About affiliatejob

An independent free reference directory for affiliate marketing. Built like Wikipedia, funded like a content site, opinionated like a trade journal.

Why this exists

The honest version. Affiliate marketing has been around since 1996 (Amazon Associates was the first big one) and somehow in 2026 there is still no neutral, well maintained, reference directory of programs. There are scrapers (affiliate.watch, AffiliList) that pull data once and never re check. There are CPA aggregators (OfferVault) optimized for media buyers. There are SaaS pitch sites trying to sell you a course or a tool. Nothing reads like a reference.

Meanwhile millions of affiliates and program owners spend hours every week searching scattered sources to figure out commission rates, cookie lengths, and payout reliability. The data is out there. It's just buried in hundreds of program pages, network terms, Reddit threads, and private Slack channels. Someone needs to gather it, verify it, keep it current, and present it neutrally.

That's the entire premise of this site. A directory that does the boring work of verification, presents the data plainly, lists everything once with a clear "last verified" date, and stays out of its own way. No hype. No upsell pressure. No login wall. Just data.

How it's funded

This part needs to be transparent because it's the question every reader rightfully asks. The site makes money in three ways.

First, affiliate referrals. When a user signs up to a program through a link on this site, we earn a commission. Standard affiliate marketing. Disclosed at the top and bottom of every program page, plus on the homepage and in the dedicated disclosure page. The commission we earn does not influence editorial rankings. Where the program offers second tier (sub affiliate) commissions, we earn from that too if our referrals sign up under our links and bring more affiliates. All disclosed.

Second, featured listings. Programs can pay $99 a month for top placement in their category, larger card on the homepage, and priority in the comparison engine. Featured listings are tagged "Featured listing" everywhere they appear. Featured does not buy a positive review, win comparisons, or hide negative parts of the editorial. It buys visibility, not credibility.

Third, network sponsorships at $1,500 a month for "preferred network" placement on the networks page. These are large enterprise level slots, clearly tagged, and never affect the network reliability scores which are computed from community data and our own checks. The day we let a sponsor influence a reliability score is the day this directory dies, so we have a hard rule against it.

Total annual operating cost is around $100 because we run on a Hetzner VPS shared with other static sites. Anything above that supports the editorial work of verification.

How the directory is built

Plain HTML files. No React. No Next.js. No build complexity beyond a small Node script that converts JSON files (one per program) into HTML pages using a shared template. Hosted on a Hetzner VPS in Germany, with Cloudflare in front for caching and DDoS protection.

The reason for plain HTML: AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews) can read static HTML perfectly. They struggle with JavaScript heavy single page apps. This site is built so the content is fully visible in the raw HTML response, with rich schema markup (Product, Review, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList) on every page. That makes it possible for AI engines to surface our pages when users ask them about affiliate programs.

Same architectural approach as FreeCV.org and FreeTTS.org, both of which got cited heavily by ChatGPT after launch. The static HTML plus rich schema plus genuinely free content combination is well documented to drive AI search citations. We follow the playbook.

The editorial team

Small. Independent. Affiliate marketing experience across SaaS, hosting, VPN, and email marketing categories. Writers do the verification themselves rather than relying on press releases or company submitted data. Editor reviews everything before publication. No press releases run as articles.

We don't list everyone publicly because we don't want individual writers becoming the targets of pressure from program owners who don't like a particular review. The editorial as a whole is accountable, addressed at [email protected], and corrects errors within 48 hours of being notified.

What we do not do

• We do not write sponsored articles disguised as editorial. Featured listings are tagged. Editorial is editorial.
• We do not accept payment to remove negative reviews. If your program has weak parts, the review notes them. Paying to obscure that is not on offer.
• We do not auto generate program reviews from press releases. Every review is manually written after a human reads the program's actual affiliate page and cross references community data.
• We do not list scams. Programs that have closed, stopped paying, or operate in categories we exclude (adult, unregulated crypto, predatory lending) get rejected.
• We do not collect emails for marketing purposes. The newsletter is opt in, double opt in, and unsubscribe is one click. No tracking pixels in our content. No retargeting cookies.
• We do not harvest user data. The site has no login, no user accounts, no behavioral tracking beyond the basic Cloudflare analytics that show aggregate page views.

What we do do

• Verify every program manually every 30 to 60 days. Yes it's tedious. That's why other directories don't.
• Disclose every affiliate relationship. Top of page, bottom of page, dedicated disclosure page. Required by FTC and EU DSA. Also just the right thing to do.
• Update terms when programs change them. Commission cuts, cookie length reductions, network changes. We catch most within a week and the listing updates with the new "last verified" date.
• Accept submissions from anyone for free. No signup. No payment. Listed within 24 hours of approval.
• Give programs a chance to respond before publishing critical reviews. If we're going to drop a program's reliability score significantly, we email the program first with the data and a 7 day window to respond. About half respond and either fix the issue or provide context that changes our conclusion.

The longer term plan

The directory is the foundation. Phase two adds talent profiles for affiliates (verified earnings badges, network experience, specialty tags) and a job board for affiliate manager and partnership ops roles. Both layered on top of the existing directory once the directory has audience to support them. Probably late 2026 to early 2027.

Phase three is the annual industry report. Salary data for affiliate managers. Payout reliability trends across networks. Two tier program adoption rates. Open source the raw data. Same playbook Stack Overflow Survey and Levels.fyi used. Good for the industry, good for the directory's authority.

None of this is venture funded or on a hype cycle. The site is profitable from month one of phase two and fund itself. The patience this requires is unusual which is exactly why most directories never get built.

Contact

Email [email protected] for: corrections, suggestions, business inquiries, partnership pitches, journalist questions, anything else. We answer within one business day.

For program submissions use the submit form. For featured listing inquiries email and mention "featured listing" in the subject line. For general questions about how the directory works, the methodology and disclosure pages cover most of it.