Whether you’re an experienced affiliate marketer or a total newbie, it definitely pays to know the best CPA networks.
The best CPA networks offer comparatively high payouts, boast thousands of CPA offers, and best of all, you don’t necessarily even need to convince people to hit your affiliate link and convert on the spot.
Often, you’ll get paid for generating leads, so you can leave the job of closing the deal to someone else.
Like the sound of CPA affiliate marketing?
You’re in the right place. In this guide, I’ll run through Authority Hacker’s pick of the top CPA affiliate networks out there right now, based on research, reviews, and ratings.
What is CPA Affiliate Marketing?
First, let’s get some key performance marketing definitions out.
CPA stands for “Cost Per Acquisition” or “Cost Per Action”.
In short, that means CPA affiliate marketing is about generating leads. Whereas a CPS-based affiliate program like Amazon Associates is only interested in driving sales, CPA affiliate marketers get paid for actions like form submissions and software downloads.
In practice, that means experienced CPA marketers tend to focus solely on cost-per-acquisition programs because the quality traffic they generate is catered to those sorts of offers.
It’s also an incredibly popular way of valuing leads. Our affiliate marketing statistics page shows that over 99% of affiliate programs offer a CPA model.
But how do you choose the best CPA affiliate network for you?
To find the answer, dive into our list of the best performance marketing networks for CPA advertisers and publishers:
CPA Networks
- Perform[cb] (previously Clickbooth)
- MaxBounty
- CrakRevenue
- ClickDealer
- CPAlead
- Admitad
- CPAMatica
- Toro Advertising
- AdWork Media
- Advendor
- MyLead
- Fireads
- Madrivo
- GlobalWide Media
- Adscend
- A4D
- Mobidea
- Advidi
- AdCombo
- RevenueAds
- Panthera Network
- Digital Media Solutions (formerly W4)
- Convert2Media (C2M)
- Affiliati Network
- Lemonads
- Adsterra
Perform[cb] (Clickbooth)
Clickbooth is now known as Perform[cb], all part of a merger between Clickbooth, Adperio and Ignite OPM.
Just in case you were wondering why CPA networks like Adperio weren’t listed separately.
All told the people behind this affiliate network have almost four centuries of cumulative industry experience.
But more importantly, they have thousands of curated offers spanning a number of popular online advertising verticals.
And that includes all the usual affiliate marketing niches like Financial, Lifestyle, Health, Dating, Entertainment, etc.
You’ll find HBO, McAfee, and eHarmony on their client list, for example – that’s pretty impressive.
This affiliate network has a large and diverse selection of offers to promote, has been around since 2002, and also offers a very low payment threshold when compared to others.
CPA networks can appear and disappear overnight.
So dealing with one that has served advertisers and publishers alike for several years is almost always preferable.
- URL: Perform[cb] affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$50
- Payment frequency: Monthly
MaxBounty
MaxBounty is something of an “OG” in the CPA affiliate marketing game, having launched back in 2004.
It’s highly rated by advertisers, who named it the best CPA network at the 2019 Blue Book Awards.
And it’s got plenty of love from CPA affiliates too, offering a choice of more than 2,000 active campaigns with advertisers from across the planet.
Wherever your audience is based (within reason), you’ll find an affiliate program to suit at MaxBounty.
As well as providing weekly payments, this global affiliate network offers performance bonuses to top affiliate marketers through regular performance-based rewards. Once approved, you’ll be assigned a dedicated affiliate manager to help you drive more quality traffic.
It also boasts a feature-rich dashboard that makes it easy for affiliates to stay on top of their earnings and keep tabs on the latest, most popular affiliate campaigns.
- URL: MaxBounty affiliate network
- Minimum payment: US$100
- Payment frequency: Weekly
CrakRevenue
Nope, this award-winning affiliate network is not a front for Tyrone Biggums.
Although it’s not exactly a run-of-the-mill CPA network either.
That’s because CrakRevenue specializes in adult affiliate offers.
Now, while this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, it’s worth pointing out that these offers can make you a lot of money.
You just need to be realistic about the SEO challenges you can face in this area of online marketing e.g. link building.
So, what this affiliate network has available for willing affiliates are over 1,000 offers.
This CPA network focuses on optimizing payouts to affiliates based on what gives you the most bang for your buck.
An added bonus is that you’ll earn 5% on all sales made by any of your sub-affiliates/referrals.
- URL: CrakRevenue affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$100 (for wire transfer)
- Payment frequency: Weekly or bi-monthly
ClickDealer
ClickDealer is a relative newcomer to the CPA marketing scene, starting out in 2012.
But they’ve won an award or accolade of some kind every year since their inception.
So they know what they’re doing when it comes to CPA marketing.
From an affiliate’s perspective, there’s a lot to like about this international network.
Mainly that they have offers in all of the popular niches like e-commerce, dating, gaming, retail, and mobile.
But they also have offers in the sweepstakes, social media, voucher, and software niches.
If you’re into partying ClickDealer is your kind of network – they offer a ton of fun incentives to work with them.
Payments are made monthly for all new affiliates, once you cross their US$100 threshold.
You can swap over to weekly payments once you’ve proven yourself i.e. you’re not cookie stuffing or sending them dud traffic.
- URL: ClickDealer affiliate network
- Payment threshold: $100
- Payment frequency: Monthly
CPAlead
As CPA networks go, CPAlead focuses on both mobile and desktop offers, but they have a strong leaning towards mobile.
In addition to this, they also have over 300 products and services you can promote via a number of different formats, including banner ads, popups, pop-unders, and native ads.
And they take care of all the geo and device-specific targeting shenanigans for you.
All that you have to do is choose the offer you think will convert best, and drive warm traffic to it.
As you can see from the logos below, this marketing network partners with some of the biggest and best brands in the world.
Which is probably why they’ve been able to pay out over US$100 million to their affiliate marketing partners.
CPAlead would appear to be one of the more established CPA networks on the scene.
Payouts are via wire transfer, Payoneer, PayPal, Paxum, ePayments, and WebMoney.
- URL: CPAlead affiliate network
- Payment threshold: $50
- Payment frequency: Weekly
Admitad
Next up for scrutiny is Admitad, a CPA network I had no idea even existed until I started the research for this piece.
That doesn’t change the fact that they’re a global affiliate marketing network with almost 2,000 unique advertisers.
And just for once, it’s not just about interstitial ads or app installs – they also offer a contextual advertising option for monetizing your website traffic.
So your visitors won’t have to fiddle with closing pop-ups, and you still get to monetize your content with juicy CPA offers.
That makes them somewhat unique among the CPA networks in this roundup.
When you have an online marketing/affiliate business there are few things you’ll care more about than being able to make money.
Because when it comes down to it, money talks and bovine excrement perambulates elsewhere.
Affiliate marketers working with this CPA network claim earnings of $32,700 in a single day (see above).
That’s obviously somebody working at serious scale with traffic, etc. but it still shows you what’s possible when working with Cost per Acquisition offers.
- URL: Admitad affiliate network
- Payment threshold: $20
- Payment frequency: Weekly (wire transfer by request)
CPAMatica
Cpamatica is a Ukraine-based affiliate network that focuses on two key verticals – dating and sweepstakes.
Why those two?
Because the payouts tend to be on the substantial side of things – both advertisers and publishers benefit here.
In total, you have almost 1,000 different offers to work with.
These span the above two verticals, but Cpamatica also has offers in some of the other popular niches such as weight loss, health, gaming, beauty, etc.
Which means they should have something to appeal to most types of website traffic.
As is typical with 90% of CPA networks, they don’t publish program details publicly.
You also get paid 2% of any sales made by affiliates you refer to this cost per acquisition network.
- URL: CPAmatica affiliate network
- Payment threshold: $50
- Payment frequency: Weekly
Toro Advertising
Toro Advertising is a European CPA network that makes some pretty bold claims.
Such as, “…if you need any offer they have it.”
Their portfolio spans thousands of offers, across multiple popular verticals like dating, gambling, finance, apps, and mobile content.
Plus, their network operates in 90 different countries around the world.
Is this one of the best CPA networks out there?
They’re certainly worth a second look if you haven’t already tried them.
Toro Advertising is used to working with CPA affiliate marketers at all stages of their career – from newbies to publishers who can push a lot of traffic.
And if you can perform you’ll get promoted to their “VIP” bracket, with all the perks that come with that.
Payments are monthly but only for the first month – you can move to weekly payments after that.
This is the norm for many of the best CPA networks
- URL: Toro Advertising affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$500
- Payment frequency: Monthly to start then, bi-monthly or weekly
AdWork Media
There are lots of CPA networks out there, so what sets AdWork Media apart from its competitors?
Apart from having a brand name that comes perilously close to pissing Google off.
Well, the first thing is the number of campaigns/advertisers they manage – over 2,500 at last count.
But what they specialize in is content locked offers that are also mobile-friendly.
Basically, your visitors complete a survey or free trial to unlock the content they want to view.
And you get paid when they do that.
So, as with most CPA networks, you can only see offer details once you sign up with them.
But they do offer performance bonuses for serious affiliates.
You have to work with monthly payments to start but you can change over to weekly after that.
- URL: AdWork Media affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$35
- Payment frequency: Monthly
Advendor
You haven’t heard of Advendor before today?
That’s okay – they’re brand new to the market, which is actually a bonus for both advertisers and publishers.
Basically, they’ll be keen to do business with you.
The downside here is that details about them are pretty thin on the ground.
Based on their client list though it’s safe to assume they place a lot of emphasis on the cryptocurrency vertical.
But the upside – and particularly for newbie CPA marketers – is that their affiliate approval process should be pretty lenient.
And yes, you’re obviously taking a calculated risk when working with a brand new CPA network.
This network has a payment threshold of US$50, with weekly payouts.
We’ll update this blog post with more information on Advendor, as and when it becomes available.
- URL: AdVendor affiliate network
- Commission: Varies
- Payment threshold: US$50
- Payment frequency: Weekly
MyLead
MyLead is an affiliate network that offers more than 3,600 affiliate programs across 35 affiliate niches, including beauty, crypto, fashion, gaming, pets, and travel.
Over 490,000 publishers use the platform, which has paid out a total of $8 million in commissions to affiliates in 154 countries.
CPA marketing is only one of many models offered by MyLead; it also does cost per lead, cost per sale, pay-per-install, and lots more besides. But the CPA affiliates programs on its network offer the highest payouts of up to several thousand dollars from a single action.
MyLead affiliates can choose their preferred payment method:
- PayPal
- Skrill
- Revolut
- Webmoney.ru
- Bitcoin
The affiliate network promises to pay affiliate marketers in no later than 14 business days of making a payment request, although the majority of payments are processed within 48 hours.
MyLead has a low payment threshold of $20 for all payment methods, other than Bitcoin. If you don’t earn $20 in a calendar month, your commissions will be rolled over to the following month.
- URL: MyLead affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$20
- Payment frequency: Within 14 business days of payment request
Fireads
Fireads is a Poland-based CPA network that’s actually been in business for almost a decade now.
They’re one of many European affiliate networks now starting to make their presence felt internationally.
In terms of what they do, they specialize in CPA offers, but also have Pay-per-install, CPS, and CPL campaigns for you to monetize your traffic with.
This network operates in a number of popular verticals such as adult, dating, gaming, and cryptos.
These are competitive markets, but the payout is usually more than worth it.
This CPA network claims to have offers that pay up to $350 per sale, which would be attractive to most affiliate marketers.
But with the understanding that this is the exception rather than the rule.
As is the case with even the best CPA networks.
Withdrawals are available via PayPal or wire transfer within hours of a verified sale.
- URL: Fireads affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$20
- Payment frequency: Bi-monthly
Madrivo
Making money as an affiliate marketer comes down to a simple equation:
Qualified traffic + great offer = enviable income.
This is something the team at Madrivo understands, especially because if you’re not making money then they’re not making money.
So they give you access to affiliate offers from some of the biggest brands in the world.
And across a pretty diverse range of verticals, including everything from online dating to car insurance and pet subscription boxes.
The amount you’ll earn will obviously depend on what offers you promote.
But in the case of Madrivo your payment threshold can also be campaign dependent.
They do offer a $2,000 performance bonus if you can earn over US$1,000 per week within your first 60-days with them.
- URL: Madrivo affiliate network
- Payment threshold: Depends on campaign
- Payment frequency: Monthly or weekly
GlobalWide Media
GlobalWide Media is an affiliate network that’s been around for well over a decade now.
And even if you haven’t heard of them, that hasn’t stopped them providing premium media solutions to some of the biggest names in the world.
Like Jumia, AliExpress, Groupon, MindSpark, and Hotels.com for example
This is the quality of brands – and their CPA offers – that affiliates get access to when working with Globalwide Media.
How good are they at what they do?
They generate around $3 billion in sales each year for their advertisers – results that only the best CPA networks can produce.
Starting with the basics, this network has a payment threshold of US$100 and payments are monthly.
You can also earn a 5% bonus on all sales made by anyone you refer to this CPA network.
- URL: Globalwide Median affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$100
- Payment frequency: Monthly
Adscend
Adscend started out as a two-man business and a good idea.
Since then they’ve grown to become an affiliate network with over 35,000 publishers.
Proof that if you have a good idea and a solid work ethic you can establish yourself in any market.
So what types of offers or campaigns are available to affiliates?
They’re tight-lipped on that one – you have to sign up to find out.
But each of their campaigns is available to integrate on your site via an iFrame or API, or on your mobile app via SDK integration.
CPA networks can offer you the world, but unless you get paid on-time then everything else is meaningless.
Adscend has never missed a publisher payment cycle.
Getting paid is an important consideration when selecting the best CPA networks to sign up with.
- URL: Adscend affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$50
- Payment frequency: Monthly, bi-monthly and weekly
A4D
A4D actually stands for “Ads 4 Dough”.
So, putting the slightly cringe name to one side, what can you expect from them as a CPA affiliate network?
It actually took a while to find out – they’ve decided to use a mobile interface for their entire site…which is bizarre….and not helpful.
Although this is something even the best CPA networks can be guilty of i.e. poor UX.
Anyways, after some poking around I found that they do actually have a lot of decent offers in enough niches to keep most affiliates happy.
You get all the usual stuff like health, fitness, and beauty, but they also have offers and campaigns in finance, e-commerce, and business opportunities.
All of the juicy details about their offers are hidden inside the membership area, as they are with most CPA networks.
But they do assure publishers that they carefully vet each advertiser and only work with high-converting offers.
- URL: A4D affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$50
- Payment frequency: Monthly or weekly
Mobidea
The fact that Mobidea is an affiliate network focused on mobile offers shouldn’t come as any surprise because… it’s in their brand name.
You get a full offers wall to work with, where you can pick and choose from the best promotions available.
But you can also opt to use their ‘SmartLink’ feature.
This automatically presents your visitors with the offer that’s best suited to them based on geographic location, etc.
You can also take your CPA affiliate marketing to the next level with the ‘Mobidea Academy’.
On and Charles Ngo seems to think quite highly of this mobile affiliate network — he rates them as one of the best CPA networks for new affiliates.
This is one of the very few CPA networks that allows you to check out their offers before you sign up.
In terms of earning potential, their offers pay up to $36 per sale, which is pretty substantial.
- URL: Mobidea affiliate network
- Payment threshold: €50
- Payment frequency: Monthly
Advidi
And here we have yet another European affiliate network – Advidi.
Their site looks and feels more like a digital marketing agency than an affiliate network.
Or maybe that’s just me?
Either way, you need to go searching to find information on what types of offers you can promote.
Advidi has multiple campaigns in what would appear to be a fairly static list of some of the best CPA verticals – dating, sweepstakes, nutrition, gaming, and finance.
But those offers actually span everything from dietary programs to casinos.
Advidi is guilty of the same sin made by many of these networks – making information difficult to find.
But we do know that if you want to get paid weekly you’ll need to generate $1,000 in sales commissions each week.
You’ll need to be one of those affiliates who can push a serious amount of traffic to hit that target though.
- URL: Advidi affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$1,000
- Payment frequency: Weekly and monthly
AdCombo
Adcombo has the slickest site of any of the networks in this roundup.
But they’re not just about good looks.
They also claim to have exclusive campaigns not available on any other CPA affiliate network, spread across 12 verticals.
That includes niches like the ones listed below.
And they also support over 40 languages, so you get true geo-specific landing pages.
Each of which is served from their own international network of servers for the best possible load times.
But they also have offers in gaming, forex, betting, antivirus, wallpapers, and VOD (Video on Demand) for example.
Affiliates are paid weekly and without any built-in delays or artificial holds.
That’s a refreshing change from some other networks where payment can be delayed for weeks.
Or permanently.
Activation is also pleasingly simple. Signup, confirm your registration via email, then wait for your personal affiliate manager to get in touch with a few questions about your experience.
- URL: Adcombo affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$50
- Payment frequency: Bi-weekly
RevenueAds
RevenueAds take a very different approach to getting publishers to sign up with them.
The exact opposite of what you get with most CPA affiliate networks.
What I mean by that is that you can browse through the different campaigns on offer without signing up for an account
And the offers are actually pretty good.
They even have catalog card campaigns with a CPA (Cost per Action) payout of up to $350 for one “sale”.
I haven’t seen payouts like that since the good old days of credit card affiliate offers back in 2005.
This could be one of the best networks in this roundup.
And as you can see, they’ve worked with some of the biggest and best brands in a number of lucrative verticals e.g. online dating.
More so than some of the bigger networks we’ve come across.
So there’s a whole lot of potential here for savvy affiliates who can push qualified traffic to their offers.
- URL: RevenueAds affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$50
- Payment frequency: Bi-monthly
Panthera Network
Sometimes you have to flip a coin on whether or not you feature a company in a roundup like this.
Panthera Network is an example of this, mostly because I’ve never heard of them before.
But they do attend Affiliate Summit East, so that adds to their legitimacy.
And there’s also the fact that they’ve been in business for 13 years.
Longevity is a plus in an industry where CPA affiliate networks can appear and disappear almost overnight.
Update: Their support team responded to my request for info in about 30 minutes with exactly what I needed. That’s the best/fastest response I’ve ever received to a query in all my years in affiliate marketing.
So, don’t be afraid to reach out to them to ask questions.
In addition to getting paid for promoting the products and services of their advertisers, you also earn a 5% cut on all sales generated by anyone you refer to their CPA marketing network.
- URL: Panthera affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$50
- Payment frequency: Monthly
Digital Media Solutions (formerly W4)
Digital Media Solutions (formerly known as W4) is a leader in the global martech industry.
Oh, “martech” is the combining of marketing and technology…or…ye know…affiliate marketing.
I’m sure it’s a perfectly cromulent word.
So underneath all the hype, we find a CPA network that is actively looking for affiliates to promote their advertiser’s products.
Especially in the more competitive verticals like insurance, consumer finance, education, and subscription services.
Which means this could currently be one of the best networks for new CPA affiliates who are willing to work hard.
But there are no details on how much any of their offers actually pay.
So you’ll need to sign up to find out more.
- URL: DMS affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$100
- Payment frequency: Bi-monthly
Convert2Media
Convert2Media, better known as C2M, is a US based affiliate network that’s been in business since 2007, which presumably means it’s pretty good at what it does.
It prides itself on never having missed a payment, which is obviously a good thing — after all, you’re not doing CPA marketing for fun, you’re doing it to make money!
You’ll find thousands of CPA offers at Convert2Media, while the $100 payment threshold and weekly payment frequency are par for the course among the top CPA affiliate networks.
Beyond that, information on its website is pretty sparse to say the least, so you’ll need to sign up to find out more.
- URL: Convert2Media affiliate network
- Minimum payment: US$100
- Payment frequency: Weekly
Affiliati Network
Like Convert2Media, Affiliati appears to operate on the assumption that if you truly want to find out whether it’s one of the best CPA affiliate networks out there, you’ll just have to sign up and see for yourself.
By which I mean you won’t learn much by looking at its website.
What I can categorically tell you is that its list of CPA advertising clients makes for pretty impressive reading, including the likes of Dollar Shave Club, LendingTree, and McAfee.
Those are huge, trusted brands, which makes your job — driving quality traffic that converts — far easier to perform.
- URL: Affiliati affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$100
- Payment frequency: Net 15
Lemonads
With more than a decade of CPA affiliate marketing expertise, Lemonads has a rock-solid reputation built around efficiency and results.
That reputation has helped it sign up a vast portfolio of advertisers and publishers, including household names like British Gas, Uber Eats, and Norton.
According to its own figures, in the last month the Lemonads CPA network generated three million hits and 6,000 qualified leads across 1,800 affiliate programs in 200 countries.
And the impressive-sounding statistics just keep on coming, because Lemonads claims an astonishing 85% of affiliate marketers see their revenues increase within the first three months of using its platform.
All of which makes us extremely confident to name Lemonads as one of the top CPA affiliate networks we’ve seen.
- URL: Lemonads affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$100
- Payment frequency: Daily or weekly, depending on volume
Adsterra
Adsterra is best known as an ad network (hence the name), but it also runs one of the best CPA networks out there.
It boasts CPA offers across a wide range of attractive niches, including:
- Gambling
- Gaming
- Antivirus
- Utility
- VPN
- Software
- Dating
- Sweepstakes
Choice is clearly a big deal for Adsterra, because it also allows affiliate marketers to pick their preferred payment method from a list that includes PayPal, WebMoney, Paxum, Bitcoin, and more.
And with a minimum payment of just $5 via Paxum and WebMoney, you can still receive weekly payments even if you’re not generating a ton of leads.
To help you drive performance, you’ll get access to a dedicated affiliate manager.
- URL: Adsterra affiliate network
- Payment threshold: US$5
- Payment frequency: Every Monday
Over to You
And that brings us to the end of our roundup of the best CPA networks we could find.
As you can see, marketing CPA offers can earn you hundreds of dollars for a single sale.
That’s without even mentioning Peerfly, an extremely popular CPA network that won several awards, but has now sadly closed its doors.
It’s rare to find such offers in “traditional” affiliate marketing.
Yes, there are some networks missing from this list that might appear on other blogs.
But we have quality standards to maintain…so yeah…we passed on certain CPA networks.
Especially those with a reputation for not paying their affiliate marketing partners on time.
Or ever…which definitely happens.
Because there’s little point in putting the effort into building an affiliate site if you’re not going to make money.
But it’s just as important to learn how to build your site the right way.
Something we’re happy to show you how to get started with – free of charge – in our free training on affiliate marketing.
And no, you don’t have to buy anything.
We hate that fake guru BS just as much as you do.
And we’ll see you on the inside.
