The short version: There are somewhere between 500 and 1,000 affiliate networks and marketplaces operating worldwide, plus tens of thousands of individual brands running their own in-house affiliate programs through software like Impact, PartnerStack, or Tapfiliate. You don’t need to know all of them. You need to know the six or seven that dominate your niche and pick based on payout terms and product fit, not hype.
Nobody knows the exact number, and that’s fine
Every “how many affiliate networks exist” post online quotes a made-up precise figure like “there are 847 affiliate networks globally” with no source behind it. I’m not going to do that to you. The honest answer is that nobody tracks this centrally, because the industry has two completely different layers that get counted together.
Layer one is the big multi-brand networks: ShareASale, CJ Affiliate (still called Commission Junction by half the industry), Rakuten Advertising, Awin, Impact, FlexOffers, ClickBank, and Amazon Associates. That’s maybe 20 to 30 networks that matter to most people reading this, and they collectively host hundreds of thousands of individual merchant programs.
Layer two is in-house affiliate programs that brands run themselves, outside any network, using software such as Impact’s own tracking, PartnerStack, Tapfiliate, or Post Affiliate Pro. Every SaaS company you’ve heard of runs one of these. That’s where the real number balloons into the tens of thousands, because setting one up now costs a few hundred pounds a month and takes an afternoon.
So when someone asks how many platforms exist, the honest answer is: a small, countable set of networks that matter, and an uncountable, constantly changing sea of individual programs sitting on top of them. Stop trying to survey the whole ocean. Fish in the right pond.
The platforms that matter, with real numbers
Here’s what I tell clients when they ask where to start, because this is the shortlist that covers 90% of use cases:
- Amazon Associates. Commission rates dropped hard in 2020 (some categories pay as little as 1%, most sit between 3% and 4%) but the sheer product range and trust make it the easiest entry point for content sites and YouTubers.
- ShareASale, now owned by Awin, hosts around 4,500 merchant programs across fashion, home, and B2B, with a low $50 minimum payout that suits people starting out.
- CJ Affiliate skews toward bigger, established brands (think Overstock, Barnes & Noble, GoPro) and has a steeper approval process, which puts off beginners but also filters out low-quality merchants.
- Rakuten Advertising runs programs for brands like Sephora and Macy’s and is strong if your audience is retail or beauty focused.
- Awin is huge in Europe and the UK specifically, with over 25,000 advertisers globally, and it’s the one I push UK-based clients toward first because so many British and Irish retailers run through it.
- Impact and PartnerStack dominate the SaaS and tech affiliate space. If you promote software tools, these are where the good commissions live, often 20% to 40% recurring, not the 3% you get selling a blender.
- ClickBank specialises in digital products, courses, and info products, with commissions frequently at 50% or higher, though quality varies wildly and you have to be more careful about what you attach your name to.
Then, separately, most software companies you’d want to promote run their own program rather than sitting on a big network. When I write about how ActiveCampaign built its marketing engine, one of the quieter parts of that story is its own affiliate program, which pays 20% to 30% recurring commission for the life of the customer, not a one-off fee. That structure alone makes it worth more attention than most network listings will give it, because nobody’s compiling a spreadsheet of every SaaS company’s in-house terms for you.
A real example of getting this wrong (mine)
Years ago, when I still ran affiliate content alongside my speaking and consulting work, I joined nine different networks in the same month because nine different people online told me nine different “best” answers. ShareASale for one client’s fashion recommendations, CJ because a bigger brand insisted on it, Awin because a European retailer only ran through them, Impact because a software tool I loved had just moved there from CJ.
Nine logins. Nine different payment schedules. Nine different minimum payout thresholds, ranging from $25 to $100. Two of them held my earnings for 60 days past the sale for “returns processing” and I lost track of which commissions had cleared and which hadn’t. I spent more hours managing dashboards than I spent writing content that converted.
The month I quit six of those nine networks and put my energy into the two with products my audience wanted and payout terms I could plan around, my affiliate income went up, not down. Fewer platforms, more focus, better results. That’s the pattern I now see with almost every client who over-joins networks in their first year.
How to pick one (the step-by-step)
Skip the “top 10 affiliate networks” listicles that rank platforms by traffic volume alone. Here’s the process I walk clients through:
- Step 1: Start from your audience, not the platform. If your audience finds you on Pinterest looking for home and lifestyle inspiration, ShareASale or Rakuten’s retail merchants fit better than a SaaS network. If your audience finds you through short-form video the way brands build attention on TikTok, look at programs with strong visual products and generous first-30-days cookie windows, because impulse purchases from video need a shorter path to conversion.
- Step 2: Check the cookie window before the commission rate. A 24-hour cookie on a 10% commission is often worse than a 30-day cookie on 6%, because most people don’t buy on the first click. Amazon’s cookie is famously just 24 hours. Awin and Impact typically offer 30 days or more.
- Step 3: Read the payout terms, not the marketing page. Look for minimum payout threshold, payment schedule (net-30, net-60), and whether they hold funds for a “return window” before releasing your money.
- Step 4: Apply to two or three, not nine. Pick one big general network (ShareASale or Awin), one niche-specific one if it exists for your industry, and one direct in-house program from a brand you already use and trust.
- Step 5: Give each one 90 days before judging it. Affiliate income is slow to build. Switching platforms every six weeks resets your learning curve every time.
- Step 6: Track your own numbers outside the dashboards. A simple spreadsheet with clicks, conversions, and pending versus paid commission per platform will show you which one is worth your time within a quarter, because the dashboards themselves are designed to make every program look busy.
Why platform choice matters less than you think
Here’s the part most guides on this topic won’t say plainly: the platform is rarely the reason affiliate income fails to grow. I’ve seen people on the “wrong” network doing fine and people on the “best” network earning almost nothing, because the platform was never the bottleneck. The bottleneck is almost always traffic quality and trust, not which dashboard the commission gets logged in.
If you’re building a Shopify store and using affiliates as one channel among several, the platform matters far less than the brand story that makes people want to click through in the first place, which is why brands that get their wider Shopify marketing strategy right tend to succeed on almost any network they choose, while brands with weak positioning fail even on the biggest one. Pick a platform, yes, but don’t expect the platform to fix a traffic or trust problem that sits somewhere else entirely.
There’s also a less comfortable point worth saying out loud: a huge share of “affiliate marketing platform comparison” content online is itself written by affiliates promoting the platforms they earn commission from recommending. That doesn’t make the information wrong, but it does mean the enthusiasm in most of these comparisons is not neutral. Read them knowing that, and weight the actual payout terms above the tone of the recommendation.
If you’re a business wanting to run your own program instead
Everything above assumes you’re joining a platform as an affiliate. If you’re on the other side, a business wanting affiliates to promote you, the calculation flips. You’re choosing between joining an existing network (more built-in affiliates, but they take a cut, typically 20% to 30% of the commission paid) or running your own program through software like Impact, PartnerStack, Tapfiliate, or Rewardful (more control, cheaper long-term, but you have to recruit affiliates yourself).
If you want the fuller picture of what affiliate marketing looks like from the business side, including how to structure commissions and recruit your first affiliates, I’ve covered that in more depth in what affiliate marketing is and how small businesses use it. Most small businesses I work with start with an in-house program on cheap software rather than a big network, purely because the network’s cut isn’t worth it until you’re processing serious volume.
Frequently asked questions
How many affiliate networks are there in total?
Roughly 20 to 30 major multi-brand networks dominate the industry (ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Rakuten, Awin, Impact, FlexOffers, ClickBank, Amazon Associates), but if you count individual in-house affiliate programs run by brands on their own software, the real number runs into the tens of thousands and changes constantly.
What is the best affiliate platform for beginners?
ShareASale and Amazon Associates are the easiest to get approved for with no track record, and both have low payout thresholds, which makes them the most practical starting points even though commissions are modest.
Should I join multiple affiliate networks at once?
No, not at the start. Two or three well-matched programs you can manage will outperform nine you’re spread across, because tracking commissions, payout schedules, and content across too many dashboards eats the time you should be spending on traffic and trust.
Do SaaS affiliate programs pay better than retail ones?
Usually yes. Retail affiliate commissions typically sit between 3% and 10% on a single sale, while SaaS programs often pay 20% to 40% recurring for as long as the customer stays subscribed, which compounds far more over time.
