Today, we shall discuss the best pay per free sign up affiliate programs through which you can earn commissions per free leads and some other means that do not involve getting someone to make a purchase.
Pay per lead affiliate marketing is one of the secret ways to make money online. With it, you can earn a substantial, steady, and ultimately sustainable income, from your home, while you are at your nine-to-five jobs, or wherever in the world.
I’m an affiliate of some of these programs and have earned and received payments promoting free trial affiliate offers.
Before we go into the list of the best affiliate programs that pay per free sign-up, I will first touch on the Pay per lead affiliate marketing model itself so that you can have a better understanding of this line of business.
What is Pay Per Lead Affiliate Marketing?
Pay per lead affiliate marketing is a form of cost-per-action marketing where anyone looking to earn an honest day’s pay, can help a full-on company or independent product developer to market his or her products.
And in return, get paid a commission for each quality lead brought to the said company or product developer.
What exactly is a quality lead? I bet you are wondering.
Well, in regards to pay per lead affiliate marketing, a quality lead is a lead that takes an action that is required of him or her by the affiliate partner when they get to their website or landing page.
With this form of affiliate marketing, all you need to do is send quality leads to the appropriate landing page or website, and that’s it!
In affiliate marketing generally, you only get a commission when you land a sale on behalf of your affiliate partner (i.e., the producers of the products you are marketing).
But with Pay per lead affiliate programs, earning commissions is dependent on actions that don’t involve making a purchase.
What Type of Actions May be Required of Your Leads?
- Inputting their email to join your affiliate partner’s email list
- Making a file or software download
- Inputting their zip code
- Having them sign up for a product’s free trial. Etc.
It could be just about anything that would ultimately help your affiliate partner snag a sale soon.
As long as the individuals that make up the traffic you send to your affiliate partner’s landing page or website take appropriate action, you are entitled to a commission.
Do you now see why this model is one of my favorites of all the affiliate marketing models?
Okay, let us proceed.
Some pay per sign up affiliate programs take it a notch higher and also pay you a bonus when the quality leads you send to their landing pages, ultimately make a purchase or become a client.
19 Best Pay Per Free Sign Up Affiliate Programs
The affiliate programs that pay per free sign-ups that I will be listing and touching on below are vetted programs that pay high commissions for free leads, so you can trust them.
1. ShareASale
ShareAsale is an affiliate network with some of the best pay per free sign up affiliate programs on the internet.
They operate out of their head office in Illinois and are known to work with a wide range of popular and well-paying brands, industries, and niches you and I have probably made a purchase from at least once in our lives.
One of the high points and perks of working with ShareASale free trial affiliate programs is that you have access to an outline of the payout range of the brands they work with, even before you sign up.
Another aspect of this network is that some brands they work with pay you both affiliate commissions and pay-per-lead commissions.
What the above means is that, when you send a quality lead to their landing pages, and when said quality lead takes the action that is required of them, you get paid.
They also pay you if that quality lead of yours goes ahead to become a paying customer or client.
You can sign up for the ShareASale Pay per lead affiliate program here.
2. The Peerfly Pay per lead affiliate program
With the Peerfly affiliate program, you have a well-respected brand that has been in the business for more than a hot minute.
They have paid their dues, and have carved a solid spot for themselves in the affiliate marketing industry.
Despite the fact that they are a compelling brand, they’re still way easier to sign up with when you compare them to other well-respected brands like them.
The Peerfly affiliate program is one very excellent place to find a good concentration of Pay per lead offers, carrying a good number of brands, across several niches.
These programs require varying levels of experience and expertise, to earn a good amount of commissions from it.
The other thing that Peerfly is also famed for is its well-structured and very effective tracking system.
As an affiliate marketer, or an online marketer of any kind, you being able to track both your converting and non-converting traffic to the T, is very important.
It is both very powerful and beneficial when you decide to scale up your campaigns and to know which locations are ideal to target, etc.
You can sign up for the Peerfly affiliate program here.
3. Maxbounty
Maxbounty is another excellent affiliate network that carries a wide range of pay per lead affiliate programs you can sign up for, and earn a steady and sustainable income.
Like most affiliate networks, they are the ultimate middleman that connects you, the affiliate marketer, to a wide range of affiliate partners.
In addition to Pay per lead affiliate programs, they also carry other forms of affiliate marketing model options.
Signing up isn’t quite a straightforward process and acceptance is not automatic.
Maxbounty expects you to have a level of experience in affiliate marketing before giving you the nod to join their affiliate programs.
You only get your commissions paid out to you when you hit the $100 mark.
This payment is made weekly.
Their payment options include Check, PayPal, Wire, Payoneer, ACH (Direct Deposit), and Bitcoin.
You can sign up for the Max bounty affiliate program here.
4. Freshbooks
Freshbooks is a cloud-based accounting software that helps small businesses automate all their invoice processes.
Freshbooks has an affiliate program that pays up to a $10 free trial commission for leads provided by their affiliates and they also pay up to a $200 commission for trial signups that upgrade to a paid plan.
The affiliate program has a cookie duration of 120 days and it’s hosted on the ShareAsale.
You can sign up for the Freshbooks affiliate program here.
5. Semrush
Semrush is an SEO company with a high pay per lead affiliate program that pays its affiliates $10 commission per new trial account, $0.01 commission per new signup, and $200 for every new sale.
The Semrush affiliate program has a cookie duration of 120 days and it’s hosted on the impact radius affiliate network.
You can sign up for the Semrush affiliate program here.
6. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a renowned email marketing platform that has been in existence since 1995.
The platform carries some very beneficial email marketing features like drag-and-drop features, analytics, e-commerce integration, real-time reporting, etc.
Constant Contact pay per free trial affiliate program pays you a one-time $5 commission each time a person creates a free trial account with your affiliate link.
You also get paid another one-time $105 commission for every trial account that upgrades to a paid account. You can get more commission per sale based on your performance.
I’m an affiliate of the Constant Contact free trial affiliate program and I earn $5 per free trial and $125 per sale.
Signing up for this Pay per lead affiliate program is pretty straightforward and doesn’t carry any crazy list of requirements.
Still, you need a website/blog to sign up and you are required to have at least one person sign up for a free trial account via your affiliate link every 6 months.
Feel free to check out the complete review of the Constant Contact affiliate program here.
You can sign up for the Constant Contact Pay per lead affiliate program here.
7. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a renowned email marketing company that has one of the best no website-needed affiliate programs that pays per free trial.
You earn a 5€ commission anytime someone signs up for a free trial through your link and 100€ whenever a free trial account is upgraded to a paid plan.
The signup process is very easy and short. You don’t need to own a website before signing up but you need to have a professional email address (an email address attached to a domain name).
You can Sign up for the Sendinblue pay per free trial affiliate program here.
8. Swagbucks
Swagbucks is a free online survey platform, where just about anyone who signs up and uses the platform, is offered rewards for taking surveys, playing games, etc.
These rewards can be traded in for cash and online gift cards.
The gift cards can be used on platforms like Walmart, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc.
Their Pay per lead affiliate program requires you the affiliate marketer, to refer their platform to your friends, family, and anyone who is looking to make some extra cash online.
Once any of your referrals sign up and verify their emails with Swagbucks, you get paid a commission.
You can sign up for the Swag Bucks Pay per lead affiliate program here.
9. Survey Junkie
Survey Junkie is an online survey platform where you get paid to take surveys.
They are one of the few legit survey platforms where you can make some extra cash, so you have no worries.
But with the Survey Junkie platform, there is a twist.
Only people in the United States, Canada, and Australia can sign up and earn some money on the platform but……
Just about anyone from any part of the world can sign up for their Pay per lead affiliate program.
You get paid a commission each time you refer someone to sign up to the survey junkie platform. You earn $1.5 per sign-up with this program.
You can promote in any way you like, but you must not spam your affiliate links.
You can sign up for the Survey Junkie Pay per lead affiliate program here.
10. Grammarly
Grammarly is an online content editing platform, where just about anyone can sign up for free or a fee (premium package), and edit an unlimited number of written content, to ensure excellent grammar.
They also have a pay per sign up affiliate program that is easy to sign up for.
First; you finish the signup process. Secondly, you place the Grammarly banner on your website and also create one post about the affiliate program. For signing up and creating the post, you earn an automatic $25.
In regards to their affiliate commissions, you get $0.20 per free sign-up with your affiliate link, and $20 each time someone signs up for the premium(paid) plan.
Because the Grammarly service is in the education category, their sign-up rate is quite substantial.
You can sign up for the Grammarly Pay per lead affiliate program here.
11. Ginger
Ginger is a Grammar checker software that is similar to Grammarly both in function and marketing.
Ginger software affiliate program pays $0.5 per free signup and $20 for the purchase of the premium plan.
The product has a conversion rate of 30 to 40% and a cookie duration of 120 days. These two factors ensure that your efforts toward promoting the software are adequately rewarded.
Joining the program is easy and you will be provided with adequate affiliate resources to ease your marketing.
You can sign up for Ginger affiliate program here.
12. Skillshare
Skillshare is an online education platform, where anyone can take a good number of classes, covering a wide range of topics.
They also have a Pay per lead affiliate program, where you earn $7 for each sign-up you send to them.
The great thing about the skillshare pay per lead affiliate program is that you still earn the $7 sign-up commission even when it’s a free trial sign-up.
Your affiliate links can be shared on social media platforms, blogs, websites, or however best you can promote.
All you are required to do is to sign up on ImpactRarius and get a Skillshare account (a free account).
Payday on Skillshare is on the 16th of every month.
You can sign up for Skillshare Pay per lead affiliate program here.
13. Pluralsight
Pluralsight is a technology workforce development company that specializes in the online training of tech skills for individuals of all levels.
Pluralsight has a generous pay per free trial affiliate program that pays $5 per lead and an additional 50% commission when a free trial account upgrades to a monthly paid plan.
The program is hosted on the Impact Radius affiliate network.
You can sign up for Pluralsight affiliate program here.
14. Paribus
Paribus is an online platform that helps online shoppers track their eligible refunds, concerning a change in price policy of an item they purchased from a list of online stores.
Once you sign up as a user of Paribus via the same email you use to receive your online shopping receipts, Paribus kicks off the tracking of your online purchases, and notify you, whenever you are eligible for any reimbursements.
Its Pay per free sign up affiliate program is free to join, and you can earn in two ways as a publisher.
First, you earn a commission each time you send them a quality lead that signs up for a Paribus account.
Secondly, you earn a commission each time Paribus tracks an eligible reimbursement for any of your quality leads.
Because this platform is highly beneficial and free to use, their sign-up rate is very impressive.
They are affiliated with stores like Old Navy, target, Best Buy, and Overstock, to mention a few.
You can sign up for Paribus Pay per lead affiliate program here.
15. Cashsuperstar
Cashsuperstar’s $1.00-per-lead affiliate program is another way to make cool bucks from wherever you are in the world.
Ironically, you’ll be required to promote a link that explains the step-by-step process of making money online to leads. But the catch is that this lead has to come from the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.
To start making money from this affiliate program, you first have to complete a registration form, sign up, and verify your email address.
Once you’re up and running, you can then use any genuine marketing tool like social media banners, solo ads, and blog posts to promote your affiliate link.
One of the highs of this program is that the owner promises to pay for leads that come from exit traffic.
Also, every commission-propelling lead you create will earn you three global funnel clicks to any link you want, which is valued at an additional $1.00.
Given the task at hand, I think the Cashsuperstar affiliate program offers a good deal.
You can sign up for the Cashsuperstar pay per lead affiliate program here.
16. Parship Affiliate Program
Parship is one of the best pay-per-lead dating affiliate programs you need to consider working with if you are an affiliate marketer in the dating niche who’s looking to take home a fat paycheck.
Parship is an online matchmaking agency for people who want to get into serious relationships.
Although the website is particularly for singles in the United Kingdom, Germany, or the Netherlands, its affiliate program is tailored towards people in the United Kingdom.
The program is outsourced to third-party affiliate platforms like CJ Affiliates and Affi.io. For every person you bring to the matchmaking website, you’ll get a basic commission of $1.86, plus a cut from how long the lead remains a subscriber.
For example, if a member pays for a three-month membership, then you’ll get an additional $27.88. For a six-month subscription, you’ll get an extra $36.6, and a yearly membership attracts an additional $54.53.
One of the benefits of becoming an affiliate marketer for this site is that it regularly increases its promotion and boosts sales. So, you can earn more money than the current rates when it does this.
Another perk is that this dating site offers several banners, text links, and email kits that should make the process of converting a lead easier for you.
However, you can only enjoy all these if your lead completes the personality test within twelve minutes of starting it.
Like other companies that pay per lead, you only need to register with CJ Affiliates and wait for your application to get approved. There’s a 45-day cookie duration for the program.
The pay you can get from this program is jaw-dropping if you can get the right crop of customers. There are only a few companies that pay per lead and offer more attractive commissions and fixed rates.
You can sign up for Parhsip’s affiliate program here.
17. People Media
People Media is yet another dating technology company that allows users to meet people they share similar values with on the internet.
It has a broad community that brings together black people, Asians, Catholics, Chinese, Democratic people, and many more groups.
You can have a look at the complete list of communities here. People Media gets up to 20,000 new members every day, and its success stories match the numbers.
People Media’s affiliate program is a dating pay-per-lead affiliate program outsourced to CJ Affiliates.
While the 50% commission that this company offers is substantial, your overall earnings will depend on the community you decide to use in driving leads.
The top communities at the moment are Ourtime.com and SeniorPeopleMeet.com, which both provide services to people who are over 50 years old.
For this community, you can earn from $12 for every lead that subscribes for a month, to $36 for a lead that subscribes for six months.
You can sign up for People Media’s pay per lead affiliate program here.
18. EliteSingles Affiliate Program
EliteSingles is another dating website with a top affiliate program you can jump on. It is specifically for intelligent and educated people who are looking for long-term life partners.
So, having a large audience of professionals is key to earning big bucks in this program.
EliteSingles’ pay-per-lead program is outsourced to several third-party platforms, and CJ Affiliates is one of the popular ones.
The program has a 45-day cookie duration and a commission of $7 per lead.
This commission is independent of how much your leads pay for their membership. However, they need to meet the minimum requirements of the EliteSingles’ personality test before you can get your pay.
At first glance, this deal from EliteSingles looks like one of the best from companies that pay per lead. But your payout depends significantly on professionals and not just singles you can convert as leads.
You can sign up for EliteSingles’s affiliate program here.
19. Ziddu.com
If you are interested in working with a file-sharing website, then Ziddu’s affiliate program should spark your interest.
Ziddu is a top file-sharing site in the US. It has served more than 20 million users every month since it hit the ball rolling in 2007.
Ziddu’s pay per download affiliate program provides you with the opportunity to upload files that are no larger than 200 MB and earn.
The files you upload will only be kept for 90 days, and there is no countdown or download limit within that time.
With this affiliate program, you can earn a minimum payout of $10 per 10000 downloads. And with the email option that allows you to send links to your friends and family, getting to this mark should be easier.
Ziddu limits the number of uploads to one IP address per file per day, and you’ll get a download count when someone clicks on the preview of a picture, video, or clip.
There’s no required fee to open a Ziddu account, and you’ll get your money through PayPal or Money Bookers.
You can sign up for Ziddu’s pay per lead affiliate program here.
Best Practices in Regards to your Pay Per Lead Affiliate Marketing Endeavors
When it comes to being able to catch and hold the attention of your target audience on the internet today, you really need to step up your game, my friends.
Both the quality of your content and the ad placement on your website need to be top-notch, do the trick immediately and get them interested long enough to click through to your offer.
If you visit most high-end websites with ad placements and pay close enough attention to their ads, you will begin to see the method to the madness.
They try as much as possible to make their ad placements look like a natural part of their website, employing color tweaks, and strategic placements, amongst other things.
With ads all over your website, your audience is likely to get irritated and leave your website.
At this point, the ad click you were so desperate to get is lost, and also, you might have lost a would-be long-term visitor forever.
So, with all that being said, you have to get it right.
Like most successful websites making it big in affiliate marketing, it’s hard to miss the enter your email to blah blah blah pop-up now and then.
Trying to get your audience to sign up for your mailing list is an excellent backup plan in case they ignore your affiliate ad banners and links.
How to Get Sign-ups for Your Free Trial Affiliate Offers.
There are so many ways to get your audience to sign up for free trial affiliate offers.
Be creative with your freebies, eBooks still work great.
With the help of an automated eBook creation software like Sqribble, you can create eBooks related to your offers without writing a single word, include your affiliate links within them, and give them out for free to your target audience.
You will even be shown where to find the right audience to give your freebie to.
Content marketing via your blog/website is another great way to get signups, you can even give out eBooks containing your links through your website.
How to Know What Pay Per Sign-Up Offers to Promote
To know which offer is really worth investing in and promoting, you could decide to A/B test multiple pay per sign up affiliate offers on a small scale, to see what would work best for your audience and will be worth your endeavors.
Let us say that you created a few blog posts that were an ideal fit for some of your Pay per lead offers, and promoted said blogs carrying your offers, or just let your on-page SEO/the Google search engine do its magic.
The data you collect after your testing days would better educate you on what types of affiliate offers, and ads your audience is more interested in.
If you were to be signed up for just one affiliate program, you would ultimately get limited in your options, which could lead to not-so-favorable results.
Also, sometimes, multiple free trial affiliate programs could carry the same offers, but their offer structures might differ.
If you are signed up for these programs, you will be able to compare which offers are genuinely ideal for you and worth your time.
Is A Website Needed For Success With Pay Per Free Sign Up Affiliate Programs?
The hassle of setting up and working a website might tempt you to want to promote the links from the pay per sign up affiliate programs you have signed up for, directly on social media.
I will advise you to do that only if the PPL program you are promoting accepts traffic from social media.
If you don’t wish to build a blog/website yourself, you can purchase a domain name and hosting from platforms like Bluehost and have a freelancer on Fiverr build one for you at a reasonable price.
Disclosure: I’m an affiliate and may earn a commission from Bluehost and Fiverr if you make a purchase through my link. Thank you.
Also, many PPL affiliate networks and programs require you to have a functioning self-hosted website/blog for your application to join their programs to be accepted.
But you can still gain tremendous success in promoting pay per lead offers without promoting via a website.
You can achieve this with the use of landing pages.
With the right landing page software, you can set up high-converting landing pages for your offers within minutes.
Systeme.io is my favorite landing page builder and it comes with an inbuilt email autoresponder to build a mailing list.
With most pay per led affiliate programs, posting your affiliate links directly on your social media pages is typically strictly prohibited.
Though you aren’t allowed to post these links directly on your social media accounts, you are allowed to create paid promotions for your affiliate links and products.
Running paid ads campaigns for pay per lead offers is a good idea in my opinion.
But you must be properly grounded in running paid ads and have the budget for it before you go down this route.
Benefits of Promoting Pay Per Lead Affiliate Offers Via a Website or Blog
1. You are able to promote multiple Pay per lead affiliate links at once without looking spammy to your would-be leads
With a blog/website, you have the opportunity to create value-rich content in which you can promote your affiliate links as a recommendation.
You get perceived as knowledgeable in your niche, and this ultimately leads to higher conversions and more commission earnings for you.
If you have been able to build a good rapport with your audience, and have been able to get them to trust you, then earning steady commissions would be a walk in the park.
Think big my friends!
All the work you do today should be the foundation for all the money you can make in the future from your affiliate marketing endeavors.
It should not only be about how much you can make today.
Think a few months or even years from now.
2. You can kick off your email marketing endeavors via your website or blog
Out of the very many powerful tools to possess as an affiliate marketer, an email list is one that you cannot afford to compromise on.
With a very active website or blog, you can build a highly responsive email list from scratch and have it run into thousands.
Armed with an email list, you have the opportunity to promote your Pay per lead affiliate links some more, and earn steady commissions also.
When all your attempts to get people to click on your links fail while they are on your website, you can try again by marketing some of your Pay per lead affiliate links via well-structured and timed email blasts to your list.
3. You don’t have to spend money on promotions
With a website or blog for your affiliate marketing endeavors, you don’t have to spend money to market your offers, like you would if you went the other routes of promoting affiliate products.
When you causally promote your blog on your social media pages and even on social media groups and forums, you get a good stream of traffic to your website or blog, and this traffic can sometimes convert, earning you a commission.
Also, when your on-page and off-page SEO is done right, you ultimately get a steady stream of organic traffic from search engines to your website or blog in the long run (you want this part, trust me).
The special thing about organic traffic from search engines is that the individuals who make up this organic traffic are more likely to click through your Pay per lead affiliate links.
When people search for blogs and websites like yours google refers them to your website due to the high-quality SEO you have done on your website.
The reason they are more likely to click through your Pay per lead affiliate links is that they actively searched for the niche or products you blog about.
Believe me when I say that getting organic traffic to your blog or website is one of the best things that could ever happen to your affiliate marketing endeavors, so keep at it with good-quality SEO.
Do your keyword research properly, and implement said keywords in the right density within the body of your articles and blogs, and you will see the magic begin to happen with time.
Benefits of Promoting Pay Per Lead Offers Via a Landing Page
1. High sign-up rate
Using a landing page to promote pay per lead offers ensures high conversions in the form of sign-ups.
Since the landing page will be built around promoting one offer and taking a single action, there will be fewer distractions on the side of the page visitors.
Also, landing pages contain short and compelling content with an obvious call to action button that tells your audience the exact action expected of them to take.
And since getting a quality lead is the goal of pay per lead affiliate marketing, more sign-ups equals more money.
2. High email opt-in rate
Indeed, you can effectively collect emails of your leads before sending them to the PPL offer while operating via a website.
But you stand a chance of getting higher email opt-in while using a landing page instead.
3. Easy to get started and see significant results fast
The use of landing pages to promote pay per lead offers ensures you can get set up for business quickly even if you have no technical skills.
This also gives you the chance of getting results really fast if you choose to go the paid advertisement lane.
Conclusion
With pay per sign up affiliate programs, you can make so much more out of your hard-earned traffic (here, traffic can be likened to hard currency).
It is way easier to make more commissions by sending leads to your affiliate partner’s website or landing pages, than with the traditional model of affiliate marketing, where you only earn a commission when a purchase is made via your affiliate link.
The key is to be consistent with your top-quality content creation endeavors.
This article has all the high points you need to know to thrive and succeed with this affiliate marketing model, and I hope that you give it your all and keep at it.
Take care till next time.
