The short answer
WordPress.com suits most affiliate marketers, with plugins on every paid plan from $4 a month billed yearly. Wix and Squarespace suit beginners who want everything in one place. Shopify fits stores that sell as well as recommend, while Ghost and Webflow suit publishers who want speed and design control. Compare the selling fees before you commit.
Key takeaways
- WordPress.com starts at $4 a month billed yearly, and every paid plan can install plugins.
- Squarespace Basic charges a 2% store fee and a 7% fee on digital products; Core removes the store fee.
- Shopify Basic costs $19 a month billed yearly, plus a 2% fee if you use another payment provider.
- Ghost takes 0% of your revenue on every plan; only Stripe's processing fee applies.
- Webflow merged its CMS and Business plans into Premium at $25 a month billed yearly in May 2026.
| Pick | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. WordPress.com | Most affiliate marketers | From $4/month (Personal, billed yearly) | Free plan |
| 2. Wix | Beginners who want an all-in-one builder | From $17/month (Light, billed yearly) | Free plan |
| 3. Squarespace | Design-led affiliate sites | From $19/month (Basic, billed yearly) | No free plan (14-day trial) |
| 4. Shopify | Affiliates who also sell products | From $19/month (Basic, billed yearly) | No free plan |
| 5. Ghost | Publishers building a paid newsletter | From $9/month (Starter, billed yearly) | No free plan (self-hosted version free) |
| 6. Webflow | Design control and speed | From $15/month (Basic, billed yearly) | Free Starter plan (staging only) |
How we chose
Affiliate marketing puts a specific set of demands on a website platform: fast pages, room for comparison tables and link management, a custom domain, and fees that do not eat the commission. This list was built by reading each vendor's own pricing page and feature list, then ranking by fit for an affiliate site rather than by raw popularity. Prices below are based on published pricing and documentation, checked on 13 November 2026. Every figure is a list price in US dollars before tax, and the selling fees are listed next to the subscription price because they change the real cost.
1. WordPress.com: best for most affiliate marketers
WordPress.com sells five plans. The free plan costs $0. Personal is $9 a month billed monthly or $4 a month billed yearly. Premium is $18 monthly or $8 yearly. Business is $40 monthly or $25 yearly. Commerce is $70 monthly or $45 yearly. Longer terms cost less per month but are paid up front for the whole term.
The detail that matters for affiliates is that WordPress.com opened plugins and theme uploads to every paid plan in April 2026. That means a Personal plan at $4 a month can install an affiliate link manager, a comparison table builder and an SEO plugin, which used to need the Business plan. Storage is 6 GB on Personal, 13 GB on Premium and 50 GB on Business and Commerce. Commerce adds managed WooCommerce extensions and a 0 percent transaction fee, while the Payments block adds a fee on top of Stripe's card fee: 10 percent on Free, 8 percent on Personal, 4 percent on Premium, 2 percent on Business and 0 percent on Commerce.
WordPress.com suits most affiliate marketers because the ecosystem is the largest: thousands of plugins, themes and tutorials, and a path from a free blog to a full store without moving platforms. The weakness is that the cheapest plans still show platform limits, and the renewal price after the first term is higher than the introductory rate, so check the renewal figure before you commit.
Who should skip it: publishers who want a fully custom design without touching settings, and anyone who wants to self-host WordPress on their own server, which is a different product with costs set by the host.
2. Wix: best for beginners who want an all-in-one builder
Wix has a free plan and four paid plans. On annual billing, Light is $17 a month, Core is $29, Business is $39 and Business Elite is $159. Monthly billing costs more: Light $24, Core $36, Business $46 and Business Elite $172 a month. Annual plans are paid in full up front, and new paid plans carry a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Light includes a custom domain free for one year, 2 GB of storage and two collaborators, but it cannot accept payments. Core is the cheapest plan that takes payments, and it adds basic ecommerce, scheduling, 50 GB of storage and five collaborators. Business adds standard ecommerce and a marketing suite, 100 GB of storage and ten collaborators. Business Elite adds unlimited storage, advanced ecommerce and up to 100 collaborators.
Wix suits a beginner who wants hosting, design, analytics and a store in one dashboard, with no plugins to install and no server to manage. The drag-and-drop editor is fast to learn. The limits are real: Light cannot sell, the free plan shows Wix ads and runs on a Wix subdomain, and moving a Wix site to another platform later is hard work.
Who should skip it: affiliates who need deep SEO control or a large content library with custom post types, and anyone who wants to own their site files outright.
3. Squarespace: best for design-led affiliate sites
Squarespace replaced its older Personal, Business and Commerce plans with four new plans in February 2026, and raised prices again in July 2026. Basic is $19 a month billed yearly or $25 month to month. Core is $29 yearly or $39 monthly. Plus is $49 yearly or $65 monthly. Advanced is $99 yearly or $139 monthly. There is no free plan, only a 14-day free trial that needs no credit card.
The fees matter more than the subscription. Basic charges a 2 percent fee on store sales and 7 percent on digital products and memberships. Core removes the store fee and charges 5 percent on digital products. Plus charges 1 percent on digital products, and Advanced charges 0 percent. Card processing through Squarespace Payments is 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Basic and Core, 2.7 percent on Plus and 2.5 percent on Advanced. Annual plans include a free custom domain for the first year.
Squarespace suits an affiliate site where design is the selling point: photography, home decor, fashion and travel. The templates are strong, the editor is consistent, and everything from analytics to email campaigns sits in one place. The weakness is the fee stack on Basic, which punishes the exact thing an affiliate site does: sell through links and digital products.
Who should skip it: affiliates who sell digital products on the cheapest plan, and anyone who needs plugins or deep customization. Core at $29 a month is the honest starting point for most affiliate sites on Squarespace.
4. Shopify: best for affiliates who also sell products
Shopify has three standard plans. Basic is $25 a month billed monthly or $19 a month billed yearly. Grow is $65 monthly or $49 yearly. Advanced is $399 monthly or $299 yearly. Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month. Paying yearly saves about a quarter on the three standard plans.
Card rates through Shopify Payments are 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Basic, 2.7 percent on Grow and 2.5 percent on Advanced. Using another payment provider adds a fee: 2 percent on Basic, 1 percent on Grow and 0.6 percent on Advanced. Basic includes 10 inventory locations and the owner login only; Grow adds up to five staff accounts; Advanced adds up to 15 staff accounts, live third-party shipping rates and higher API limits.
Shopify fits an affiliate who also sells products, because the store, the checkout and the affiliate content live in one place, and the app store covers link tracking, reviews and email. It is a poor fit for a pure content affiliate site. A blog that only recommends other people's products pays $19 a month for a store it does not need, on a platform built around selling rather than publishing.
Who should skip it: content-only affiliate sites, and beginners who need a free plan to start. There is no free plan on Shopify.
5. Ghost: best for publishers building a paid newsletter
Ghost is an open-source publishing platform, and Ghost(Pro) is its managed hosting. Ghost(Pro) starts at $9 a month for Starter on annual billing, with 500 members and one staff user. Creator is $25 a month for 1,000 members. Team is $50 a month for 10,000 members and five staff users. Business is $199 a month for 100,000 members. Self-hosting the open-source version is free, with hosting costs set by your own server.
Ghost takes 0 percent of your revenue on every plan. Only Stripe's card fee applies, which is 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction. That is the cleanest fee structure in this list, and it matters for an affiliate who also sells memberships, courses or a paid newsletter. The platform is built for publishing: native newsletters, member subscriptions, clean and fast pages, and no page builder clutter.
The limits are the point. Ghost has no app store, no drag-and-drop store builder and no native ecommerce. An affiliate who needs comparison tables will build them by hand or with code, and a store needs a separate platform. Ghost suits a publisher whose product is the content itself, with affiliate links inside it.
Who should skip it: affiliates who need a store, a page builder or a plugin ecosystem. Ghost is a publishing tool first, and it does not pretend otherwise.
6. Webflow: best for design control and speed
Webflow restructured its pricing in May 2026. The old CMS plan at $23 a month and Business plan at $39 a month were merged into a single Premium plan. Basic is now $15 a month billed yearly or $25 month to month. Premium is $25 a month billed yearly or $39 month to month. A free Starter workspace exists, but it is a staging environment, not a production site.
Basic covers a custom domain, 300 static pages and 10 GB of bandwidth, with no CMS. Premium adds the CMS with 20,000 items and 40 collections, site search, form file upload and 2.5 TB of bandwidth. Ecommerce plans start at $29 a month and are separate. Workspace plans for teams are priced per seat on top.
Webflow suits an affiliate site where design control and page speed are the priority. The visual builder gives precise control over layout without code, and the hosted pages are fast. The weakness is the learning curve: Webflow takes longer to learn than Wix or Squarespace, and the CMS is the part an affiliate site needs, which means Premium at $25 a month is the real starting point, not Basic at $15.
Who should skip it: beginners who want a site live this weekend, and affiliates who need a plugin ecosystem or a built-in store without paying for an ecommerce plan.
What the first year actually costs
| Platform | Plan used | Monthly price, billed yearly | First year | Fees on sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress.com | Personal | $4 | $48 | 8% on Payments block sales |
| Ghost | Starter | $9 | $108 | 0% platform fee |
| Webflow | Basic | $15 | $180 | None on content |
| Wix | Light | $17 | $204 | Cannot sell on Light |
| Squarespace | Basic | $19 | $228 | 2% store, 7% digital |
| Shopify | Basic | $19 | $228 | 2% with another gateway |
The subscription is only half the bill for an affiliate who sells. A Squarespace Basic site doing $1,000 a month in store sales pays $20 a month in store fees on top of the $19 subscription. A Shopify Basic site taking payments through another provider pays the same $20. A Ghost site pays nothing to the platform, only Stripe's card fee. Run the same arithmetic on your own expected sales before you pick.
How to choose
- You want the most options for the least money: WordPress.com Personal at $4 a month billed yearly, with plugins included.
- You want everything in one place and no learning curve: Wix Core at $29 a month, the cheapest Wix plan that takes payments.
- Design is the product: Squarespace Core at $29 a month, not Basic, because the fees on Basic punish sellers.
- You sell products as well as recommend them: Shopify Basic at $19 a month billed yearly, and use Shopify Payments to avoid the extra 2 percent.
- Your product is a newsletter or membership: Ghost Creator at $25 a month, with 0 percent platform fees.
- You want precise design control and fast pages: Webflow Premium at $25 a month, and accept the learning curve.
Label your affiliate links clearly on every page that carries them, so readers know you may earn a commission. That disclosure belongs near the link or at the top of the page, not buried in a footer. For the pages around the platform, the landing page versus website comparison helps you decide what to build first, the product landing page guide covers pages that convert, and the best platform for content for SaaS shows how content platforms compare. The email automations for online stores guide covers the follow-up emails an affiliate store needs, and Adziq's web design service can build the site once you have picked the platform.
Common questions
Which website platform is best for affiliate marketing?
WordPress.com fits most affiliate marketers because every paid plan can install plugins, including affiliate link managers and comparison table builders, from $4 a month billed yearly. Wix and Squarespace suit beginners who want hosting, design and analytics in one place without plugins.
Can I do affiliate marketing on a free plan?
WordPress.com and Wix both offer free plans, but the free plans carry platform branding, run on a subdomain and limit what you can install. A paid plan with a custom domain looks more trustworthy to readers and to affiliate programmes, and it usually costs less than $20 a month.
Do I need to disclose affiliate links?
Yes. Label affiliate links clearly near the link or at the top of the page, so readers know you may earn a commission when they buy. A short disclosure on every page with affiliate links is the standard practice, and it builds trust with readers.
Is Shopify good for affiliate marketing?
Shopify fits affiliates who also sell products, because the store, checkout and affiliate content live in one place. It is a poor fit for a pure content affiliate site, since the Basic plan costs $19 a month billed yearly and the platform is built around selling rather than publishing.
What fees eat into affiliate earnings?
Platform fees and payment fees. Squarespace Basic charges a 2% store fee and 7% on digital products. Shopify charges a 2% fee when you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments. Ghost charges 0% on every plan, so only Stripe's card fee applies.
Sources
- WordPress.com pricing
- Is Wix really free? (Wix)
- Squarespace pricing
- Shopify pricing
- Ghost pricing
- Webflow pricing
Adziq sells marketing services and does not accept payment for placement in its articles. See our editorial policy.