ShareASale

ShareASale was, for two decades, one of the most recognizable affiliate networks in the industry. If you found ShareASale while researching affiliate programs, here is the important thing to know up front: ShareASale as a standalone network no longer exists. Parent company Awin completed its upgrade and migration in August 2025, and the shareasale.com domain now forwards to Awin. New advertisers and publishers are invited to launch directly with Awin rather than sign up to ShareASale.

About ShareASale

Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Chicago, ShareASale connected advertisers with publishers who promoted their products and services in exchange for commissions. Affiliates used their own websites, blogs, social media, and paid traffic to drive referrals, earning per-transaction payouts set individually by each merchant. Because it was a network rather than a single brand, commission terms varied widely by advertiser — third-party directories recorded figures ranging from around $30 per lead up to $150 per sale, or roughly up to 5% of earnings, with a standard 30-day cookie window.

Awin, a global performance-marketing platform, acquired ShareASale in 2017 and operated the two networks in parallel for several years. In August 2025 Awin announced "a new era for partner marketing," completing the ShareASale upgrade and uniting approximately 9,500 advertisers and 250,000 publishers onto the unified Awin platform. The practical result: the platform many affiliates remember from the 2000s and 2010s has been retired in favor of Awin's tools.

How the ShareASale affiliate program worked

Historically, ShareASale ran a single-tier, fixed-commission model — affiliates earned only on the sales or leads they personally generated. Key documented terms included:

• Cookie duration: 30 days from last click.
• Commission structure: Fixed, set per advertiser (examples cited from $30 per lead to $150 per sale, up to 5% of earnings).
• Payout frequency: Monthly.
• Payout methods: ACH, checks, and wire transfer.
• Minimum payout: $50.
• Accepted countries: Worldwide.

Today, none of that runs through ShareASale directly. Publishers who want to monetize their traffic now join Awin as a publisher, and advertisers launch programs on Awin's platform. Awin pays publishers via a range of methods including SEPA, BACS, ACH, and international wire transfers through Payoneer. On the advertiser side, Awin's pricing starts at an Access plan of $49/month plus a 3.5% tracking fee, an Accelerate plan from $99/month plus 2.5%, and custom-priced Advanced plans — the merchant sets the commission rate paid to partners on top of that.

Who should promote ShareASale

No one should promote "ShareASale" as such anymore — there is no active ShareASale affiliate signup to send traffic to. If you were planning to write "join ShareASale" content, you should redirect that intent to Awin. Awin is a strong fit for:

• Content creators and bloggers who want access to a large merchant directory (1M+ partners marketed by Awin) across many verticals.
• Influencers on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook who can place affiliate links in bios, descriptions, and content.
• Agencies managing affiliate programs on behalf of ecommerce clients.
• Publishers who previously used ShareASale and need to transition their existing merchant relationships onto Awin.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Long, trusted history and huge advertiser/publisher base now consolidated under Awin.
• Standard 30-day cookie and worldwide traffic acceptance historically.
• Multiple payout methods (ACH, wire, plus Awin's SEPA/BACS/Payoneer options).
• Monthly payouts with a relatively low $50 minimum historically.

Cons

• The network is discontinued — shareasale.com forwards to Awin and the legacy platform has been retired.
• Commission was never a single headline rate; it varied entirely by advertiser, making blanket promotion difficult.
• Affiliates and merchants who relied on ShareASale's specific interface and reporting have had to migrate, which some in the community have criticized.
• Advertiser onboarding now carries Awin's monthly fees plus per-transaction tracking fees.

Bottom line: treat ShareASale as a piece of affiliate-marketing history. The mission continues under Awin with more modern tooling, but if your goal is to sign up or refer others today, the correct destination is Awin, not ShareASale.