the visual builder, Squarespace has a nice content editor for blog posts that makes it easy to insert links and CTA buttons.
- SEO tools – Squarespace gives you tools to optimize your site for Google.
- Analytics – Squarespace offers its own analytics tool and you can also add Google Analytics for more advanced tracking.
- Link cloaking – Squarespace’s URL Mappings feature lets you easily create cloaked affiliate links. It’s not specifically built for affiliate links but it still works well for that use case.
Pricing
Squarespace’s cheapest plan can already be functional for affiliate marketing. It starts at $16.00 per month.
👉 To learn more about Squarespace, check out these posts:
Which is the best website builder for affiliate marketing?
If you’re looking for a strong all-around website builder for affiliate marketing, Wix is a great place to start. It does everything pretty well and doesn’t place any restrictions on affiliate marketing.
For more complex sites, such as sites where you might want to use custom content structures to organize affiliate products, you might want to consider builders such as WordPress.com or Webflow instead. Both give you more control to build custom affiliate sites (though at the expense of some simplicity).
If you like the affiliate product eCommerce store approach, you can use Shopify to get the job done. Or, WordPress.com can also make a good option with the WooCommerce plugin.
Finally, Squarespace can be a good option for affiliate marketers in more creative or lifestyle niches, especially if you primarily plan to promote affiliate products via a blog.
To learn more about affiliate monetization, check out our full guide to getting started with affiliate marketing.
If you want to promote products from Amazon, we also have a detailed guide on how to become an Amazon affiliate.
Do you still have any questions about how to choose the best website builder for affiliate marketing? Let us know in the comments!
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