Affiliate programs for small creators: who will accept you

The short answer

• No follower minimum and no application: Mavely says so on its own site.
• No follower count for websites, a soft one for social pages: Amazon Associates reviews your account only once you have made at least three qualified sales in your first 180 days, and says a social page needs “in most cases, at least 500” followers.
• An application the platform reviews: LTK and ShopMy ask you to apply, and neither publishes a follower minimum on its own pages.
• Networks where each brand decides: on impact.com and Awin you join the network first; the brands' programmes are a separate step.
• For deal groups and chats: Vouchrs has no follower minimum, counts private Facebook groups, Telegram, WhatsApp and Discord, and covers 214 US brands with one application.

The comparison

“No minimum” is not the only gate

The follower count is the rule people ask about, but it is rarely the one that stops a small creator. These do more often:

• A sales test. Amazon Associates keeps your account only if it brings three qualified sales within 180 days. A small audience can pass it, but the clock starts when you apply, not when you are ready.
• One brand at a time. On networks such as Awin and impact.com, being accepted by the network does not mean any brand has accepted you. Vouchrs is an Awin publisher itself: we applied to each brand's programme separately, and each brand decided for itself.
• Groups do not have follower counts. Programs that judge a public profile have little to look at when your audience is a private group, and some brand programmes do not allow posts in social media or groups at all.
• Where your audience lives. Brand programmes pay for the shoppers they can sell to. The brands on Vouchrs sell to US shoppers, so an audience mostly outside the US will buy less for now.

If your audience is a group or a chat

Before you post affiliate links in a Facebook group, a Telegram channel or a WhatsApp community, look for two things in each program's own rules: whether links may go into closed spaces, and whether codes may be pasted outside the brand's own channels. Amazon's Program Policies allow links in emails, texts and direct messages only when the person opted in, and do not mention closed groups by name. Mavely says its links can go everywhere.

On Vouchrs, private groups and channels count. You share your Vouchrs link, which opens a page with the deal and its code, because some brands only allow their codes on sites the affiliate owns. More on running a group: how to make money from a deal group.

What to check before you join any program

1. When a sale counts. Brands confirm a sale only after their return window. At the brands on Vouchrs that typically takes about 35 days, and the money reaches us about 59 days after the purchase. Ask any program what its wait is before you count on the money.
2. The payout minimum, and how you are paid. Vouchrs pays from $25, by PayPal or Wise. When your sales are few, a low minimum matters more than a high rate.
3. How long you keep the credit. If someone buys a day later, does the sale still count? On Vouchrs, a visitor who arrived through your link is remembered for 30 days on their device, if they allow it in the cookie choice.
4. Whether you may post codes. Some brand programmes allow their codes only on the affiliate's own site; pasting them elsewhere can get sales cancelled.
5. What you must disclose. In the US the FTC asks for a clear disclosure next to the link. Its own answers say “affiliate link” alone is not enough, and give “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post” as wording that is (FTC).

What a small audience can earn, with made-up traffic

Across all their Awin publishers, a typical brand you can share on Vouchrs pays about $53 per 100 clicks, and the top tenth $268 or more. That figure already counts the clicks that buy nothing. For a creator on Vouchrs it comes to about $32 per 100 clicks at a typical brand.

So if your posts bring 300 clicks in a month, that is about $95 at a typical brand; 1,000 clicks, about $318. The clicks are made up and the result is an illustration, not a promise: your members may buy less often than coupon-site visitors, returned and cancelled orders do not pay, and the money arrives around three months after the purchase.

Where Vouchrs fits, and where it does not

Vouchrs suits people who already post deals: deal groups, deal pages, coupon pages and small creators whose followers ask where something is from. It is one more source of deals next to the programs you use now, with no exclusivity. It is not the right fit when:

• you mostly link Amazon products: Vouchrs lists independent US brands' own shops, not Amazon;
• most of your audience lives outside the US;
• you want paid campaigns or free products from brands, which platforms such as LTK and ShopMy are built around;
• you need the money soon: from a purchase to your payment is around three months.