How much does it cost to start affiliate marketing? Most of the affiliate programs are free to join, but you’ll need to pay some cost to setup a professional site. You’ll need an average cost price of less than $100 to get started with affiliate marketing if you’re new.
“How much do I need to start affiliate marketing?” I get asked this all of the time especially by those who just started out with affiliate marketing. That is why I think there is a need for me to list out the expenses related to this particular business model.
For those who are new, affiliate marketing is the process by which you generate a commission by promoting another people’s service or product.
Affiliate marketing has created one the biggest sources of internet income for many internet marketer, together with email marketing, which accounting for more than 18% of all e-commerce orders in USA and Canada.
If you would like to earn cash online with affiliate marketing but are concerned about the cost of investment to get started, keep reading!
Affiliate Marketing is a Low Cost and Lucrative Business Model
Technically speaking, it does not cost anything to get going with affiliate marketing. That is the best part of this business model.
Foremost and first, affiliate marketing programs are free to join. More to the point, there are plenty of free platforms which are available that you can use to create content for promoting your affiliate products.
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But, if you wish to do affiliate marketing the proper way and take it as a business that generate income monthly, you’ll need to do some investment to cover some basic cost.
How Much Will It Cost to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing
When you’re just starting out your affiliate marketing, I highly suggest you to take a cost effective approach. Do not spend too much of money into expenses which will not make a huge difference to your business growth.
That said, I believe the below assets are perfect if you wish to start your affiliate marketing business properly and more professionally.
1. Domain Name (approx. $10)
While this is mentioned at the first place, it’s not your initial step. You’ll determine what your domain name should be after you’ve done some research on your affiliate product and your topic.
The domain name show your presence on the internet and yes it should be strongly associated with the topic of what you are going to write in your website later. You’ll want to have a name which is somewhat related to your topic of site.
I recommend you to register your domain name with Namecheap or Godaddy as this two company are a highly reputable company that offer domain name registration services.
Namecheap is a the company when it comes to domain names and they additionally provides SSL certificates, e-mail, and also have an excellent resource area. What I particularly like about Namecheap is they provide totally free “whoisguard” so you do not have to pay to keep your private information in private mode.
Godaddy is likely the largest of all the domain name registrars. They’ve excellent support that is excellent , offer web protection, email, SSL certificates, domain name auctions and other things. They do not include personal domain name registration at for free although that will be the only negative I find.
What’s the cost of a domain name? – On average, you’re about to spend approximately $10 on a domain name when averaging out of Namecheap and Godaddy. Namecheap is going to cost lesser particularly if you would like to have private registration (which I suggest). Just go with Namecheap for your domain name.
2. Hosting ($35.40 / 1st Year)
Your site has to “live” somewhere on the internet. So a hosting is the home for your site. Your hosting provider is going to be accountable for “hosting” your website on the internet.
They’ll take care after of any technical problems and situation, have automated backup for your site so that your website may be restored when you have accidentally deleted or crash of any data on your site.
There are a lot of hosting companies out there available for you to choose from but you’ll need to choose your hosting with a reputable and established company.
If you choose on the wrong hosting company, your site up-time might be compromised which may end up in lost of sales. Additionally, down the road, in case they choose to stop operations, you’ll have hard time of getting back your files or site to be returned. So, it’s important to choose wisely.
If you would like get a good host, I’ve arranged a special discount with Bluehost specially for my readers here.Usually it’s $3.95 a month for the very first 12 months but if you subscribe to their service from here, you’ll get it for $2.95 a month. That is simply $35.40 for the initial year which is cheap!
Important! Something to note is the fact that you’ll additionally get a totally FREE domain name if you set up your Bluehost account. Even though this might seem as a no brainer, I’d advise you to better keep your domain name separately with a registrar such as Namecheap or GoDaddy.
The reason behind this is in case you actually choose to change hosts for any reason, it is going to be much simpler as well as a reduced amount of risk in case you’ve the domain of yours with a registrar rather than the host. I have heard several horror stories of people who lost their domain whenever they get it with a web hosting provider. So, be safe, keep it separately.
This will likely certainly not happen with Bluehost, but no matter the host I ALWAYS purchase it with a 3rd party registrar.
Certainly, it is going to cost you a little more up front, (like ten bucks) though you will have additional peace of head and additionally you get no cost whoisguard with Namecheap – Bluehost charges extra because of this and so, go with Namecheap.
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Register the domain name of yours first, then head over to Bluehost and select the possibility as suggested below:
Remember, don’t jump the gun on a website up until you’ve completed the research of yours initially! When you’re prepared, I’ve an instructions manual on how to create your hosting account here.
3. WordPress Premium Theme ($35)
Free WordPress themes are fine to use and it is absolutely okay to start creating your site on a totally free theme. However premium themes not merely look better, but they are crafted with a better coding, load more quickly, mobile friendly, have better support and more options are available.
I paid $35 for the theme by Mythemeshop which I am using for this site and it’s called Schema. Certainly you’re able to find themes which are cheaper or costlier, but this is an average price. This is a good theme and I highly recommend to you.
You are free to get any theme that you want and some is catered to the specific niche of yours, but I discovered that MyThemeShop is quite great since they’ve superb support and gorgeous themes design.
If you possibly need some assistance or maybe customization with the theme, simply send a support ticket and they’ll promptly reply.
4. Email Marketing ($15/Month)
If you create your site and you want to gather leads so that you’re able to market to these leads in the future, GetResponse is exactly what I use and trust. The reason is because they allow affiliate links in their emails.
As an internet marketer, you’ll want to insert your affiliate links into your emails. You may find some other autoresponder offer at a cheaper price, but there is no point of using them as you’ll get your account banned if you insert your affiliate links in it. So, again you’ll need to choose wisely.
The great things about GetResponse is that they’ve a good featured called workflows. This blows out the conventional way of marketing via an autoresponder and it is totally customizable.
You will have the ability to segment your list based upon your audience’s behaviors that make it very impressive and powerful tool.
Let’s sum up all this asset..
- Domain Name – $10
- Hosting – $35.40
- Premium WordPress Theme – $35
- GetResponse – $15/month
The entire price for the above is $95.40
This provides you with an entirely working site with a high quality theme, and also a lead gen tool.
Where else are you able to start a company for that very little amount?
Imagine just what it will cost you to start a conventional physical store. This amount would not even enough to actually cover the price of paint!
How to Start Affiliate Marketing Properly
Remember that investing more money into your business is able to help accelerate your business further. However, when you’re just getting started, you don’t have to invest too much.
Just start with the standard tools and stuff to get your site move on, and you can upgrade and add additional more professional stuff later when you’re already start making money.
There will be no problem for you to create a 5 figure affiliate marketing business with the assets which I’ve outlined above. Set all this up, and you are good to go to start running your affiliate marketing business.
Which assets are you going to invest today?