Wish Affiliate Program Review 2024

My girlfriend is addicted to Wish, as addicted as the 100 million other people who shop there on a regular basis.

It’s easy to understand why.

Every time you open the app, there’s some new shiny object begging for your attention…and your dollars.

So how is that different from other e-commerce sites or shopping apps?

The paradigm shift is because products on Wish are so cheap people can’t help but purchase them.

Wish might claim to be, “Shopping made fun!”

The reality is their app is more like “Where compulsive shoppers reinforce their addiction.”.

So…does this company have any value for a typical affiliate marketer and their website/social media presence?

Wish, founded by an ex-Google engineer, has been around since 2011.

But they really only hit their stride from about 2016 onwards.

There was an explosion of hype on social media around the brand.

Which was thanks to a massive Facebook advertising campaign, layered thick with retargeting.

Luck had nothing to do with it.

Wish is headquartered in the United States (San Francisco) and has taken what Ali Express tried to achieve but didn’t quite pull it off.

They put customers in direct contact with Chinese wholesalers and manufacturers.

So those already-low price items suddenly became 25% – 50% cheaper.

And the shopping frenzy began.

Now, several years later Wish is worth an estimated US$9 billion with annual revenues in excess of US$2 billion.

It’s an incredible success story for what started out as just another e-commerce site.

What products can you promote?

Wish has somewhere between 200 and 300 million products in “stock” at any one time.

Far more than average shopping apps.

And these come from almost 1 million different merchants.

So you’d assume that listing their top-level product categories would be difficult.

But there are just nine categories in total on their platform:

But this tiny amount of data doesn’t do the businesses listed on Wish justice.

And it’s unlikely to get the average website owner excited about promoting their affiliate program.

So let’s take a browse through the Wish catalog and show you how diverse their product range is. 

First up is a bed frame available in a variety of sizes, with prices starting from €70.

 So that covers the home décor niche.

Next up is a clip-on zoom lens kit for your smartphone.

So that covers the both photography and electronics niche.

Then we have the UV light teeth whitening device that you shove into your mouth.

So that covers health, beauty, and hygiene.

Or how about some artificial grass?

Because everyone needs artificial grass.

That covers the gardening niche.

I could keep going all day here but you get the general idea.

Wish provides an endless stream of gadgets and goodies to suit pretty much any affiliate marketing niche you can think of.

And there are new products appearing every single day.

Thousands of them.

How does the Wish referral program work?

You have more than one way of being approved to promote Wish on your website or in your content.

There are two options available to you.

The first of these is the Impact affiliate network.

The only potential issue here is that Impact can be very slow to approve applications from relatively new affiliates.

Affiliates who are already driving a lot of traffic to offers should have no problem being approved.

Basically, it’s a bit hit-and-miss.

So your “Plan B” for promoting Wish is to apply through FlexOffers.

They basically cater to newer affiliate publishers looking to monetize their content.

The only real downside to this network is they pay a lower commission rate than Impact for sales made through text links or banner ads.

But the difference, in this case, is marginal – there’s not much competition between the two networks.

Keep reading to find out more about that.

Affiliate payments

It’s always good to know when you’ll actually get paid by an affiliate program.

After all, there’s a pretty big difference between Net 30 and Net 90.

So, do you have to wait 5 – 10 weeks to get paid by Wish, or is it something far more reasonable?

The good news is that because Wish is managed by external affiliate networks, you get paid according to their schedule.

In the case of this affiliate program, both Impact and FlexOffers offer Net 30 terms.

Which simply means that if you sell something on April 1st you’ll get paid for those transactions by May 1st.

And they also offer a very low payout threshold of just $25 if you’re being paid into your bank account.

Or $50 if you want to be paid by check.

Cookies

Wish genuinely surprised me here in relation to how they run their affiliate program.

I fully expected them to have to cut their cookie duration to the bone due to the nature of their business.

But they actually offer a 30-day cookie through Impact:

And FlexOffers:

This is an unusually long attribution period for the affiliate program of a big box online retailer.

Now it’s time to talk about commission rates. 

Commission structure

Some of you will probably already have figured out that Wish simply can’t offer a high commission rate.

Their entire business model is as lean as a greyhound doing intermittent fasting. 

After all, how much commission do you expect to earn from a phone case costing $1?

Or a $2 *cough* smartwatch?

And the answer to that riddle has two parts.

The first is that you get paid a 1c (1 cent) commission per sale (product sold)  through your affiliate links if you’re promoting their affiliate program via Impact.

Or, .08c commission per item if you’re promoting their affiliate program through FlexOffers.

If you want to  “…start a niche website that earns $1,000 per month”, you’ll have to “sell” 100,000 Wish items.

Every month.

If you think you can manage this number of sales referrals for “reasons”, then rock on.

But otherwise Wish affiliates need to seriously manage their expectations in advance.

Look before you leap into this affiliate program.

You can earn better commissions with literally any other affiliate program you can find on the good old Internet.

Weighing it up

Did you skip down to the Pros and Cons of this affiliate program without reading the rest of the review?

That’s okay, this bit is for those of you who want instant answers to questions.

Pros

• Vast selection of items for your readers/people to buy
• Incredibly low prices on everything from electronics to jewelry
• The Wish referral program has a built-in rewards system
• Easy for affiliate publishers to get approved via FlexOffers
• Low affiliate payout threshold of just $25
• An impressive 30-day cookie
• You can create deep links on your site

Cons

• This affiliate program offers a measly 1c commission per product sold 
• Purchases take several weeks to arrive
• Customers have reported receiving low-quality/counterfeit products
• You’d have to generate hundreds of thousands of sales per month to earn a decent income
• Deliveries can be severely impacted by any disruption to the global supply chain

URL: Wish affiliate program

Location: San Francisco, United States

Commission:  $0.01 per item 

Payment schedule: Net 30

Payment threshold: $25 (direct deposit) and $50 (checks)

Cookie duration: 30 days

Summary

And that brings us to the end of our in-depth review of the Wish affiliate program.

So…is it worth driving traffic to?

Not really.

The commission rate is just too low for the vast majority of websites to earn meaningful revenue from it.

Assuming a conversion rate of 10%, you’d still need to expose their offers to between 1 and 10 million uniques per month to make legit money.

There are better ecommerce merchants you could work with.

There are also easier ways to make money with affiliate marketing.

As long as you follow the key steps to choosing the right niche and keywords in the first place.

Which is why it makes sense for you to attend our FREE training class.

So, it’s either go back to scratching yourself in front of your TV.

Or deciding to make a positive change in your life by building an online business.

It’s a binary choice.