Clickbank vs Amazon. Which Network is Better For Affiliates?

As an affiliate for both Amazon and Clickbank, I’d like to give you guys a comparison of both networks in this article and tell you which one to go with for your promotions. 

clickbank vs amazon

Also before I get into the specifics of each network, let me quickly mention my affiliate history with both:

my amazon and clickbank affiliate stats

Here’s some basic facts about each place’s opportunities:

Which network has more products to promote?

Easily Amazon, it has an exponential amount more. CB is good and I’d say has probably over 10,000, but in comparison to the other place, there’s no question about it, it has FAR more, millions.

So as a potential affiliate marketer, know that you have more options there. And also, if you’d like to see additional proof of my success with CB, here’s my $500k report.

As for Amazon, here are some reports on my activity there.

Which network place offers better commissions?

CB in MOST cases. You’re looking at up to 90% commissions vs up to 10% on the other spot. 

However, while most products you’d promote on CB would pay you more, there are circumstances in which promoting a product on the other spot would be more lucrative for you.

For example, there’s far more odds of finding a high ticket product on that network which makes the up to 10% commission rate result in some pretty big paydays if you know what you’re doing. 

Now there are also high ticket products on Clickbank like membership programs such as:

Ect…

Does either network charge a fee for the checks they send out?

CB takes a small portion of your affiliate check, and Amazon Associates takes a $15 processing fee from each check you get.

Now if you make $1,000’s, this doesn’t really make a big difference, but a $100 paycheck suddenly going down to $85 because of this fee may make people think twice. I generally make a little bit on Amazon and having that $15 fee deducted each time I get a check can be annoying for me. See details.

With CB, I never have that issue, but they DO take a small percent of your overall commissions (see details).

Which place is easier for newbies to set up on?

I’d say CB.

While I have to admit when I first started affiliate marketing, that this was the first place I joined, I honestly had an easier time setting everything up there vs when I joined the other program.

With CB, you pick out a product, click that link button, enter your nickname and boom, there’s your affiliate link.

With Amazon Associates, it’s almost the same thing, but there’s just so many more menu options in your affiliate page, and once you find the product you want to promote, there’s different ways to do it, there’s an image, there’s text, there’s an HTML code and don’t get me wrong, it’s convenient, but when you know how each option’s uses.

Since this is a question in which the newbie is the one on these networks, I’d say they’d have an easier time on CB.

Which place has stricter rules for it’s affiliates?

Amazon.

While I joined back a few years ago, I did hear from numerous people that they often do not approve new affiliates and do set an initial sales quota for them too. I could be wrong on this, so please correct me below if that’s the case people.

Which place has better support?

Both are excellent here.

You can get in touch with support quite easily and get help. I’ve personally been more deeply involved with CB in this regard and only had to call up Amazon Associates once, but my experience has been quite positive with both places in this regard.

Which place has made me more money?

CB. $500k actually (here’s my Clickbank success story again), but in spite of that, I don’t want you guys to think that this makes CB the clear choice. The reason I made so much with this place was because the product I was promoting fit in perfectly with a promotion I was engaged in at the time, so it was the right thing to do at the time, but I do also admit that I have leveraged Amazon’s own popular products to promote CB products through what I wrote up on before here

So while CB was the bigger money maker for me, it can very well be the opposite case for you.

Which place is my personal choice?

It’s all dependent on your niche (here’s 100), the products you find on each network which best suite your audience and how much you know about the product/niche. I prefer to use both sites to be honest.

Which place has more high quality products to promote?

Amazon in my opinion, but this is because it just has more products in general to offer. Naturally the probability that there are more high quality products being there is obvious.

Which place is better for make money online type blogs/websites?

CB in this case as it offers more programs that pertain to this niche. I have honestly reviewed like 5 or more of these over the years, but there’s FAR more on that network than just those (a place like JVZoo offers more in this regard).

Never the less, there are actual programs on CB to promote, whereas on the other spot, when it comes to the make money online niche, the best products you’re bound to find are eBooks and they generally provide small commissions.

Looking to join these places? Here are their links:

My advice is to join both places and here are reasons why:

There shouldn’t be any kind of “team” mentality when it comes to picking one of these places, you have to understand that you CAN join both, make money with BOTH places and can even utilize each network to promote through the other.

Let me give you some examples of how this can work:

-There’s many products on Amazon which get a lot of searches on Google. I explained this in the best seller list link I provided above (you can find it here again) but those products may not pay you well or be that great, in which case, going over to CB and finding a similar product that pays better and is better in quality would be better to promote, so I’d just review the highly searched Amazon product, but pitch the CB one.

-Just the opposite, I can find a highly searched CB product on Google, but see that it may cost too much for example and promote an Amazon product in its stead while doing a review on the CB one. This scenario happens less often as there aren’t that many times that a CB becomes viral.

-You don’t have to only rely on product browsing on both networks, you can and should rely on bigger things such as big niche audiences and then figure out if a CB or Amazon product would be better to promote to them.

Niches are more evergreen type approaches to making money online. But do keep an eye out for big sellers and to possibly promote the product directly to an audience which knows about it. I’ve made GREAT amounts of money through this.

My final thoughts: To become a successful affiliate, do this:

succeed at affiliate marketing

Once again, I recommend you check out Wealthy Affiliate, it’s the best resource for affiliates.

It will show you how to use both these networks (as well as others) to generate income online. While having great networks like these 2 offers a lot of opportunities, to make them make you a lot of money requires you understand other important concepts like traffic generation and niche marketing. For that, the program I recommended is the best way to go to understand this and make it work.

Like I said, I make money through both places and that program showed me how to do all of that.

13 thoughts on “Clickbank vs Amazon. Which Network is Better For Affiliates?”

  1. This is exactly what I wanted to hear from a top earner in affiliate marketing! To honestly reveal about their knowledge and experiences using the two of the biggest affiliate networks out there, and you just did that here. Thank you!

    Although setting up with Clickbank is a lot easier than setting up with Amazon if you are a beginner, is it true that a lot of people get frustrated with Clickbank due to the high rate of refund among products that are low in quality?

    Reply
    • Well yes, this happens Gomer. But it’s something that can be fixed if the affiliate intelligently chooses what to promote on Clickbank. The good news is that this program does have information on refund rates to help with this, but you should check out that link I provided to help you decide on which promotions are best to get involved with on that network.

      Reply
  2. Vitaliy, according to your analysis here, it seems to that Clickbank won and my jaw was dropped although because for a while now I have been an affiliate with Amazon and I ditched Clickbank because when ever I go online and read reviews on the digital products from it, they were usually very negative and so this made me believe that I don’t have a good chance of selling products here. 

    I felt that most people must’ve blacklisted the marketplace and would not buy anything from there. Seeing that you have made half a million with Clickbank really makes me hate myself for not making my own findings first. 

    Today, my eyes are opened and I have also learnt how Clickbank works. One thing that gives me joy about it is the high commissions and I really already want to join. Thank you for sharing this.

    Reply
    • Hi Henderson, I am glad my article helped you, but let me clarify a few things regarding Clickbank (and Amazon for that matter):

      1) My own personal history with both networks is different than it is for others. For me, because my niche topics focused more so on digital products, Clickbank was a better fit for me. 

      2) I still make money with Amazon Associates and I know people who made and make more money there than I did on Clickbank.

      3) You need to look at the niche you are selecting to create your online business from and from that standpoint, deciding on which network (even if it’s both) would suite you better.

      4) Clickbank sadly does have a reputation for having low quality products and despite being a best seller for them, I have mentioned this stuff before. But as you become a more experienced affiliate and understands how to select promotions based on which would be best for your customers, you would be able to ditch the bad products on Clickbank and promote only the good ones, which absolutely exist in bulk on that network.

      Reply
  3. Personally, I’m a fan of both CB and Amazon. Amazon is cool for when you want to build physical-product based sites and CB is great if you want to promote software, digital courses and what not. For novices and experienced marketers, it’s great to leverage both. 

    But for beginners, I would probably say something like WA is best. It teaches them the basics and gives them a good foundation. 

    Reply
    • Wealthy Affiliate would be ideal to provide the necessary education to succeed with affiliate networks like Amazon and Clickbank Nate, but since it does offer it’s own affiliate program (here are my results through it), that is also a course people can take.

      I want to add to your suggestion on WA, and the other networks in saying that yes, beginners should take the WA courses, and use the training to build sites that promote either/or products from Amazon/Clickbank.

      Reply
  4. I love your articles! You must know by now that I have become your fan!

    I was an Amazon associate before, and you are right; if you don’t make any sales within a 6 month period, then they close your affiliate account. Which I think is a little harsh because newbies might not necessarily make money within that time period.

    My concern with CB is that it is dominated by such low-quality products and I am not the kind of person who would promote just any program in order to make money. I want to show my readers the value of a product that I recommend. How easy is it to find legitimate products that work on CB?

    Reply
    • It takes some work Reyhana but I will write an article on this in the next day or two. But in short, you need to examine every single product you wish to promote on CB, see the summary of the program through CB to see if it has high refunds or not and go from there. Like I said, the next article I write will go into details on this.

      Reply
  5. Recently, I’ve been reading around that it’s easier to promote with Clickbank because they don’t require a website unlike the Amazon Associates program. In fact, there’s a popular course on Udemy that teaches exactly how to do so and still make profit. Is this a viable method based on your experience?

    Reply
    • It is true that it’s much easier to become an affiliate for CB than Amazon, but that is a small and frankly minuscule factor in success here Cathy. I would not focus on the ease of joining an affiliate program as a reflection of how easy it will be to make money with it. 

      Just focus on the site you’re creating and then when you’re ready, seek out the best affiliate program/s that will provide you with the best compensation and best quality product for your visitor, and there are more of these out there than just CB or Amazon (although I would start with them).

      Reply
  6. I was just in the process of trying to figure out which one would be the best marketing strategy for me and found your article. I have a Amazon account but will now be signing up for CB through your post. Very informative. You helped me make a good decision. Thanks

    Reply

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