Back when I was just getting started with affiliate marketing in 2005, the very first affiliate network that I joined was Clickbank.
Now I’m writing my very first Clickbank review in 2025, 20 years after I was introduced to affiliate marketing.
Since that time, Clickbank has changed a bit from being a digital product marketplace to including physical products.
But the biggest question right now is are they still worth it in 2025? Is Clickbank a good affiliate network to use right now?
I’ll answer these questions in my 2025 review of the Clickbank affiliate network.
And just so you know, Clickbank is on ThriversHub’s list of 10 best affiliate networks to join in 2025.
What is Clickbank?
Clickbank is an affiliate network that has been around since 1998. It is one of the most popular affiliate networks online and one of the easiest for affiliates to get started with.
Both sellers of digital products and affiliates can benefit from Clickbank. Actually, the network used to be exclusively for digital products (courses, ebooks, software, etc.) but now include physical products, mostly nutritional supplements.
On Clickbank, affiliates can earn up to 90% commissions because of the digital nature of the network. Some sellers even offer higher commissions under certain conditions.
Here’s how Clickbank can be beneficial to affiliates and why you’d want to sign up if you’re just getting started with affiliate marketing.
Many millionaires have been made from sellers and affiliates using the Clickbank affiliate network. Clickbank products generate a lot of money because of the marketing efforts of both parties.
To date, according to the Clickbank affiliate info page, they’ve paid out over $6.2 billion in affiliate commissions.
The network has its fair share of criticism though. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of Clickbank.
Clickbanks Pros and Cons
While Clickbank does offer a lot of benefits for new and existing affiliates, there are still a few problems you will come across. Here are some pros and cons of using the Clickbank affiliate network.
Clickbank Pros
Clickbank Cons
While Clickbank is beginner-friendly for affiliates, it is also easy to get started for sellers too. This means that anyone can create a product and get it approved to sell on the network.
Not all products that get past Clickbank’s approval process get accepted by consumers. Some are even branded as scams and subsequently get removed. Affiliates learn the hard way when commissions are reversed due to refunds being claimed.
There aren’t a lot of these nowadays but care must be still taken when choosing products to promote. Promote products that your yourself would use and products that you believe in. Thoroughly research them before you promote them or buy a copy so you can judge for yourself and get to know the product.
Despite some of these cons, Clickbank is still a great affiliate network to work with due to all the good things, especially for beginners.
Getting Started with Clickbank
It is easy to get started with Clickbank as an affiliate. Just go to the affiliate page on the Clickbank website and click on the “Start Here” button then follow the steps below.
After clicking on the “Start Here” button, you’ll get a popup quiz which you can just complete or skip. It is a quick start guide that leads to their Spark by Clickbank training course.
You can just skip it to signup for Clickbank.
1. Fill out the signup form
To get registered, you’ll need to fill out the sign up form. This involves filling out the following fields.
- Select country from list
- Name
- Last name
- Phone number
- Email address
- Choose a strong password
All fields are mandatory and you have to add accurate info otherwise they could decline you having a Clickbank account.
Read the terms and conditions then check the box to confirms that you read it. Click the “Join Clickbank!” button when everything is filled out.
2. Complete your profile
After skipping an offer to join Clickbank Accelerator and downloading a document, you’ll be asked to complete your profile.
The profile check already has some of the info filled out from the signup form. Additionally, you’ll need to say whether your account is for an individual or a business, add your birthday, an optional recovery email, and your street address.
This is basically all you need to get you signed up. You can always change your payment method and threshold later to ensure you get paid.
What Products Can You Promote?
Affiliate networks like CJ Affiliate and Impact have big brands like Reebok and Best Buy. Clickbank is a bit different.
In Clickbank’s marketplace, you’ll find digital products like courses, ebooks and software created by marketers, topic experts, bloggers, and creators. These products aren’t household names although some of them come to acquire some degree of brand recognition.
You can promote products across a number of niches (no fashion, or electronics here). Health and Fitness is probably the most popular niche with tonnes of supplements, and diet & fitness offers.
Here’s a look at some of the most popular Clickbank products available to promote. How many do you recognize?
A lot of these products present helpful solutions in their respective niches which is why they become very popular.
Affiliates benefit from high converting sales pages and end up making full time incomes promoting some of these products with the right approach and strategy.
Choosing Products To Promote
You should already have a niche if you’re following the correct steps to do affiliate marketing. Find the relevant category in Clickbank to find a product that can help your audience.
Many affiliates use Clickbank products to help them decide on a niche. They find a product that is selling well and decide to promote it.
Product listings in the Clickbank marketplace usually have a lot of information to help you choose which product to promote.
The gravity score is a unique metric to Clickbank which gives you an idea of the number of affiliates who are making sales with a particular product.
In the marketplace, you can arrange products by gravity to see the most popular products in any category. Or you can use the gravity filter to choose a gravity range.
Listings have a description that tell you about a product. Then there are descriptors that are very useful in helping you to identify what the affiliate program offers.
I tend to look or the following descriptors when I’m looking for programs to promote.
These are the most important ones that I look for but there are others that indicate if a product has multiple hoplinks, is a physical product, requires approval, pays a one-time commission, has a $1 trial, and more.
After finding a product to promote, you can just click on the “Promote” button to get the link.
Affiliate Resources & Links
Affiliate programs that have extra affiliate tools and resources will always be more valuable to affiliates, especially beginners.
Most of the products on Clickbank have an affiliate page where the seller shares stuff like keywords worth targeting, demographic info, banners, more text links, article ideas, videos, and more. Affiliates can use these extras in their marketing.
You’ll find a link to the affiliate page of a product, if there is one, right on the marketplace listing for the product.
Here is a screenshot of what a great affiliate page looks like. Affiliates can use the info on this page in their campaigns.
Creating Links
Affiliate links on Clickbank are called hoplinks. They’re a little ugly because they have the tracking info encrypted.
You can use the hoplink tool to encrypt the basic link. The best way to get access to this tool is to click on the blue “promote” button next to the product listing on Clickbank.
Some sellers will also have multiple hoplinks which will be accessible on their affiliate page. So you may be able to link to different pages on their website. For example, you may want to link to a text only page instead of the video sales page. Or you may want to link to a page without a popup or even directly to the order form.
To post your ugly, encrypted links, you can always use a link shortener plugin like Pretty Links or Thirsty Affiliates to make your links look more attractive and on-brand.
Getting Paid From Clickbank
Clickbank makes it easy for affiliates to get paid and in their 25+ years online, have never missed a payment.
Commissions accumulate in your account with the accounting week starting on Wednesday and ending on Tuesday. The total is added up minus a $2.50 processing fee and 10% of your commissions are held to deal with refunds. This 10% is released and added to your payment after 6 weeks.
The default threshold is $100. You can change it to as low as $50 or set it to as high as $1 million. Whenever your threshold is reached, a payment is triggered and you get paid on Friday.
You can choose between direct deposit or check payment. If you want to get paid by Payoneer, this option is available too by choosing direct deposit and entering your Payoneer bank info.
Affiliate Support & Help
There are several ways to get help from Clickbank when you need it. These support channels are easy to access and include:
- Clickbank knowledge-base
- Live Chat
- Message request
- Spark by Clickbank training
The easiest way to find information about an issue would be to check Clickbank’s knowledge base, a collection of articles on how to use Clickbank. You’ll find frequently ask questions and their solutions here.
If there is an issue where you need a human to provide support, you can log into your Clickbank nickname account from your master account and find the live chat in the lower right hand side of the screen to talk to someone. This chat is only available Monday to Friday from 7:30 – 3:30 MST (except holidays).
Outside of these times, you can send a support ticket from inside your nickname account by looking for the Support button right under the menu.
One thing that Clickbank likes to push is their own affiliate training program called Spark.
If you’re already doing another course or training then you wouldn’t need Spark by Clickbank. Spark contains individual courses and tools that you can purchase separately or as bundles starting at $47/month or you can purchase the 6 month Super Affiliate bundle for $1997 and get access to all the courses and tools.
There aren’t any problems getting support and help from Clickbank. You can easily find the solution to any issue or get a human to help. Furthermore, Clickbank has a blog, YouTube and other social channels where you can keep informed about what they’re doing.
How To Make Money with Clickbank
Most Clickbank beginner affiliates pick a product to promote, grab a link, write a few articles and link somewhere within the article hoping to get some sales.
Since there aren’t any brand names on Clickbank that people know and trust, this is a tough method to follow if you want consistent sales. People are always hesitant to purchase on the first click, so your best bet is to try to reach them again or have a lot of traffic (like #1 on first page of Google).
Having an email marketing funnel where you can capture your readers email address is one of the best strategies you can use with Clickbank products. This gives you the opportunity to reach them again with more marketing messages to tr to convert them into buyers.
Paid traffic is another great strategy and one that is taught heavily in the Clickbank course Spark by Clickbank. Buying ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube and other sources can be very targeted ensuring you reach the right audience.
Even so, it would be more beneficial to you to capture email addresses first so that you can have promotional opportunities long after your customer purchases the product your promoting.
Promoting Clickbank products isn’t like promoting Amazon products and has its challenges. With big commissions, it also has its benefits as well. If you follow the general steps of affiliate marketing and incorporate email marketing strategies, you should be able to make consistent sales on Clickbank and get paid weekly.
Is Clickbank Legit?
Yes, Clickbank is a legit affiliate network and depending on your business model and niche, it could possibly be the best platform for you to work with.
There are several reasons that prove Clickbank’s legitimacy as an affiliate network.
First, they’ve been around since 1998, once of the oldest affiliate networks still around today. Secondly, they have never missed a payment in the 25+ years that they’ve been in operation, which is kinda impressive.
There might be an issue with some questionable programs on their network but this issue was a lot bigger in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Frequently Asked Questions About Clickbank
I’ll try to answer some commonly asked questions people have about Clickbank. If you have other questions, please ask in the comments section.
Yes. You can easily make $100/day or more on Clickbank providing you’re following a solid affiliate marketing strategy. Many of the products on Clickbank pay between 50%-90% commissions. This could mean $30 per sale or more. You’ll just need 3-4 sales a day to make $100/day.
If you’re not entirely sure what to do then you may need to enroll in an affiliate marketing training course.
Once you hit the threshold of $100 in your account, Clickbank will process a payment for you. If you didn’t set up direct deposit, they’ll send you a check to the address on your profile. If you did set up direct deposit or Payoneer, they’ll deposit the money in your account one a week, every Friday.
Clickbank is a bit different to other affiliate networks as they provide digital products from small advertisers or agencies. They do things quite differently but this may benefit affiliates of all experience levels as the platform is easier to work with, and you can find evergreen products to promote where you’re providing a solution for that niche audience.
Some of the products though were clearly made for Clickbank marketing – to make money for both the sellers and the affiliates and there are even some low quality ones that slip through the approval process.
In Thrivehub’s best affiliate networks list, Clickbank appears in the top 10 but ranked below other great affiliate networks with huge brands that you can promote to your niche. Ultimately, it depends on your approach and the products that are best for you to promote.
