Amazon Associates Review – Is It Worth It in 2025?

Are you a beginner just getting started with affiliate marketing?

If you answered yes, then you’re probably heard about the Amazon affiliate marketing program or as they call it, Amazon Associates.

In this blog post, I’m going to answer some questions that almost all beginners ask when they’re just getting started with this popular affiliate program.

After you read this Amazon Associates review, you’ll be able to understand how it works and decide if you want to get involved.

I’ve been promoting Amazon products for the past 15+ years and this post is based on my experience up to this point.

Here’s what you need to know if you want to earn money with Amazon Associates in 2025.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

What is Amazon Associates?

Amazon Associates is Amazon’s affiliate marketing program where they pay people to share their products.

If you have a blog or website, an app, or a page with a decent size following then you can apply to become an affiliate or influencer.

When you join Amazon Associates, you’ll get customized links that you can share to any of the millions of products and services on the Amazon website.

You will also get access to your affiliate dashboard known as Amazon Associates Central, where you can get other banners and links to share, reports on your performance, info on upcoming promotions, and more.

Amazon Associates gives you access to promote millions of products in dozens of niches that it can work for almost anyone no matter your website’s target audience. The promotional opportunities are so much that sometimes Amazon is referred to as an affiliate network.

Sounds great but there are some not so great things about Amazon Associates too. I’ve covered the good and the bad in this review so read on if you want to know more.

But first, let’s look at the sign up process.

Signing Up for Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates makes the signup process easy. You’ll need to fill out an online form that spans about 4 short pages.

Before you get started, you’ll need:

If your website or YouTube channel already receives traffic it will be much easier to get your first sales as you’re required to make at least 3 sales within the first 180 days after submitting your application.

So it’s best to start working on your website/blog or channel first before you apply.

When you’re ready to sign up, just go to the Amazon Associates Central page and hit the signup button.

After you click on the signup button, you’re taken to the sign in page so that you can sign into your Amazon account. If you don’t have one, you’re given the option to create on.

If you already have an Amazon account that you use to shop, you can just sign in to start filling out the Amazon Associates application form.

Here’s the info you’ll need to submit.

1. Your account information

The first piece of info you’ll need to submit is your account info.

Three questions need to be answered here.

2. Add your website, channel or app

The next step is to list your website or any other websites where you will be posting Amazon links to. If you’re using a YouTube channel, you can post your channel page instead and then click on “Add”.

If you’re submitting an app, you will need to use the other box on the right. Then click the “Next” button to continue.

3. Fill in your Associates profile

Next, you’ll fill in some information that will help you to complete your account profile setup.

For example, you’re asked to choose a Store ID. This is a unique primary tracker which identifies you as the referrer. You can add other secondary trackers later to track which websites or channels visitors are coming from.

You’re also asked “what are your websites about”. You just need to describe what your website or channel is about here and how you intend to promote Amazon products with it.

There are a couple other straight-forward questions where you can just select the best answer. Fill out the captcha image and click “Next” to continue.

4. Application received

At this point, you’ve successfully signed up for Amazon Associates and can start promoting. On this page, you’ll be shown your Associates ID # and a short message telling you what you can expect.

You’re reminded that you’ll need to successfully refer some qualified sales within 180 days (6 month) or your application will be rejected.

Once signed up, just go to your dashboard, get yourself familiarized with how things work and start promoting.

But first, you’ll need to know the rules in order to stay compliant and not get your account terminated.

Amazon Affiliate Rules To Follow

All affiliate programs have rules. Amazon though, probably has some of the strictest rules of any affiliate program. So strict that if you are found to not be compliant, you might end up getting your associate account terminated.

This is one of the biggest drawbacks of the Amazon Associates programs. Not because they have strict rules but because these rules are so many, they get updated often, and are contained in a long boring document called Program Policies.

Here are some of the most important Amazon Affiliate rules that get on everyone’s nerves but which you must follow.

From time to time, Amazon updates their policies and gives you a short version of what’s changed. You’ll need to keep up with these changes or risk having your account terminated.

Commission Rates on Amazon Associates

When the question of “is it worth it” comes up, people are generally looking at Amazon’s commission rates.

Compared to other affiliate programs, commission rates on Amazon Associates are tiny. To be fair though, commission rates for most physical products through ecommerce stores are small, usually around 5%-20% per sale.

On Amazon, you can expect to be paid from 1% – 10% on most items depending on the category. The mostly digital category of Amazon Games pays 20% per sale. And some product categories, like gift cards, wireless service plans, alcohol and purchases from the app store, pay no commissions.

You can find all the info in what Amazon calls their Commission Income statement.

Bounties

Besides the standard commission rates, Amazon also pays special commissions called bounties.

Bounties are paid for special actions that don’t necessarily result from a sale. This could be something like when a customer takes a free trial or they sign up for a service offered by Amazon.

For example, affiliates can get paid a flat $3.00 commission when they refer a customer who takes the Amazon Prime free trial. Or they can get $5 for every successful registration of an Audible Plus free trial. Or $25 when someone registers an Audible Premium Plus annual membership.

The different bounties vary depending on the action taken. The payouts can be found in the Amazon Associates Commission Income statement.

So is it worth it?

While the commission rates may not be that great, if you send enough traffic, they can really add up.

Amazon converts really well due to the fact that they’re a household name, a trustworthy brand and a lot of people already have accounts and are ready to buy if they’re really looking for something on the site.

You also get paid for all the other purchases your referral makes. So even if you send someone to Amazon to buy a pen that costs $1 and they end up buying a smart TV, a smartphone and some other luxury items, you’d still get paid for all those sales.

I would suggest though, that if the store you’re referring your visitors to has an official website with an affiliate program, there is a good chance that they pay more than Amazon does. In this case, it would make more sense to sign up for their affiliate program and get the bigger commissions.

Creating Product Links / Resources

Amazon is a huge website, so it makes sense that you can’t just send everyone to the homepage.

To create product affiliate links that will track your referrals, Amazon gives you a tool called Sitestripe. This Sitestripe is a bar that runs across the top of the site when you’re logged into your Amazon Associates account.

Sitestripe is visible to you on every product page on the Amazon website. From there, you can easily grab the affiliate link for that product and paste it into your website. You can get the full link or a more pretty looking short link.

There are also social sharing buttons for Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), so that you can share your links directly to those platforms. You can also click to see your earnings, get help with Sitestripe or turn off Sitestripe.

Before, Sitestripe allowed affiliates to grab product images and other creatives but those were removed leaving only the text links. This decision by Amazon Associates has caused a lot of worry because there’s a rule about not using product images from Amazon unless you’re using the API. You can’t screenshot images or download the ones on Amazon otherwise you can get into trouble or get booted from the program.

There are third-party tools though, like Tasty Links, that you can use to get images from Amazon to go with your content.

Creating links on Amazon Associates isn’t complex at all. You just need to remember to stick to the rules and you should be fine.

Getting Paid by Amazon Associates

Amazon has three payment methods for affiliates.

I don’t imagine that anyone would want to get paid in gift certificates but it is an option if you cannot get bank transfers at your location. Even so, Payoneer would be the best alternative that works.

With checks, you have to wait until you have earned $100 in commissions to get paid. Bank transfers and gift certificate payments only have a $10 threshold before being released.

Amazon actually doesn’t really want to pay via checks if bank deposit is available so they’ll deduct a $15 check processing fee when you use this payment method. If you live outside the US and bank deposit is not available to you, they will waive the fee.

Payments go out 60 days after you’ve reached the threshold. But once you’re earning consistently, you’ll get paid every month around the 28th. Normally, I’d get a notification from Payoneer that Amazon has sent my payment even before Amazon sends their email to say they paid me.

Amazon Associates Support & Help

In my 15+ years as an Amazon affiliate, I’ve never had to reach out to contact support for anything.

I’ve used the help resources that they provide to learn what I needed to know about the program and to answer any questions I had.

If I did need to get in contact with a human though, it would be easy as Amazon Associates provides real support as well as other resources for guide affiliates.

Here’s a quick look at what’s available in terms of support and help from Amazon Associates.

Amazon Associates will also send you regular emails highlighting special events and ways to boost your earnings with trending products and more. You can also connect via social media and YouTube for community and engagement.

And check out the Resource Center (second item under the Help menu in your dashboard), which contains helpful videos to help you understand everything from the Operating Agreement to using SiteStripe.

Pros & Cons of Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates has both good and bad things about it. There are some things I love about Amazon that make it worth promoting. Then there are some things that make me question whether or not it’s even worth it.

Here are the pros and cons of using Amazon Associates to make money with affiliate marketing.

The biggest plus for promoting Amazon products is that Amazon is a household name worldwide. This means you’re promoting a trustworthy brand so people will not be so hesitant to take your recommendations.

Amazon converts at around 9.58% which is a lot higher than most other ecommerce brands. If you have the traffic, you wouldn’t have to struggle much to get sales when you refer them to Amazon.

Although the commission rates are typically low, the conversion rate and brand trust can make up for it. The more clicks you send, the more you’ll earn because those small commissions add up. I must mention too that when you refer someone to buy something and they end up buying other things, you get paid for those purchases as well.

Currently, its tough to get any other linking methods to work since Amazon stopped providing banners and they recently removed image linking and some other creatives. So all affiliates are stuck with just text links.

And their strict rules mean you can’t just take any image and link to Amazon, you can’t use their images (unless its through the API) and you can’t do a lot of other stuff that other affiliate programs let you get away with.

While Amazon has some great things that make them a very attractive affiliate program choice, there are things they do that also make them not so great.

Should You Use Amazon Associates?

So should you use Amazon Associates to monetize your website? After looking at the good and the bad above, you might be wondering if it’s all worth it.

I know that some people recommend it and then there are some who would not encourage you to use the popular affiliate program.

For example, Matt Diggity who has one of the best affiliate marketing courses, The Affiliate Lab, hates Amazon Associates and does not recommend it. Instead he suggests using Shareasale or Impact.

Conversely, big brands like Esquire and other Hearst magazines regularly churn out content aimed at promoting Amazon affiliate links. Their content is helpful and valuable to people searching for product recommendations.

The key is to provide value and link to where you can maximize returns for your effort. If a merchant on Amazon also has a website where the product is sold, chances are that the website is paying more than Amazon is so you should sign up for their affiliate program and switch out your Amazon Associate links.

My take is to utilize the Amazon Associates affiliate program because a lot times you can create helpful content on your website that you wouldn’t be able to fully monetize otherwise.

Final Words

Amazon Associates is a good affiliate program that also works as an affiliate network because it works for almost every niche.

There are good things and bad things about the program but this shouldn’t hinder you. The main thing is to be aware of the rules and program policies, stay compliant and use other affiliate programs in conjunction with their program.