ShareASale vs. ClickBank: How Two of Affiliate Marketing's Oldest Networks Actually Differ

If Amazon Associates is the network everyone joins first, ShareASale and ClickBank are usually the second and third. Both launched in the late 1990s, both survived multiple waves of consolidation that killed off dozens of competitors, and both are still core infrastructure for a huge share of affiliate publishers in 2026. But they were built for almost opposite kinds of products, and mixing them up wastes time.

What ShareASale actually is

ShareASale, founded in 2000 and acquired by Awin in 2017 (though it still operates under its own brand and dashboard), is a general-purpose affiliate network connecting publishers to physical-product retailers, SaaS companies, and service businesses. Think apparel brands, home goods, software subscriptions, web hosting — the kind of merchant you'd expect to find through a mainstream retail-style network.

Key mechanics:

• Cookie window: typically 30 days as the default, though individual merchants can set their own — some go shorter, some considerably longer.
• Commission structure: varies enormously by merchant, since each brand sets its own rate. Physical goods often land in the 5–15% range; SaaS and subscription merchants frequently pay 20–30% or a flat fee per signup, sometimes recurring for the life of the customer.
• Payment threshold: $50 minimum, paid monthly via direct deposit, check, or wire.
• Approval model: publishers apply to the network once, then apply separately to individual merchant programs within it — meaning acceptance isn't uniform. A well-established blog might get approved instantly by one merchant and rejected by another with stricter brand-safety requirements.

The practical strength of ShareASale is breadth combined with merchant-level control — a publisher can build relationships with dozens of niche and mid-size brands that wouldn't otherwise run their own affiliate infrastructure.

What ClickBank actually is

ClickBank, founded in 1998, took a completely different path. It became the dominant network for digital and info products — online courses, ebooks, software downloads, subscription memberships, and a long tail of health, fitness, and self-improvement products created specifically to be sold through affiliates.

Key mechanics:

• Cookie window: ClickBank tracks primarily via a "HopLink" rather than a traditional browser cookie in the older sense, and the tracking persists for 60 days by default for most vendors.
• Commission structure: this is ClickBank's defining feature — commissions frequently run from 50% up to 75% of the sale price, occasionally higher on the vendor's own terms. This is possible because digital products carry near-zero marginal cost, so vendors can afford to give away most of the revenue to acquire a customer.
• Payment threshold: as low as $10, paid on a weekly or biweekly schedule depending on account settings — notably faster than most networks.
• Approval model: ClickBank itself has almost no gatekeeping for publishers — signup is close to instant. The gatekeeping instead happens at the product level, since anyone can submit a product to sell through the marketplace.

That last point is also the source of ClickBank's long-standing reputation problem. Because product vetting has historically been light, the marketplace has attracted its share of low-quality or exaggerated-claim products, particularly in health and "get rich quick" categories. ClickBank has tightened compliance requirements over the years, but publishers still need to vet individual products carefully rather than trusting the network's inclusion as a quality signal.

Side-by-side

	ShareASale	ClickBank
Product type	Physical goods, SaaS, services	Digital products, courses, info-products
Typical commission	5–30%, merchant-set	50–75%, vendor-set
Cookie window	~30 days (merchant-adjustable)	~60 days
Payout minimum	$50, monthly	$10, weekly/biweekly
Publisher approval	Per-merchant, can be selective	Near-instant, product-level vetting instead

Which one fits which kind of site

A review site covering home goods, outdoor gear, or software tools will generally get more mileage out of ShareASale, both because that's where the relevant merchants are and because the brand relationships tend to be more stable — commission rates and terms change less abruptly than in the info-product space.

A site built around personal development, fitness, or online-education content is more likely to find ClickBank commissions worth pursuing, given the payout percentages — but it comes with a real obligation to actually use or thoroughly vet a product before recommending it. The high commission is a signal of low production cost, not automatically a signal of quality, and a publisher's credibility is the thing actually being spent when a bad product gets promoted.

Most established affiliate sites end up running both networks alongside Amazon Associates and one or two of the larger networks covered elsewhere in this series — using each where its inventory genuinely fits the content, rather than picking one network and forcing every post to fit it.

---

Part of the Commission Chain series on affiliate marketing platforms and mechanics.

Read More: # ShareASale vs. ClickBank: How Two of Affiliate Marketing's Oldest Networks Actually Differ, visit ScienceAffiliate.com.