We all like to make money and one of the ways you can make money online is by simply promoting or blogging about WordPress themes or even premium plugins.
By putting a link or an advert to another service from your site using your special affiliate link – you can earn a commission if a person who visits from your link makes a purchase. That's how affiliate programs work and it's a great way to make money.
There are loads of WordPress Theme developers and theme shops that have affiliate programs so they're a good place to get started if you want to start making money. WordPress 3.2 has been downloaded more than 12 million times – that's a whole lot of sites running on WordPress, and a whole lot of people looking for WordPress themes. Here's a run down of the main players, with a bit of info about their program and how much lovely cash-money you can earn.
| Theme Shop | About | Affiliate Rate | Price Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Woo Themes | Woo Themes are one of the biggest theme shops around. They offer loads of high quality themes and often collaborate with well-known figures in the design world. They also have lots of different affiliate banners that you can include on your site. WOO THemes has cancelled their affiliate program | Affiliate Rate: NA | NA |
| Thesis | Thesis, from DIY Themes, is a hugely popular WordPress theme. It has loads of advanced features such as layout options, typographic control and built-in SEO. | 33% | $87 – $164 |
| iThemes | As well as producing a tonne of themes, iThemes has a whole host of plugins, including the popular BackupBuddy. They offer lots of different ways that you can promote iThemes products, including banners and graphics, and have a detailed affiliate guide. | 25% | $20 – $1000 |
| StudioPress | StudioPress is the home of the popular Genesis Framework. Genesis has a huge number of child themes that StudioPress members can download to give their website from style. StudioPress offer loads of advice on being an affiliate. (Their Affiliate Program Has Been Cancelled) | 35% | $79.95 – $299.95 |
| Rich WP | Loads of premium WordPress themes, with lots of great ones for photography. | 50% | $127 – $297 |
| Graph Paper Press | Graph Paper Press specializes in themes for photographers. They produce high quality photography themes so if you run a photography website they're a great theme shop to be an affiliate for. | 20% | $49 – $299 |
| Elegant Themes | Elegant Themes is probably one of the cheapest WordPress Theme shops to become a member of – it only costs $39 per year for access to all of their themes! | 50% | $49 – $89 |
| Gorilla Themes | Gorilla themes started out specialising in real estate themes but now they've got loads of other themes as well. They have a large selection of banners that link to specific themes. | 20% | $39.95 – $99.95 |
| Color Labs | Color Labs has got a large selection of premium WordPress themes. Their most popular theme is Arthemia, the free version of which is available in the WordPress Theme Directory. | 35% | $49 – $99 |
| Unique Blog Designs | Unique Blog Designs offer niche themes aimed at people who want to make money out of their website. They offer free themes as well as premium themes. | 30% | $147 – $297 |
| Gabfire Themes | Gabfire Themes offers themes that are web standards compliant and make their customers happy. As well as themes they offer services such as installation. | 20% | $59 – $179 |
| WPMU DEV | WPMU DEV is a leader in the WordPress plugin market, but they also offer a large collection of WordPress themes as well | 33% | $39 – $419 |
| Zidalgo | Create a small number of high-quality WordPress themes in-house. They've got more than 10 years experience designing websites and now that experience is dedicate to WordPress | 35% | $75 – $249 |
| Theme Forest | Envato's huge theme marketplace is a go-to place for many people on the hunt for WordPress themes. There are a huge number of WordPress designers who sell their themes there. | 30% | $16 – $60 |
| Templatic | Templatic started out life as Premmium Themes. It's a theme shop operating from India. It has a huge number of themes, from simple blogging themes to complex ecommerce themes. | 30% | $65 – $99 |
| Theme Shift | Theme Shift offers cms-oriented themes such as news, magazine and real estate themes. They've got a nice selection for business. | 30% | $39-$99 |
| Solo Stream | Solostream is a web media company that aims to create accessible content, products and services for small business. | 20% | $59 – $129 |
| Allure | Allure Themes offers beautiful WordPress themes for women. | 25% | £75 – $150 |
| Mojo Themes | Mojo Themes is a theme and plugin marketplace. As well as offering products for WordPress they offer items for Magneto, Joomla and Tumblr, among others. | 30% | $0 – $75 |
| Photocrati | WordPress themes for photographers. Photocrati comes with built in eCommerce so that you can sell you photographys from your website. | $20 per sale | $89 |
| Press 75 | Press 75 aims to offer clean, efficient and well-documented WordPress themes. | 20% | $100 – $400 |
| Theme Fuse | Theme Fuse offers professional WordPress themes for everyone from writers to dentists. | 30% | $49 – $349 |
| Kreative Themes | Kreative Themes offer a selection of free and premium themes with a concentration on producing beautiful design. | 40% | $29.90 – $99.90 |
| Up Themes | Up Themes have some seriously stylish themes, as well as offering a number of WordPress plugins. | 20% | $50 – $139 |
| Obox | Obox aims to combine beautiful design with powerful functionality. As well as building for WordPress they build for Posterous and Tumblr. | 25% | $19 – $125 |
| Pagelines | Pagelines are the developers of Platform, a hugely popular drag-and-drop theme for WordPress. | 33% | $79 – $249 |
| WP Zoom | WP Zoom offer top-quality themes aimed at the business market. They come with lifetime support. | 25% | $69 – $318 |
| Theme Warrior | Theme Warrior offers professionally designed, easy to manage themes to get you going with WordPress. | 30% | $39 – $69 |
| Organic Themes | Organic Themes offer fresh WordPress designs aimed at artists, bloggers and business owners. | 30% | $69 |
| Panda Themes | Panda Themes have a large selection of themes aimed at the business market. | 30% | $35-$185 |
Of course this list is not finished and I'll be keeping it updated as time goes on. If you know of a WordPress theme developer not on this list then leave a comment below.
You can read a post I wrote on Tips for Making Money from WordPress Affiliate Programs that will give you some more info.
Thanks Jeff for this helpful list. It saved me tons of time and energy. Keep up with the good work
Another good affiliate program is the teslaThemes.com affiliate program, which pays 50% on every sale and money are paid directly in paypal.