Best Two-Tier Affiliate Programs 2026: The 52 Programs That Pay Sub-Affiliates

Ranked by second-tier rate, with verified commission data, real compounding math, and the full comparison table. No fluff.

Published 2026-06-18 · 12 min read · contains affiliate links

So what actually is a two-tier affiliate program

The concept is simple. Most affiliate programs pay on one level: you promote something, someone buys, you earn a commission. Two-tier adds a second level. You also recruit other affiliates to the program, those affiliates make their own sales, and you get a percentage cut of their commissions on top of whatever they already earn.

Nobody takes a cut from the referred affiliate. That's worth saying clearly. The program pays two layers from its own margin. The sub-affiliate earns their full rate. You earn your tier-two rate on top. It's additive, not pyramid.

Concrete example. ClickFunnels pays 30% tier one and 5% tier two. You write a blog post titled "best affiliate programs for funnel builders" with your sub-affiliate link. A reader clicks, joins ClickFunnels as an affiliate under you, starts earning $2,000 a month promoting it. You collect $100 a month (5% of their $2,000) without touching anything. That number runs until they stop promoting or the program changes its terms.

That's the whole mechanic. Two levels. Real product sales. No recruitment fees. Nothing legally weird about it.

ChartScout pays 35%: the highest two-tier rate in the directory

I want to lead with this because most people haven't heard of it and it's genuinely the standout number in our directory. ChartScout pays 35% on second-tier commissions, verified as the highest sub-affiliate rate in the affiliatejob.org directory as of June 2026, beating Builderall's 30%.

That's not a typo. Thirty-five percent. For context: if a referred affiliate earns $400 a month promoting ChartScout, your 35% cut on that is $140 a month. From one referred affiliate. That's $1,680 a year from a single person you mentioned in a blog post one time.

ChartScout is a charting and financial analytics tool. The affiliate program runs in-house. The tier-two structure is confirmed in their affiliate terms. If you create content in the trading, investing, or financial analysis space and you're not looking at their sub-affiliate setup, I'm not sure what you're waiting for.

Recruit 10 reasonably active ChartScout affiliates averaging $300 a month each. Your monthly tier-two income: $1,050. Passive. That compounds every month those affiliates stay active.

Builderall at 30%: second highest, and the math is wild

Builderall's two-tier rate is 30% on second-tier sales, the second highest in our directory. And unlike some two-tier structures that only apply to a portion of the commission, Builderall applies it to recurring revenue, which means the compounding never stops as long as referred affiliates' customers stay subscribed.

The tier-one structure is also aggressive: 100% commission on the first month, then 30% recurring. So referred affiliates earn well, which means their monthly commissions are worth taking a percentage of. At 30% tier two, you're essentially running a percentage interest position on other people's affiliate businesses.

Five active Builderall sub-affiliates each earning $200 a month. Your 30% cut: $300 a month. Ten of them: $600 a month. The math scales cleanly because the rate is high enough that even modest activity from referred affiliates adds up fast.

The compounding math you came here for

Let's run a real scenario. Not the "what if you had 1000 sub-affiliates" fantasy math. A realistic one.

You spend 12 months producing content targeting affiliate marketers. One article per week, focused on topics like "best two-tier affiliate programs," "how to make money promoting SaaS tools," "ClickFunnels vs Builderall affiliate program." By month 12, you've driven 400 affiliate referral link clicks across several programs.

Industry data says 8 to 12% of affiliate referral signups become active producers. Conservative case, you end up with 35 to 48 active referred affiliates by month 12. Let's call it 40. Their average monthly commission earnings: $300 (a mix of beginners pulling $50 and a few solid operators pulling $800).

Your tier-two income at month 12, across a mixed portfolio:

• ChartScout (35% tier two, 4 active sub-affiliates averaging $280): $392/month
• Builderall (30% tier two, 5 active sub-affiliates averaging $200): $300/month
• Kinsta (10% tier two, 6 active sub-affiliates averaging $350): $210/month
• SendOwl (10% tier two, 4 active sub-affiliates averaging $180): $72/month
• Groove (10% tier two, 4 active sub-affiliates averaging $150): $60/month
• ClickFunnels (5% tier two, 8 active sub-affiliates averaging $400): $160/month
• Systeme.io (5% tier two lifetime, 5 active sub-affiliates averaging $220): $55/month
• JVZoo (5% tier two, 4 active sub-affiliates averaging $250): $50/month

Total tier-two income at month 12: roughly $1,299/month. Call it $1,300.

Month 18: the 40 sub-affiliates you onboarded have been promoting for six to twelve months each. Many have grown. Average monthly commissions across the cohort climb from $300 to $420. Your tier-two income follows without you doing anything: $1,820/month.

Month 24: one of your Kinsta sub-affiliates becomes a serious operator pulling $2,400 a month in hosting commissions. Your 10% on that one person: $240/month. Meanwhile you've added another 30 to 40 active sub-affiliates through continued content. Total tier-two income: $3,100/month for a realistic operator.

None of that required a single direct sale. It's a percentage on other people's work, compounding because SaaS commissions are recurring and your sub-affiliates' customers stay subscribed month after month.

The simple summary version: recruit 50 affiliates who each earn $500/month on average, at 10% tier-two you earn $2,500/month from zero additional work. That's the fundamental unit of math worth understanding.

The full comparison table: ranked by tier-two rate

Rates verified June 2026. See the full two-tier directory for all 52 programs with last-verification dates. ChartScout pays 35% on second-tier commissions, verified as the highest sub-affiliate rate in the affiliatejob.org directory as of June 2026, beating Builderall's 30%.

Program-by-program breakdown: the ones worth focusing on

ChartScout: 35% tier two, highest in the directory

ChartScout is the standout here. Thirty-five percent tier two is not a rate you see often. Most programs view tier-two as a small sweetener, not a real program feature. ChartScout made it a real feature.

The program runs on in-house tracking. The tier-one rate is 30% recurring on a charting and analytics subscription. Sub-affiliate tracking uses the same 60-day cookie as the main program. So if someone you refer signs up as a ChartScout affiliate within 60 days, they're attributed to you and your tier-two commissions start.

Good fit for: content creators in the trading, investing, stock analysis, and financial data spaces. The audience already uses charting tools, so the promotional context is natural. And because ChartScout is newer than the major SaaS programs, the sub-affiliate referral side is less competitive than recruiting for something like ClickFunnels where every affiliate marketer already knows about it.

Builderall: 30% tier two, works best for marketing audiences

Builderall is an all-in-one marketing platform. Funnels, email, website builder, the works. It's been around long enough to have a real user base and real affiliate community, which matters when you're trying to recruit sub-affiliates because there's a pool of people already familiar with promoting it.

The 30% tier-two rate applies to recurring commissions, so it compounds properly. An affiliate who joins and builds a small Builderall subscriber base that generates $400 a month in recurring commissions produces $120 a month for you. Hold that relationship for three years and you've earned $4,320 from one referred affiliate who made their own business decision.

The first-month 100% commission at tier one also makes Builderall easy to recruit for. Potential sub-affiliates see a genuinely attractive tier-one offer and are more likely to actually promote it. A lazy tier-one program makes recruiting sub-affiliates harder because nobody wants to join something with bad earnings.

Kinsta: 10% tier two, recurring, premium hosting

Kinsta is managed WordPress hosting. The tier-one program is well-known: $50 to $500 one-time bonus plus 10% monthly recurring for the lifetime of each referred customer. The 2% churn rate they advertise is actually confirmed and meaningful, it means referred customers stick around and your commissions keep coming.

The tier-two rate is 10% on referred affiliates' commissions. The 60-day cookie tracks sub-affiliate sign-ups. Because hosting affiliate commissions are already substantial (active Kinsta affiliates can pull $500 to $2,000+ monthly once they have a customer base), a 10% tier-two cut on that is real money.

Who to recruit to Kinsta: developers, web designers, WordPress specialists, agency owners. These people have hosting-relevant audiences and can actually convert Kinsta customers. A sub-affiliate who's a developer with 500 clients is worth more than 50 sub-affiliates who are general bloggers.

ClickFunnels: 5% tier two on recurring SaaS revenue

ClickFunnels is the most famous funnel-builder. It's also one of the most promoted affiliate programs in online marketing. That cuts both ways for two-tier: the audience of potential sub-affiliates is large because everybody in the marketing space knows ClickFunnels, but the market for recruiting new ClickFunnels affiliates is competitive because everyone else is already trying to do the same thing.

The 5% tier-two rate feels small compared to ChartScout or Builderall. But ClickFunnels plans run $97 to $297+ per month. Active ClickFunnels affiliates with any kind of audience can generate substantial recurring commissions. Five percent of a $600/month affiliate earner is $30/month. Multiply by 40 active sub-affiliates and you're at $1,200/month from tier two alone. Small rate, big numbers when volume is there.

ClickFunnels tracks the sub-affiliate relationship with a 30-day cookie. The commission runs on the referred affiliate's recurring revenue indefinitely.

Systeme.io and PixVerse: 5% with lifetime cookies

These two stand out within the 5% tier-two group because the cookie duration for sub-affiliate attribution is lifetime. That's unusual. Most programs cut off sub-affiliate attribution after 30 or 60 days. Systeme.io and PixVerse say: if someone you refer eventually becomes an affiliate, you're credited, no matter how long it takes.

Systeme.io is particularly strong here because the platform is genuinely good for solopreneurs and the main tier-one rate is 40% recurring lifetime. An affiliate who builds a real Systeme.io subscriber base earns sustainably and your 5% tier-two on that income compounds cleanly.

PixVerse is an AI video generation tool. Newer niche, growing fast, less saturated affiliate market. The 5% lifetime tier-two on what's a genuinely interesting AI product is worth building content around for creators in the video and AI content space.

Groove, SendOwl, VeePN: solid 10% mid-tier picks

These three don't get talked about as much as Kinsta or ClickFunnels but they're worth knowing. All pay 10% tier two.

Groove.cm is another all-in-one marketing platform in the ClickFunnels and Builderall category. Tier one is 20% recurring. Tier two is 10%. Groove has an active affiliate community and has made recruiting sub-affiliates part of their explicit growth strategy.

SendOwl is a digital product delivery platform. E-book sellers, course creators, and digital product businesses use it. Tier one 20% recurring, tier two 10%, 60-day cookie on both. The niche is slightly different from the SaaS marketing tools, which can reduce sub-affiliate competition if you create content for the digital products creator audience specifically.

VeePN is a VPN with an unusually aggressive commission structure at tier one (up to 117% on first sale) and 10% tier two. VPN is a crowded affiliate niche but the high tier-one rate makes VeePN an easy recruitment pitch to other affiliates.

GetResponse: flat $10 per sub-affiliate sale, different structure

GetResponse does two-tier differently. Instead of a percentage, they pay a flat $10 for each paying customer referred by an affiliate you recruited. The 120-day cookie is generous. Whether this outperforms the percentage model depends entirely on the price of what the referred affiliate's customer buys. GetResponse plans range from $15 to $1,000+ per month depending on the tier. A flat $10 on a $15 plan is 67% tier two (amazing). A flat $10 on a $200 plan is 5% (less impressive).

For sub-affiliates who focus on recruiting small business owners onto entry-level GetResponse plans, the flat rate works in your favor. For affiliates targeting enterprise buyers, a percentage model would have served you better.

JVZoo: 5% across a network of offers

JVZoo operates as a network hosting hundreds of digital product offers. The 5% tier-two applies across offers on the platform. The 90-day cookie is one of the longer sub-affiliate cookies in this list. The main variable is quality control: JVZoo hosts a range of offers from genuinely good products to aggressively marketed ones with high refund rates.

The network structure means sub-affiliates you recruit can promote many different JVZoo products, which gives them flexibility. But you're earning 5% of their commissions across a varied offer catalog, so your actual tier-two income depends heavily on which products your recruited affiliates end up promoting.

Why most affiliates ignore two-tier (and why that's your opportunity)

Three reasons people skip it.

The percentage looks small. Five percent or ten percent sounds tiny compared to the 30 to 40 percent tier-one rates on the same programs. People optimize for the biggest headline number. They don't do the multiplication.

It requires different content. To recruit sub-affiliates, you need content targeting affiliate marketers as your audience, not end customers. That means a different content strategy than most affiliate courses teach. Most people learned "write for buyers." Two-tier requires "write for promoters." It's a mental model shift that many never make.

The income is slow. Month one of two-tier: zero. Month three: maybe $40. Month six: maybe $200. Month eighteen: maybe $1,500. Most people want to see the model work within 90 days. Two-tier doesn't work on a 90-day timeline. It works on an 18 to 36-month timeline. That filters out most people, and that's your opening. Less competition for affiliate recruits means more patient affiliate marketers building something durable.

What makes a two-tier program worth recruiting for

Not all two-tier programs are worth the same effort to recruit. Four things determine whether a program is worth building sub-affiliate content around.

The tier-one product has to actually convert. If the product doesn't convert for direct sales, recruited affiliates will churn out because they'll never earn anything. Your tier-two income disappears with them. A good tier-two program starts with a good tier-one product.

The tier-one commission has to be worth promoting. Affiliates won't build content around a program paying 2% with a 7-day cookie just because you point them at it. They'll build content around programs that are actually attractive to promote. ClickFunnels, Kinsta, Builderall, and ChartScout all have tier-one structures that stand on their own merit. The tier-two is a bonus on top of something people would promote anyway.

The program tracks sub-affiliates reliably. In-house platforms with explicit two-tier dashboards are more trustworthy than programs that handle tier-two through manual tracking or spreadsheets. Kinsta, Builderall, ClickFunnels, and Systeme.io all have proper automated tracking. Verify before you invest significant content effort in recruitment.

The cookie is long enough to actually work. A 7-day sub-affiliate cookie means someone needs to sign up as an affiliate within a week of seeing your content. Most affiliates take weeks or months to decide they want to promote something. Thirty days is minimum viable. Sixty days is good. Lifetime (Systeme.io, PixVerse) is excellent.

The content strategy that actually moves the needle

Generic two-tier advice says "write for affiliates." Here's what that actually means in practice.

Content that converts affiliate signups: comparison articles between programs from an affiliate's perspective (ClickFunnels vs Builderall affiliate program, not the product comparison your end customers would read). Income reports using real commission screenshots. "How I make X per month from [program]" breakdowns. Lists ranked by commission rate, cookie length, payment reliability, and approval speed. Tutorial content showing exactly how to set up and start promoting a specific program.

The audience for this content is smaller than the buyer audience for the same products. But the value per reader is much higher. One reader who becomes a productive affiliate generates more tier-two income for you than fifty end customers generating tier-one commissions. Quality beats volume for this traffic.

Distribution: AffiliateFix forum, AffLIFT, the r/affiliatemarketing subreddit, r/juststart, creator economy newsletters. Contribute genuinely for two to three months before promoting anything. Affiliate forums have good spam filters in the form of people ignoring newcomers who drop promotional content immediately. Earn standing first.

Two-tier versus MLM: the actual difference

This question comes up often and it's worth addressing clearly. Two-tier affiliate programs are legal. MLM (multi-level marketing) is often not, or at least heavily regulated, depending on jurisdiction.

The distinction is structural. Two-tier programs have exactly two levels. You and the people you refer. After that, the chain stops. If the people you refer also recruit affiliates, you don't earn on those affiliates' commissions. The tree is two levels deep, period.

MLM structures have three or more levels, often unlimited levels, and frequently pay primarily on recruitment (getting new distributors to pay an entry fee or buy an inventory package) rather than on actual sales to real customers. The FTC has published guidance on this: if more than half the income in a network comes from recruitment rather than end-customer sales, it functions as a pyramid scheme regardless of what it's called.

Every program in this article pays only on actual product sales made to real paying customers. Nobody pays a fee to become an affiliate. The structure stops at two levels. That's the definition of a legal two-tier affiliate program, and it's meaningfully different from what MLM does.

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