Recommended hosting $100+ per signup? or is that BS

They wil pay you at hostgator if the user has stuck around for more than 3 months.

Hostgator is a scam. If you got hosting traffic check out hosting programs at cj.com

cj.com is just a reseller

if the company is scammy, signing up through cj wont change that

The high-paying affiliate hosts became large due to the high payouts. All those fake "top 10" lists suggested them for payouts alone. Those hosts grew. The now-larger hosts therefore attract a lot of fraud, being a bigger target. Many of them also deteriorated in quality, with growth outpacing stability. Between fraud and legitimate-but-unhappy customers, you end up with 50-90% of your commissions gutted by the time the 90-day clearance passes.

HG has historically been good for hosting quality, even with their growth, but the affiliate program is mostly aggravating. They attract thousands of fraud orders per day. The larger the company, the bigger the target. Some of the fraud orders go through affiliate links, which causes the headache. Repeat customers are also considered invalid at HG, so a person "switching back" to a host can be marked invalid, too. (The "switch back" is because many HG customers find it gets worse, not better, at other so-called "unlimited" hosts.)

Just my observation.

I'm a Hostgator affiliate, but I've only been using them for my web design clients, so I KNOW who I am sending to Hostgator and can track whether or not they've paid me... and I have gotten paid on all of them... with a little work.

I like Hostgator as a hosting company, so I do send my clients there.

Here are a few tips in dealing with Hostgator as an affiliate...

1. Hostgator will only pay $100 if you do more than a certain amount of sales/month (I can't remember what that minimum is). But if you sign up as an affiliate for Hostgator through CJ.com, they give you $100 flat on every sale. When I called Hostgator to complain about this, they upped my commission to $100.

2. Hostgator will NOT pay you your commission if the customer does not pay their bill in time, and does not stick around for at least 3 months. BUT, when I've contacted support to complain about not getting paid when I should be, they have always ended up paying me.

3. Hostgator will not pay you if the customer already has an account at Hostgator.

Bottom line, you have to stay on top of your commissions. Use their tools in the back office to track them. And if they don't pay you for someone, dispute it with them... like I said, I've gotten paid every time (as long as they've been a customer for at least 3 months).

Hope that helps!

HostGator does in fact pay for their affiliates. They have a policy where the person must be a new customer and stay active with a domain name pointed to the name servers after 2 to 3 months. Most hosting affiliate programs have a policy like this, but with HostGator more commissions get filtered out. This is because HG has short contract durations (ie. you can get one month at a reasonable price) and because they off a coupon that makes the first month cost a penny. Those things make the initial conversions way higher (and I think the number of active conversions after three months decently larger).

As kpmedia seems to have experienced, and I have experienced my self, you loose a lot of commissions when referrals are inactive, fraudulent, or turn out to be duplicates.

I'd like to caution you away from recommending hosts based on the commissions they offer. Ultimately I would suggest things based on whatever is the best for the user. I think it would be a lot more satisfying to run a highly useful website than a highly successful website.

I run a HostGator affiliate site, and I've had some success with it, but it feels silly. Its better than a lot of affiliate sites--I don't make the same dumb positive claims with no negative claims and I don't have a silly disclaimer about how I'm completely unbiased despite the giant commissions I get--but its not really useful and doesn't add a whole lot of value to the visitor (they would have found coupons elsewhere if not at my site). Now I'm think about starting a new venture with a hosting information site that's not BS and that at least temporarily and maybe permanently won't use affiliate links.

I havn't use all the affiliate programs you listed but here's how I would rank the hosting quality:

Hostgator - Good
DreamHost - Decent
Ipage - Bad for demanding sites, fine for small basic sites

I'd like to respectfully challenge one of KingFish's points. While some small hosts are good, I would strongly disagree with the idea that small hosts are almost always good.

Also, kpmedia, I'd like to thank you-I have a lot of respect for your hosting page/site.

Thanks all the comments so far
One question, for those who say HG is good but you have to keep an eye on them

what percentage of your signups. end up eventually sticking around for the required time period and you get paid your commission on them?
10%, 20% 30% etc?

It really depends on the methods you use to promote it. I expect that people who just list coupons on coupon sites and make videos showing people how to get a free month have a very small % get paid out. If you work with people who have established websites and a need for hosting, I expect the % is pretty high.

I'm around 50%

@WebMarketingDiva,

Well, HG doesn't deal affiliate related questions over the phone.

It is not a scam I have been paid by Hostgator for one referral. Little hard because it is such a competitive market. I think WebMarketingDiva has the right idea, by combining it with offline, so you are meeting the needs of your clients.

I dont think it is necessarily on the up and up just because people have gotten paid

the read I get on the situation is, hostgator will pay, but if you have no way of verifying all your leads they will shave the leads, and steal some of them

do other hosts do this? I am sure the answer is yes

I was reading a thread on another site where a guy said that Bluehost sends an email to people who do not complete the signup process quickly. It tells them to "clilck here " and continue the signup

the only thing is, suddenly the affiliate link, which WAS there when you sent them to sign up, magically disappears in the email signup link they are sent

total horsecrap,
I do see one guy making excellent money on this site
Passive Income: The Smart Passive Income Blog
where he posts his monthly income and also his affiliate sales broken down

imagine how much that guy is losing though, to this practice
If It were me and I was even thinking of sending them lots of traffic, or for example if I were him, I would test it out myself to see if they are doing it to my affiliate link, and if they were I would say, Ok either stop stealing my leads or I take my traffic elsewhere