How much does it really cost to become an affiliate?

At some point, it depends on many things: your budget, how fast you want to reach your goals, if you get coaching, etc. In the end, you have two choices: the Freeway or the Highway.

Know that there will always be something to pay and you can either spend time or money.

You can get started for free, but realistically, you can get started with everything set up for around $3 per month if you take some time to shop around for the lowest prices.

*May contain affiliate links. Clicking on the affiliate links will most likely result in the same price you would pay elsewhere or you may get a special offer using those links.

Can I Get started for free?

Yes, but you may not find the quality you need to build a long-term successful online business.

Free sounds good, right? Is it really free? If it’s free, is it as good as what you can get when you pay? How much free can cost you? Let’s face it, free can be costly. How? It can cost you lot of time spent searching for the right tools, the right information and the right training.

I mean, free is good. You can easily get tons of information online on how to build an affiliate business. You can spend hours looking for the best platform to get started for free. You can read reviews to figure out where to build your first website for free, I invite you to read this.

With your free training and website hosting, do you have access to people who can help you grow your business? Have you found a way to make sure you have all your need to get started? Did you find a step-by-step program that will help you build your home based business?

Let’s face it, getting started can be scary and overwhelming, especially when you have no experience. Are you going to take the time to go on Facebook and find a support group to help you get started? Do you think you can do everything on your own? Of course, you can! You are smart, you know where to go to find the information you need and you can learn from there.

Since you want to do everything on your own, you will be more likely to make mistakes. You may get discouraged with the amount of things you have to learn. Oh and let’s not talk about all the things you have to do to get started. Do you have my checklist? Get it here if you don’t.

Between us, I didn’t think I would have to use Pinterest as a way to promote my website. I am just getting started with my Facebook business page. It’s fun and it’s time-consuming. If you don’t have the proper training it may get frustrating.

Going with the free option is the long way to go. If you don’t have any money to invest in your business at this moment, there are free tools available to get started. If you are thinking about building and email list, I strongly suggest getting started with AWeber since it’s totally free until you reach 500 subscribers. If you want to build a website, I highly recommend starting here.

What can you get for free? Creating a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, social media accounts for free. That is a good way to start generating organic traffic to what you have to promote.

Then you have your PayPal account, so you can get paid when you earn a commission. There is also a DropBox or any cloud account that is free, where you can store PDFs and gifts you want to give to your subscribers. You can get an autoresponder for free, until you reached 500 subscribers. You can open an account at ClickBank for free and find affiliate offers related to your niche. That’s a good start.

The majority of successful businesses owners today were mentored. They had someone help them through all the process and roadblocks they could encounter. You know what they say: Life is too short to learn from your mistakes. Learn from others’ mistakes and it will help you reach success faster.

How Much Does Everything Cost?

Let’s go on the Highway

You want numbers. How much do you have to spend to become an affiliate marketer? Good news is, you don’t have to pay for everything. Like I said earlier, there are things you can get for free. So where do you have to spend money?

Firstly, you need an internet connection. Maybe you want to be using the WIFI at the café near you. Not such a good idea with COVID. You want to be working from home at some point. Invest in a reliable internet provider.

You will be glad you did. You don’t want to have to go out whenever you have an idea to create content for your website, for your email list or for your social media accounts.

Secondly, you need some technology. You want t have a laptop. Maybe you don’t have one at the moment. It is possible that you may not have the money to buy one right now. It will become your best friend. If you have a tablet, it can help you get started, but it is so much easier to do everything on a computer.

You can use your phone to take pictures and shoot videos, but building a website on your mobile? Sounds frustrating. It gets so small. Please use a laptop. It doesn’t have to be brand new, it doesn’t have to be the best laptop in the world. Go with your means.

Thirdly, you want to buy your own domain. It looks professional. It’s an investment. Depending on your niche, the price can vary. It can start very cheap, a few bucks and price can go sky-high. A domain is an asset. It can get more value in time. There are domains auctions. If you go on Google Domains or GoDaddy, you will see that everything about making money online can be selling at $1000 and more. Choose wisely.

Fourthly, you want to pay for your website hosting. I have explained it in details here, Beware of free hosting since you can get stuck with yourdomain.notyourdomainforusingfreehosting.com and worst, you might get ads on your site that are not your ads for your affiliate products. How frustrating to get too many ads that won’t bring you any commission even if you get a lot of traffic! So it can cost, on average, from $2 to $15 per month to have your website hosted.

Fifthly, when you will get to the point where you want to start an email list, to keep in touch with your visitors, get a P. O box. Why? Because when you set up your autoresponder account, you will need to provide an address that will get displayed at the bottom of every email sent.

Do you want your home address at the bottom of those emails? I don’t. Talking about autoresponders, at some point, you will have to pay for that too. Prices start at $19 per month and go up with the number of subscribers you get.

Sixthly, there will be a day when spending money for ads will be beneficial. It might also be a necessity when organic traffic isn’t enough. There are different ways to advertise. With Facebook, you can boost your post starting at $3 per day. Price go up based on how broad the audience you want to reach is. Add that to your spending.

Seventhly, you may have to buy products in your niche to write valuable reviews. Writing a review based on other reviews isn’t as good as when you actually get to try it for yourself. Dedicate a budget for that matter. Of course, if you are in a niche where the products are very expensive, over $500, you can start writing review on what you already know of the product. When you start making more money, you can then invest some in buying and testing products.

Eightly, you will want to turn your business into a real business. Depending on where you live, you will have to pay fees to get incorporated. Those fees can be very low or they can be a couple hundred bucks. Your business will be it’s own entity, so you will be able to completely separate your own personal finances from your company’s finances.

You will be able to get a credit card in your company’s name without endangering your credit score. It’ll be easier to separate your expenses from your business expenses.

Lastly, you might consider paying for training. There are many good programs out there. Reach for the ones that have good reviews, testimonials from people who did the training and are now making money, step-by-step training program to get you started in the right direction, that offer a guaranty of a free trial and the most important thing to consider is the support. How easy is it to get support? Do you have a community that you can reach to get your questions answered quickly? Is the community active?

Paying for training can be a great solution. Make sure there are no upsells. You have to get great value for the money you will spend. You want to get access to coaching or people in the community that can help you reach your goals.

There is a place where you can get the training, the community AND website hosting, plus many other wonderful tools. If you want to know more about it, you can read my review.

Make sure the training you are paying for is right for you. Most legitimate companies will offer a satisfaction guaranty. And I see more and more companies offering a 12 months guaranty. You want to pay a reasonable price for your training and you have to have unlimited access to the platform. Price can range from $40 per month and up or pay once $997 and up.

Know that many companies that offer training don’t have a refund policy. The reason is simple: it is a digital product, you get instant access to it and they don’t have a refund policy. Other companies truly believe in their product and offer a money back guaranty even if you binged in all the training.

Wait! There are more expenses that can come with time! I forgot to mention all the work that you might want others to do for you, so you can enjoy some free time. For example, you may want to hire a freelancer to write content for your website or even create an e-book for your business.

There is also the visual part of your business, everything from your logo, your website design or even your Opt-in pages can be done by a freelancer. These are a few examples of extra spending you could have for your online business.

Remember, you are a business owner. You are self-employed, even if you still have a regular job. All your business related expenses are tax-deductible. Of course, when you are getting started, it can be scary to see all those expenses piling up.

In the end, it won’t cost you as much as you thought since you will start making money within a year, unless you spend minimal time building your business, then it could take longer.

In conclusion

Let’s add monthly numbers here:

If you pay for your internet access, that usually ranges between $30 and $100 per month. Let’s use some common average numbers here: Website hosting: $5, Training: $50. Autoresponder: Free to get started or around $20 Funnel Builder: $99 (ClickFunnels), Domain name: $1, P.O. Box: around $10, it could be lower of higher depending on where you live. Ads: $100.

Your monthly payments to start and run an online business can be anything from $10 to $400 or more. But to get started as an online entrepreneur, $10 per month is really chep compared to thousands of dollars for a brick and mortar business.

You can get started for free. You can start earning commission without having spent a dollar on your affiliate marketing business. A business is meant to expand. You want it to grow. When it grows, you will need to upgrade and become a successful business.

You can wait until you start making money. You take that money and invest it in your company. It’s the smart way to get started when you don’t have the budget to pay for training and hosting. But you can get great training and great website hosting here.

Are you ready? I invite you to read my article on what you need to be a successful affiliate marketer.

Let’s get your business up and working!

Cynthia