Are you a designer looking for another source of income? If so, affiliate programs related to design may be just the thing for you. Affiliate programs are a great way for designers to make money without having to actually create a product or service. This article will explain how to make money using design related affiliate programs.
What are the best affiliate programs for designers?
Here are my top picks for the best affiliate programs for designers this year.
- Adobe Creative Suite Affiliate Program
- Skillshare
- Domestika
- Writesonic
- Jasper.ai
- Moonbeam
- Scalenut
- Typeshare.co
- Flipped Normals
- Designmodo
- icons8.com
- Hypefury
- Typefully
- Siter.io
- Framer
- Notion
- Gumroad
What are Affiliate Programs?
An affiliate program is an arrangement between a merchant and an affiliate in which the affiliate earns a commission for referring customers to the merchant’s website. In other words, when someone clicks on an affiliate link and makes a purchase, the affiliate earns a commission.
What are Design-Related Affiliate Programs?
Design-related affiliate programs are programs that offer commissions for referring customers to websites that sell design-related products or services. Examples include stock photo sites, graphic design tools, web hosting services, domain registrars, and more. If you’re a designer, you probably know a lot of these already.
How to Make Money with Design-Related Affiliate Programs
Making money with design-related affiliate programs is relatively straightforward. Here are the steps you need to take:
1 – Find an appropriate program. There are many different types of design-related affiliate programs available. Do some research and find one that fits your needs.
2 – Sign up for the program. Once you’ve found a program you want to join, sign up for it. Most programs require you to provide a valid email address and other basic information.
3 – Generate affiliate links. Once you’ve signed up for an affiliate program, you’ll be given access to your affiliate dashboard, where you can generate unique links or banner ads that you can use to refer customers to the merchant’s website.
4 – Promote your affiliate links. Now that you have your affiliate links, it’s time to start promoting them. You can do this through your own website or blog, through social media, or by creating banner ads and other types of online advertising campaigns.
5 – Track your progress. Most affiliate programs provide reporting tools that allow you to track the performance of your campaigns in real time. Use these tools to monitor your progress and tweak your campaigns as needed in order to maximize your earnings potential.
I’ve put together a list of 22 affiliate products or services for designers. I bet you probably even use some of these services and products yourselves in your work. I do, so why not earn some extra cash by recommending them?
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, which can provide compensation to me at no cost to you if you decide to purchase a paid plan. These are products I’ve personally used and stand behind. This site is not intended to provide financial advice and is for entertainment only.
Adobe
Chances are that if you’re a designer, you have worked with one of the Adobe programs at some point in your career and you probably know most of the keyboard shortcuts by heart.
There are a lot of alternatives to the programs that Adobe offers, some are even better than what Adobe offers, but the Adobe programs are still the most used at all the creative agencies I’ve worked with over the years and will probably continue to dominate the creative industry for many years to come.
The Adobe affiliate program is great. If you partner with Adobe you get a range of benefits that can help you promote their products. They give you access to a comprehensive selection of ready-to-publish marketing banners and text links for Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Express, Document Cloud and Adobe Stock.
The commission structure for Creative Cloud and Document Cloud looks like this: If people sign up to their monthly subscriptions, you receive 85% of the payment for the first month. Yearly subscriptions (monthly payment) pays out 85% of first month and Yearly subscriptions with a one-time payment gives out 8.33% of first year payment.
Adobe also has a large stock assets library called Adobe Stock where you can find everything from royalty-free images, stock videos, audio, indesign templates and even 3D models.
Adobe Stock commission structure looks like this: Monthly subscriptions: US$72 Yearly subscriptions: (monthly payment): US$72 Single Purchase: (one-time payment): 8.33% 3 standard assets a month (monthly payment): 85% of the first month.
Skillshare
Type: Online course platform
Skillshare is an interactive learning platform that offers a wide range of courses from top instructors. Courses are designed to help users learn new skills, improve existing ones, or explore a new area of interest. Skillshare’s courses are available on demand, so you can take what you learn when it’s most convenient for you.
With over 10,000 courses available in 80+ categories, there’s something for everyone at Skillshare. Not only can you learn new skills, but you can also expand your knowledge by exploring different topics and learning from experts in their fields. You can also earn badges and credits that can be used towards future courses. I’ve used Skillshare for years to learn new software or brush up on skills in a particular field like hand lettering, 3D, animation or mixed media design.
When you are an affiliate of Skillshare you can earn a 40% commission, up to $88, for every new customer you refer to Skillshare.
Domestika
Type: Online course platform
Domestika is an online learning platform like Skillshare. They brand themselves as a community for creative people. Unlike Skillshare, where you have to create the course yourself, on Domestika you have to bring the content and Domestika will produce, film, and edit the course before putting it online on their platform so that the course is held to their high-level standard. Unlike Skillshare you have to pay for each course, but the courses are often on sale for $10-15.
The affiliate program for Domestika is structured like this: If the user you referred makes a first-time purchase during that 30-day period, you’ll get a 40% commission over the total sale. If it’s a recurring purchase, you’ll get a 20% commission and if they sign up for Domestika but don’t make a purchase, you’ll get US$ 2.00 for each user you’ve referred.
Writesonic / ChatSonic
Type: AI copywriting tool
WriteSonic is a powerful AI writing tool that can help content creators and marketers produce high-quality content in a fraction of the time it would normally take. WriteSonic can generate compelling marketing copy, social media posts, blog articles, product descriptions, and more with its advanced algorithms and natural language processing capabilities.
They have recently shifted their focus and now call themselves ChatSonic – ChatGPT4 with superpowers which is probably a good idea, given all the hype around ChatGPT recently. Due to all this hype it shouldn’t be difficult to promote ChatSonic to your audience.
When you sign up for ChatSonic, you get a web app, a mobile application, a Chrome extension, and a ChatGPT-like API too! Over 10.000 users use ChatSonic on a daily basis.
If you sign up as an affiliate, you can earn 40% Lifetime Commission per user.
Jasper.ai
Type: AI copywriting tool
Jasper.ai was one of the first AI writing assistants I tried and I remember being blown away that a machine could write this good. Until then I had associated AI with terrible voice commands on phones, but this was completely different.
Jasper.ai is an AI-powered writing assistant and if you are a freelance designer you can benefit from Jasper in several ways. Save time on writing tasks such as email communication, proposals, and project briefs.
Jasper.ai can help ensure that your written content is clear, concise, and professional, which can help you build a better rapport with your clients and win more business. Jasper.ai can help you streamline your communication process with clients, allowing you to focus more on your design work.
By using Jasper.ai, freelance designers can take advantage of the benefits of AI-powered writing assistance to enhance their professional image, save time, and communicate more effectively with their clients.
By signing up as an affiliate, you can earn 30% lifetime commission for each customer you refer.
Moonbeam
Type: AI copywriting tool
Moonbeam is another AI writing tool, but unlike its competitors, Moonbeam focuses on creating long-form content like articles, essays, and short stories. The tool guides you through a series of steps before writing your content. If you don’t want to fill out a bunch of questions, you can summon their AI called Luna and just give her a single prompt and she’ll write the content for you.
ChatGPT-4 is integrated into their editor, called Smart Chat, which gives you real-time feedback on your documents. Simply highlight the text you wish to modify and Smart Chat will refine it.
If you’re stuck with writer’s block (it happens for all of us) you can pick one of the prebuilt prompts to get you started creating content faster and more efficiently.
If you join their affiliate program, you can earn a 40% recurring commission for anyone you refer!
Scalenut
Type: AI copywriting tool specialized in SEO research.
The focus of Scalenut is a bit different than the other AI tools in this list. Scalenut focus on SEO and content writing so businesses can optimize their sales and marketing strategy. Scalenut can analyze large amounts of data to identify patterns and insights that can help you make smarter decisions and improve your bottom line.
Scalenut can help you improve your website’s SEO by analyzing the users content and identifying opportunities to improve it so it ranks better in Google. The tool can suggest relevant keywords and phrases to include in your content, as well as guide the user on how they should structure their pages so they rank better in Google.
Scalenut is a powerful tool for businesses looking to improve their SEO strategy and content creation
Their commission rates are pretty good – you can earn up to 60% commission per signup for the lifetime of that user! Being an affiliate also gives you the opportunity to give out promo codes to your audience, so they can try it with a discount.
Typeshare.co
Type: Writing assistant
Templates so you never stare at a blank page again. One-click publishing to millions of readers. Analytics to track performance.
Get a 30% recurring, monthly commision made by users who sign up with your referral link.
Flipped Normals
Type: Stock footage and asset library plus courses. Focused on 3D professionals
If you’re a 3D designer you probably know Flipped Normals marketplace. They brand themselves as “The only curated CG marketplace”. They offer high quality CG courses and assets for 3D professionals in categories such as sculpting, modeling, Texturing, Concept Art, 3D models, Game Assets, and much more. I’ve been buying courses and assets from them for years and the quality is very high, which makes it a lot easier to recommend them as an affiliate.
If you sign up as an affiliate you can earn 10% commission on every sale you refer and they pay out every month if you have reached the minimum amount of $10.
Here are some example courses that you can promote:
https://flippednormals.com/downloads/flippednormals-skin-kit/
https://flippednormals.com/downloads/complete-zbrush-sculpting-bundle/
https://flippednormals.com/downloads/3d-for-beginners-ultimate-bundle/
https://flippednormals.com/downloads/game-art-for-beginners-ultimate-bundle/
Designmodo
Type: Website builders and tools
I really enjoy Designmodo and its high-quality UI elements. Now that they offer an affiliate program it makes it a no brainier to recommend them. Designmodo has a lot of products in their lineup so there’s lots to choose from if you want to promote them.
Slides is one of their oldest products and one of the easiest ways to get an awesome looking landing page produced quickly.
It’s a static website generator, meaning that you don’t have to install a CMS like WordPress or build a backend in Webflow. It features over 140 slides in both light and dark variations with animations and page transitions that make it possible to build a website in a few minutes. I’ve been using it for many years for my own projects and it creates high-quality and fast-loading static websites quickly.
Startup is a website builder built on the Bootstrap framework. It comes with a variety of pre-designed blocks in different categories like headers, navbars, footers, etc and each premade design can be customized to fit the users’ need.
Postcards is a simple tool to create newsletters and emails. It features an intuitive drag and drop template builder that can be used by teams or individuals. You can edit text and images using the built in html editor and has a one-click export to Mailchimp, Hubspot or as plain html.
Their affiliate program is well designed and easy to promote because the quality of their products is so high in quality, their pricing is very reasonable and Designmodo’s reputation precedes their products.
icons8
Type: Creative assets for design professionals
Icons8 is an icon pack digital provider and they offer a free and paid version. Alongside an extensive selection of icon packs, they also offer photos, vectors, music, and design software.
Icons8 assets are very high quality and hand-crafted by an in-house team of professional designers. They offer easy access to digital icons and more, all in one place.
This program could be marketed to people looking for the right tools and design elements to complement their creative projects.
You earn from qualifying purchases and programs through the traffic you drive to Icons8. You’ll get:
70% for each customer that starts a paid monthly subscription and 25% for each paid annual subscription.
Hypefury
Type: Twitter writing and scheduling tool
I’m using Hypefury to grow my own Twitter account. It’s easy to use and has two features I use on a daily basis: Threads and scheduling. It has a lot of advanced features too, but those two features are enough for me right now.
You start at a 25% commission level. You can earn up to 35% commission every month for every customer you refer to Hypefury.
Typefully
Type: Twitter writing and scheduling tool
You get a 20% recurring commission for every user that comes from your referral link and upgrades to our paid plans.
Siter.io
Type: Website builders
Refer people to Siter.io and get 50% of all payments for 12 months for each customer you send.
Framer
Type: Website builder
I’ve been using Framer for the last couple of months and I’m really impressed. It works a lot like Figma, so if you’re familiar with that, you should be up and running very quickly. Once you learn how it works, you can build beautiful landing pages and websites in no time. Together with Figma, Framer.com is going to be part of my daily workflow, I think. Look for more guides and a review in the coming weeks.
If you promote Framer, you can earn 50% from every subscription for 12 months. The great thing about Framer is also that you can create free files and assets and if people sign up to Framer from one of your files, this works just like sharing an affiliate link, so you’ll receive 50% of their subscription for 12 months. You can also create and sell templates for Framer on various marketplaces. Selling a template both nets you the price of the template but also if it’s a new user you’ll get the 50% of their subscription as well. What’s not to like?
Notion.so
Type: Your digital brain
I’m a big fan of Notion and have been using it for a long time to organize various parts of my life and work. I create dashboards, lists and notes about almost everything, so I don’t forget it.
The affiliate program is solid. Refer Notion to your friends and followers, and you can earn 50% of all referred payments. Another good thing about Notion is that you can also create templates and sell those online as well. Stay tuned for an article about that as well.
Gumroad
Type: Platform for selling and discovering digital products and services
Find products on Discover and earn 10% on every sale. Gumroad has a large marketplace where you can find products in all different categories to promote. I earned my first commission promoting a plugin for After Effects on X. It wasn’t a lot, but it showed that it works.
