WP Engine is the leading hosting company for managed WordPress plans.
WordPress can be a technically challenging CMS with all the third party plugins. This also creates security risks. Managed hosting from WP Engine takes care of all of your WordPress issues. This lets you focus on creating content not systems administration.
Oh and did I say it was fast — like real fast.
WPEngine Affiliate Program
Types of products: Managed WordPressHosting & Related Products
Where to join: SharaSale WP Engine
Commission structure: 100% of first month – $200 minimum
Cookie length: 180 days
Payment Methods: ACH, Check or Wire
We have a detailed post with over 40 high ticket affiliate programs — check it out.
How to Join WP Engine Affiliate Program
Joining the WP Engine affiliate program couldn’t be easier. Just go over to WP Engine at ShareASale and sign up. They auto approve most countries.
Be careful in any ads to not use WP Engine logos or trademarks. The following terms will not pay commissions if found in your ads for trademark or coupon term bidding violations:
Banned Ad Keywords
“W P Engine w pengine wp egnine wp engien WP Engine WP Engine Coupon WP Engine Coupon Code WP Engine Promo Code wp engnie wp enigne wp negine WPEngine wpengine acquires studiopress wpengine acquires studiopress wpengine discount”
Go to our affiliate programs page for more program reviews.
WP Engine Products
WP Engine provides managed WordPress hosting services. There are a couple of differences between WP Engine’s service and an equivalent VPS for instance. Some key features and characteristics of the WP Engine platform:
- Pay per number of domains
- Easy migration tools to/from other WordPress hosting
- WP Engine does not use C-panel. There is a proprietary dashboard.
- There will be plugins that WP Engine does not allow you to install. These are known security risk plugins and those overlapping or conflicting with WP Engine tools like cacheing.
- Every domain has a staging site. At any time you can push the staging to production or production to staging. This is great for troubleshooting a problem or for adding new functionality without disturbing the active users.
- Automatic security and core WordPress updates.
- Automatic daily and on-demand backups.
Pricing
There are a few pricing plans for customers to consider. The lowest cost single host plan is $29/mo when billed annually at $350. You can elect to pay month-to-month with WP Engine. The entry monthly plan is $35. This includes up to 25,000 monthly visits.
Five domains is $115/mo and 15 domains is $290/mo.
Studio Press
Wp Engine acquired Studio Press. All new hosting plans come with a free Studio Press license. That is a $2000 value. Studio Press is the most popular theme and framework for WordPress sites. They are probably based known for the Genesis framework. Over 500,00 sites use Genesis. There is a very active user group so always some buzz happening. As a WP Engine affiliate, you are also a Studio Press affiliate.
WPEngine Affiliate Commission Rates and Rules
WP Engine pays a minimum $200 for each new account – nice huh?
For hosting plans, you will get a commission of $200 or 100% of the first month’s payment, whichever is higher. The most common sale is going to be a Startup plan paid monthly at $35. The monthly startup play pays a $200 commission. I like to focus on the Scale plan and basically down-sell to the Growth & Starter plans. If you do make a Scale plan sale at $290/mo, you would get a $290 commission.
The real money though is in the dedicated server offering. Many companies have lots of fragmented WordPress installs. This creates a support nightmare for IT. It also presents security risks. Rather than having 20 groups pay separately for their hosting and have multiple support touch-points, WP Engine will consolidate them onto one server with a single support group. IT will be thrilled with the security and automatic updating. These packages can easily cost a few thousand per month (but still cheaper than 20 separate scattered accounts ).
Remember WP Engine pays you 100% of first months billing. If the dedicated server configuration is $1500/mo – you get a $1,500 commission!
WP Engine has a very generous 60-day cancellation policy. This should be used as a selling feature. However, your commissions are held until the next payment cycle after the 60 days has expired. Fair of course, but does create a lag in payments.
Two-Tier
Another nice thing about the WP Engine Affiliate plan is that you can recruit new affiliates. They will get the same commissions as every other affiliate but you will get $50 every time they make a successful referral.
Rules
The WP Engine rules are fairly typical. No cookie stuffing or coupon bate and switch ad campaigns etc. There are a number of keywords you can not use when advertising. These either are trademark infringements or conflict with WP Engine campaigns.
WP Engine Affiliate Tools and Support
There are loads of marketing support materials available as a WP Engine affiliate at ShareASale. There are currently:
- 115 Text Links
- 128 Banners
- 6 Data Feeds
- 1 Video
ShareASale also supports deep-linking which is great for hosting affiliates. Create a link to any page at WP Engine and apply your affiliate commission. Maybe you want to create an article about like “Plugins not allowed on your WP Engine Hosted Domain”. You would create a post talking about these issues and alternatives. You could add a link to the current list of excluded WordPress plugins on teh WP Engine site. That link would have your affiliate ID in it.
Here is an article at ShareASale that explains the steps to create deep-links.
Free Custom Landing Page
WP Engine has a unique tool to help affiliates make more sales – a custom landing page. This is aimed at promoting WP Engine and StudioPress through a co-branded landing page. To get your custom landing page just:
- email the affiliate team at affiliates@wpengine.com to request a landing page
- include your ShareASale ID number
- Include a 400 x 200 transparent copy of your company/brand logo as an attachment.
You will get a follow up reply with your custom landing page fairly quickly – nice!
How to Promote WP Engine Online
All hosting affiliate marketing is competitive. the vendors just pay too much for the big players to ignore. In fact with WP Engine they provide custom coupon offers to successful affiliates and influencers. This competition will make SEO particularly challenging. If you have no topical relevance even harder. There are ays to overcome this though.
Longtail — Focus on longtail keywords that have low competition. Even with these you need to do some manual observation and analysis of the search results. The tools like Ahrefs need more confirmation as there’s lots of PBNs and grey hate work in the hosting affiliate market.
Retargeting — If someone makes it to your article or site, get them in the sales funnel. You should be “pixeling” them for “retargeting” ads. These are the lowest hanging fruit same they visited you once. You can create ads that on FaceBook for instance to your site visitors, a page visitors, your email list and more.
eMail — Email is going to be key to getting your content seen. SEO is going to be harder.
Social — Get to know the hosting plan details. Once you have intermediate knowledge you can help newer group members who are also ideally positioned in the sales cycle. Be helpful first, second and third. You need to be careful to not come off as spammy.
The market you want to target for WP Engine is varied:
- New online business ventures
- Performance upgrades from shared hosting
- Genesis customers migrating
- Marketing vs. technically focused online entrepreneurs
Genesis
I would setup a sales funnel starting with WP Engine and incorporating the free Genesis. Get some valuable content created that is useful to new web site builders like sample site designs and other early stage needs. After warming them with the content your message is that, “for $35/mo you get the most hassle free hosting environment and thousands in free software. ” Also push that they are joining the Genesis community.
Go to our affiliate tips page -- learn how to promote products.
Pros and Cons —
WP Engine Affiliate Program
ADVANTAGES
Strong trusted brand
Minimum $200 commission
Easy quick deployments
Six-month cookie
DISADVANTAGES
More expensive than shared
Plans restrict number of domains
No C-Panel or familiar dashboard
FAQ
How much does WP Engine pay its affiliates?
WP Engine pays affiliates 100% of the first month's customer hosting payment. There is a minimum payment of $200.
How long do you have to make a sale from someone who uses your affiliate link?
WP Engine has a 180-day last touch cookie. As long as the customer purchases within 180-days of arriving with your affiliate link you will receive the commission.
What WP Engine products are eligible for affiliate sales?
WP Engine is a premium managed WordPress hosting provider. All of its hosting plans are commission eligible.
Does WP Engine run its own affiliate program?
WP Engine's affiliate program is managed by ShareASale. ShareASale provides affiliate support and marketing materials.
Should You Become a WP Engine Affiliate?
Absolutely!
The program has a lot going for it. Starting with it is a great product and you are helping your audience by recommending it. A a commission vehicle it is great. You get $200 for convincing someone to spend $25 per month. Oh by the way they also are getting $2000 of free industry leading themes.
These are easy conversions if you can create a good sales funnel and get it in front of the right buyers.