The Elegant Themes Affiliate Review - One of the Best Recurring Payouts?

In these uncertain times, it’s easy to wonder what the best way to make simple money is going to be.

There are plenty of programs online that allow website owners to make money through outside links and advertising such as the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program, but is it one of the best recurring payouts?

The Elegant Themes Affiliate Program is one of the best payouts available. This is due primarily to their compensation rate. They pay their affiliates 50% commission on sales made through their affiliate links. Also, this commission is recurring, meaning it lasts the lifetime of that user.

Let’s take a closer look at what makes this such a great opportunity for website owners.

What Is Elegant Themes?

Elegant Themes is a WordPress themes provider. They don’t host websites, but rather provide customers with beautiful themes and plugins to be used on their WordPress websites.

They have been in business for 12 years and have serviced over 700 thousand customers. In order to use their services, you’ll need a WordPress website. They offer two separate plans for customers looking for great themes and plugins for their websites.

Here are the plans:

Yearly Access ($89 a year) – You get access to their themes (Divi, Extra, Bloom, and Monarch), website packs, updates, product support, and unlimited website usage. They also offer a 30-day risk-free guarantee.
Lifetime Access ($249 one-time payment) – You get all of the same features as the Yearly Access, but instead of paying an annual subscription fee, you simply pay one time and have lifetime access to everything Elegant Themes offers.

Each summer, the company will offer a 20% discount during the summer months, which ends on the first of September. This will put the Yearly Access at only $70 a year and the Lifetime Access at $199. That’s not a bad discount!

Something to remember is that Elegant Themes isn’t a website hosting service.

In order to use their themes and plugins, you’ll need a WordPress website already set up. The same goes for if you want to join the affiliate program.

Affiliate Marketing Basics

So, what exactly is affiliate marketing? Well, affiliate marketing is when you promote or sponsor someone else’s products and receive a commission for the sale. It’s as simple as that.

The person you promote or sponsor could be anyone that offers such a program. WordPress theme and plugin developers are just an example of the kind of companies that offer affiliate marketing.

It’s a simple and great way to make easy money if you do it right. So, let’s take a look at the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program and what you could possibly get out of it.

The Elegant Themes Affiliate Program

The Elegant Themes Affiliate Program is a way for website owners to make money on their websites.

If you sign up to be an affiliate, you’ll make 50% on all sales that are made through your affiliate link. You’ll also make 50% on membership renewals.

If you decide to sign up, you’ll need a WordPress website to qualify. You’ll set up a username and password and then fill in the rest of the information, which includes your address and phone number.

You’ll be required to supply a PayPal email address since this is the only way they will send payment to you.

After you fill out the sign-up page, your application will be reviewed. You’ll receive a response back from an administrator once your application is approved.

A helpful tip: don’t use a website that is “under construction” or not finished. This could cause Elegant Themes to deny your application.

The way it works is that once your account is approved, you’re given a linking code that you can then insert into your website.

This link will take your website visitor to the Elegant Themes homepage, where they will be able to explore the products available.

Their sales are tracked through your link, which is how Elegant Themes sends you the commission if that visitor makes a sale.

The commission is for the lifetime of that visitor’s sale. So, if they purchase a yearly subscription to Elegant Themes and then renew it, you’ll get another 50% on that renewal as well. This continues for the life of that subscription.

Pros of the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program

Here are the advantages of the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program:

There’s the potential of making a lot of money.
It has one of the largest payouts in the market, with 50% commissions.
The program offers customizable banners.
It has a user-friendly interface.

Cons of the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program

Before trying out the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program, make sure of all the disadvantages that you might face in the future. Let’s have a look at them:

Affiliates have three months for a visitor to purchase before the affiliate loses out on the commission.
You only get paid once your balance reaches a minimum of $200.
Payments are only made through PayPal.
You’ll have to keep track of your own taxes.
Elegant Themes isn’t a website hosting service.

Should You Sign Up?

So, should you sign up? That’s a pretty tough question. Honestly, it would depend a lot on you and your preferences.

There are a lot of benefits to joining the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program. However, it might not be as simple as it sounds. Like all things, there are rules that you need to follow in order to get paid.

You should carefully read through the Terms and Conditions that Elegant Themes provides on their website. Below are some of the highlights of the Terms and Conditions that you might want to consider before signing up.

Promotional Materials

Elegant Themes requires that you provide accurate and true statements of any of their products you might happen to review on your website or social media.

This isn’t an outrageous request. If you think something isn’t worth the money, you should be honest about it.

Otherwise, it just makes you and Elegant Themes look dishonest to potential paying customers, which is the last thing anyone wants.

The company also requires that whenever an affiliate link is used that an accompanying disclosure is also used. This disclosure would inform the reader that you receive commissions on any purchases made through that link.

This type of disclosure could be something as simple as “Disclosure: The link below is an ‘affiliate link,’ which means if you purchase something after clicking on the link, I make a commission on that sale.”

Elegant Themes also require that if you are promoting their products on social media, you also disclose the nature of the post. Simply adding #ad to your Twitter post about Elegant Themes can be enough to inform your audience that you’re promoting their products.

Affiliate Tracking and Commission

The way the affiliate links work is that they can track the sale using the IP address and/or the visitor’s cookies. This can make things a little difficult in some instances.

Some internet users will change their IP addresses or clear their cookies for security purposes. If this happens, Elegant Themes can’t guarantee that you’ll receive a commission for any sales made by that user.

You’re not allowed to force your visitors to click on your affiliate link.

You’re also not allowed to spam your visitors or coerce them into making a purchase through your affiliate link. If you are found to have done this, your account will be terminated, and you won’t receive the commission from the fraudulent sale.

In addition to that, if a sale is refunded, the commission for it is removed from your account. This makes it especially important not to try and trick your visitors into making a purchase they may not want to make.

The visitor that Elegant Themes gets through your affiliate links will only be tracked for three months.

This means if that visitor decides to buy something, but it’s after that 3-month mark, you won’t receive the commission for that sale.

Finally, you’ll also receive your commission rate on any renewals of the initial sale.

If your visitor purchases the Yearly Access through your affiliate link, you’ll receive that first commission, but you’ll continue to receive that commission for that account’s lifetime.

Payment

Speaking of commission, that’s an important thing to look at in these Terms and Conditions. So, you already know that you’ll receive a 50% commission on sales and renewals, but how will you get paid?

Well, Elegant Themes only pays you through PayPal. This could be a downside to this program if you aren’t comfortable using PayPal as a way of receiving funds.

You’ll always want to keep in mind that you won’t receive this money until your account balance reaches $200. Once that happens, you’ll receive your payment at the end of the money that $200 is accumulated.

This isn’t a one-time balance restriction. Each month you will need to make at least $200 in order to get paid by the end of the month.

Prohibitions and Account Terminations

This section of the Terms and Conditions should be read through very carefully.

These are the rules that could result in getting your entire account terminated without notice. If that happens, you’ll also lose any commissions you might have made.

Some of these rules are listed below. Again, you’ll want to read through these carefully for yourself as well:

Don’t violate any false gambling, sweepstakes, or advertising laws.
Your website can’t contain any infringing, defamatory, or trade disparagement.
Don’t install any code or software onto your website that will corrupt or damage a visitor’s computer in any way.
Don’t offer your visitors cash prizes or other incentives to get users to click on your affiliate link.
You must comply with all laws regarding email spam.

In addition to those rules listed above, you must ensure your website doesn’t contain any of the following content:

Pornography or obscene content
Offensive, hateful, harmful, threatening, harassing, discriminating (sexually, religiously, by race, ethnicity, gender, disability or other)
Graphically violent
Or solicits any unlawful acts

If your website is found to have any of the above content on it, your account with Elegant Themes will be terminated without notice.

Be sure to read through the entire Terms and Conditions carefully. There is a lot more detail listed in it than what is mentioned in this review.

You must consider everything carefully before signing up.

Check Out A List Of My Favorite Affiliate Programs

Reasons the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program Is Worth It

Now that you’ve gotten a peek at the pros and cons of the program let’s look at why it’s worth signing up for the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program.

Largest Payout on the Market

Elegant Themes annually pays its affiliates 3 million dollars. That is a huge chunk of cash going to people just like you.

Now, are you likely to make $3 million in a year? No, but as long as your promotion strategies are good, you have the potential to make a lot of money.

A Lot of Potential to Earn Tons of Money

The potential you have to earn a lot of money is the biggest reason why it’s worth giving it a try. Not only is it 50% on all sales made through your affiliate link, but it’s 50% on all renewals too.

That can be a lot of money if it adds up. All you need to do is focus your promotions to attract the kind of visitors who will most likely sign up for Elegant Themes.

As it stands, you’ll receive $44.50 for each yearly subscription that joins through your affiliate link.

You’ll also get $124.50 for every lifetime access subscription, even if you get just one of each every day that will add up to about $1,200 a week.

That gives you the potential to make roughly $4,700 a month.

That is an impressive amount of money for just getting two sales a day. If you can drive more traffic to get more than two sales a day, the amount you end up with is nearly limitless.

Of course — as with all things — it’s never guaranteed how much money will make. It all depends on your promoting capabilities and the traffic you’re able to generate.

Fast and Simple to Use

There are three easy steps, and then you’re good to go. You’ll want to work on promoting your links, but for the most part, it’s as simple as there.

You’ll sign up, get your link, and then share it with the world. Now, you could create a website and write a couple of blog posts and leave the website to do the rest.

Or you could promote and write new content as often as possible to drive up the traffic to your website.

User-Friendly Interface

Elegant Themes has a theme set called Divi, which offers visual drag and drop builders for their themes.

This makes it simple for non-tech-savvy individuals to get the most out of Divi’s themes and plugins.

This is only one of the reasons why it’s so simple to get interested customers to sign up for Elegant Themes.

As long as you can drive traffic from your website to theirs, you’re almost guaranteed a commission.

Elegant Themes has been around almost as long as WordPress itself.

This makes them a great choice for not only customers looking to add visual appeal to their own websites, but also for an affiliate program that really works.

Traffic Tracking

Affiliates are able to track their visitors through the affiliate dashboard. This allows you to see how well your promotions are working and predict how much revenue you could potentially make each day.

24/7 Support

It’s always nice to know that no matter what time of day (or night) it is, if you have a question, they have someone standing by to answer it.

This is especially helpful because codes and links can sometimes get corrupted or broken. If you aren’t tech-savvy, this can become very stressful, which is why their 24/7 support is great.

In addition to their 24/7 support, they have a community board filled with answered questions you might have regarding the actual products they offer.

This is helpful because, as an affiliate, you’re going to want to be familiar with all the ins and outs of Elegant Themes’ products.

Between these two, you’ll easily be able to provide your website visitors with any information they might have about Elegant Themes.

Check Out My List Of WordPress Essentials | Great for affiliate marketers and people who’re looking to build something on WordPress

How to Make a Significant Income

Several tips will help you increase your income through appropriate promoting methods.

Below, you’ll find a video that shows how one Elegant Themes affiliate made $250,000 in just three years by making WordPress tutorials.

Another way to promote the Elegant Themes products is to focus your content on the lesser-known products, such as Extra, Bloom, and Monarch.

Divi is the most popular and well-known theme that Elegant Themes offers. If you focus your content on this theme, you could risk getting lost in a sea of others doing the same thing.

If you focus on Extra, Bloom, or Monarch, you’ll be in a much less competitive niche. This will give you a specific audience to focus on and could lead to more referrals without having to fight as hard to be seen.

What’s great about these themes is that they also focus on smaller target audiences. For example, Extra is great for bloggers and magazines. Bloom is the Elegant Themes email plugin, while Monarch is their plugin for social sharing.

Divi is their all-in-one product, and while that gives you a wider range of potential referrals — as mentioned above — it also makes the competition much higher.

There’s a Catch

As with all good things, there always seems to be a catch. While it is relatively simple to make money through this program, you’ll want to keep one very important thing in mind.

This affiliate program is geared toward an audience looking for WordPress related content. If you’re ready and able to blog about, talk about, and promote only WordPress related things on your website, then this program could be a great option for you. It’s possible you’ll make a lot of money this way.

However, if you’re like me, you might not want your website to be targeting a WordPress-specific audience. If that’s the case, this program may not make you a ton of money.

The only way for the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program to work for you is if you are bringing in traffic from those who are looking for WordPress content.

Otherwise, your readers won’t be interested in clicking on your affiliate links or banners.

Check Out A List Of My Favorite Affiliate Programs

Alternative Affiliate Programs

Elegant Themes may be one of the best programs available on the market today, but they aren’t the only ones.

It’s always helpful to look around to find the best option for you and your potential business. Here is a shortlist of some of the other comparable options out there.

WP Engine

WP Engine is another insanely great affiliate program. They pay you either $200 or 100% of the first month of their payment, whichever option is higher.

This payout alone makes them worth considering. These visitors have six months to make a purchase for you to make money off it.

However, in addition to their commission rates, there are other incentives as well. If your visitor becomes an affiliate, you’ll get $50 for each person they refer to. WP Engine offers a wide variety of WordPress themes as well as StudioPress themes.

They also give you discounts that you can offer your website visitors. They’ll even give you a bonus if you send just five referrals to their site.

It’s a great alternative to Elegant Themes if you decide they just aren’t for you.

Thrive Themes

Thrive Themes offers the same services as Elegant Themes, but for a lower commission rate. Now, before you write them off, take a look at what makes them great.

Your account only needs to reach $20 in order for you to receive your money. You’ll be notified in 72 hours whether you’ve been accepted as an affiliate.

Their commission rate is low (35% on initial sales and 25% on renewals), but they have a whole different set of themes and plugins than Elegant Themes.

This makes them a unique competitor and ensures you’ll get some customers clicking on your affiliate link.

Team Treehouse

This isn’t quite a WordPress-specific web service. It’s an online learning platform, and they teach all sorts of things, WordPress included. They offer a variety of WordPress content to choose from.

Team Treehouse will pay you 50% of what the referral pays. This can range from a traditional subscription or registering for a tech course.

You’ll get 50% of that sale no matter what it is. The referral period is also 45 days, rather than the 30 days Elegant Themes offers.

Sucuri

Sucuri is a great affiliate program alternative because of its focus on security. These days there seems to be a scam everywhere you turn—people who are trying to hack into your websites and accounts to get your sensitive information.

Sucuri is great because they offer intense security measures for your WordPress websites. That’s a huge appeal for people who want to keep their client information safe.

The commission you receive is lower than you would with Elegant Themes, but the appeal of the security they offer potential customers is likely to make up for the difference.

This program’s commission rate is 25% of every single-site plan and $100 for every agency referral.

Want To Read More Reviews On Affiliate Programs? Click Here

Elegant Themes Affiliate Program Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is there a charge to join the Elegant Themes Affiliate Program?

No! It’s completely free to join the program and start making money. However, there could be unrelated costs involved because you will need a website in order to join.

Q: What products are eligible for commissions?

Because Elegant Themes bundles all of its products into two distinct packages, you’ll receive a commission on both the Yearly Access and the Lifetime Access. Elegant Themes doesn’t sell individual products.

Q: Does Elegant Themes offer marketing resources?

Yes. Elegant Themes will offer you banners and a wide variety of graphics that you can use to promote on your website or social media platform.

Q: When purchasing through my affiliate link, will my visitors pay more?

No. Your visitors will pay the exact same amount that they would pay normally. The cost of your commission will not affect its overall price.

Summary

There is a lot to consider when trying out different programs to make easy money. Elegant Themes isn’t an all in one website servicing company, but they have been providing users with themes and plugins for 12 years.

Their affiliate program is one of the best out there, and they pay their affiliates $3 million a year. It’s definitely one of the best recurring payouts out there.

The Elegant Themes Affiliate Review – One of the Best Recurring Payouts?