Ahrefs’ Affiliate Program. We Don’t Have One (& Here’s Why)
By Tim Soulo
Chief Marketing Officer at Ahrefs
So let’s set things straight.
Ahrefs does not have an affiliate program
We used to have one around five years ago, but we had to discontinue it for several reasons (see below).
So today, in 2023, we don’t have an affiliate program.
And we have no plans to relaunch it in the future.
If you notice a blogger linking to our website with an affiliate link, it's probably from an old article. Either way, that affiliate link no longer works.
Why did we discontinue our affiliate program?
Just in case you’re interested, there were two main reasons why we did that:
- It created technical debt on the billing side. As our software evolved, so did our billing. We had to move between various payment processors and introduce new packages and add-ons. Supporting all these changes with an affiliate program took a lot of work.
- 3% of our affiliates generated 90% of leads. After a few years of running our affiliate program, we noticed that most affiliates sent us few or no leads. As for our top affiliates, we realized we could strike some personalized deals with them—which didn't require having an affiliate program. (Interested in partnering with us? Reach out to Igor.)
So there's that!
Tim Soulo is CMO at Ahrefs. With over 15 years in the digital marketing industry, Tim is the author of many data-driven studies and actionable marketing frameworks, some of which gained industry-wide recognition. He enjoys challenging conventional marketing knowledge and optimizing for simplicity and efficiency.
Your weekly marketing’s must-reads
Join 284K marketers for weekly news, useful reads, industry updates, and the memes you didn’t know you needed.
Explore what’s inside the newsletter →