BigCommerce Affiliate Program

If you’ve been searching for new ways of increasing your side income and you tend to post about marketing tools and eCommerce plugins, then becoming a BigCommerce affiliate should be right up your alley.

In today’s article, you’re going to find out everything you need about the BigCommerce affiliate program, from how much you can expect to earn to how you can be paid. Read on to learn more!

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BigCommerce Affiliate Program Review

What is BigCommerce?

If you have ever considered opening up an online shop or you’ve read at least some basic information about eCommerce, the name BigCommerce might have popped up in a number of resources online.

It is one of the largest platforms out there when it comes to building an online store and given its integrations and how easy it is to utilize, it’s also very popular with eCommerce business owners.

The variety of sales tools that the brand makes available, along with the fact that the services are used by very well-known companies (including Ben & Jerry’s) should give you a clue as to how effective BigCommerce is.

To make things even better, BigCommerce is a lot more affordable when compared to similar platforms, sometimes by up to four times cheaper.

What services can you recommend to your followers?

Before you even consider joining the affiliate program for BigCommerce, we suggest that you take some time to become acquainted with the core product and what it can do for customers.

Naturally, there are differently priced plans that your referrals can choose depending on their specific needs and preferences, and they are unique from one another in terms of features. There’s also different pricing depending on whether customers need the Essentials or the Enterprise packages, with the second being a lot more generous and being specifically designed for brands and larger companies.

With the Enterprise plans, eCommerce site owners can get access to anything from custom facets to Google Customer Reviews, abandoned cart savers, a page builder, and much more. The features are customizable depending on every business owner’s needs, so that’s one less thing to worry about.

As for the Essentials plans that you will probably showcase to your audience, the prices range from $29.95 per month to $299.95 per month.

The Standard is billed at $29.95 and comes with an online storefront of up to four, integration with Google Shopping, Facebook or Instagram, as well as Amazon, eBay, or Walmart, and a price per additional storefront of $30. Other features range from multi-currency to professional reporting tools, product ratings, the ability to allow customers pay through Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Amazon Pay, and a mobile-responsive website.

The next plan is called Plus and is billed at $79.95 per month. This one has the same features as the Standard along with a few extra ones, such as customer groups and segmentation, a persistent cart feature, stored credit cards, along with an abandoned cart saver. The online sales per year that are allowed for this plan are up to $180.000.

Finally, the largest plan now available is the Pro and it costs $299.95 per month. This one is obviously designed for larger e-commerce websites. It includes all of the previously mentioned features and a few additional ones, such as product filtering and Google customer reviews. The online sales per year allowed for this plan are those up to $400.000.

The extras that are available in the Enterprise plans that are custom priced are a multi-storefront, price lists, and unlimited API calls.

You’ll be happy to know that when it comes to BigCommerce affiliate marketing, your referrals will benefit from a 15-day free trial so that they can see what plans best match their requirements.

Joining the BigCommerce affiliate program

First and foremost, it’s important to note that this is not a self-managed affiliate program. You’ll find it on Impact Radius, a platform that we have reviewed in the past and that is also one of the most reputable networks for affiliate marketing right now.

If you have several different niche websites and you can’t be bothered to go on dozens and dozens of sites every single day to check on your commissions, using Impact for most of the programs you’re relying on to increase your earnings is clearly a good idea.

The campaign promo signup page that you will be directed to using the link provided on the BigCommerce website contains a form that you will need to fill out with some basic information, such as your first and last name, your email address, your website, country, your bank location country, and your preferred currency.

You will also be asked to talk about your business model and the countries you intend to promote BigCommerce in. There is a separate section on media properties, where you will have to specify your website, its name, and its URL and also write a short description of it and how it can help BigCommerce get more customers.

In any case, submitting an application is very easy and takes little to no time, so you will get your answer in a few working days.

Once you are accepted into the program, you will gain access to the affiliate dashboard, which can give you some information as to how you are doing performance wise. You can look at everything from clicks and sales to commissions and everything else.

We would also like to note that this is one of the few programs where you get access to a dedicated account manager that can help guide you through the process, especially if you encounter any problem whatsoever.

How much can you earn with the BigCommerce partners affiliate program?

This is the part that you’ve probably been waiting for if you ended up here. Off the bat, we’d like to note that the BigCommerce affiliate program is one of the most lucrative ones that we have come across, and the reason we say that is that the company offers 200% out of the value of what your referrals spend.

However, this commission only applies to the standard plans, which we have described in one of the sections above.

For example, if someone from your audience decides to go for the most popular BigCommerce plans as of yet, the Plus, they will pay $79.95 for their monthly subscription. That means that you will earn twice that sum.

The commissions are not recurring, which can be a bit of a drawback for some affiliates. Even so, their value definitely makes this program worth looking into.

As for any of the Enterprise plans that you manage to score in terms of sales, you can expect a $1,500 commission on those.

Naturally, since these are customizable, you might never find out what their referrals are paying for their subscriptions, but the point is that since their value exceeds the Pro plan by probably a lot (which is priced at almost $300 per month), your rate actually makes sense in the long run for BigCommerce.

There’s really not a lot of information left on the official page of the program, unfortunately, mainly regarding the length of the cookie or anything else — including if there are some specific caveats as to how you can make 200% of your referrals’ plans value.

We did find some resources online that suggest that the cookie lasts for 90 days and if that is true, it is significantly better compared to the industry standard, which now stands at 30 days.

Another good thing about using your BigCommerce affiliate link and converting your audience is that there are no limits when it comes to how much you can earn — some programs do have certain caps in place, but that is not the case of this one.

Payment thresholds and methods

You’ll be happy to know that there is no payment limit when it comes to withdrawing your earnings, which means that you can probably make just about $50 and still be able to get your commissions hit your account.

By the way, this program uses both PayPal and direct deposit as means of paying the affiliates, which is significantly better compared to what we have seen in other options.

These days, the majority of brands prefer working with PayPal for the simplicity of it, but that can make things a little difficult for some affiliate marketers who are either based in locations where this service is not available or who’ve had their account deactivated for whatever reason.

The payout frequency is monthly although some resources suggest that BigCommerce actually pays its affiliates only once every quarter. You should expect a waiting period of at least one month before your commissions are verified by an account manager so that everything is in order.

Pros and cons to being a BigCommerce affiliate

As is the case with any other affiliate marketing program you might have ever been interested in joining, there are both advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered before making your final decision.

The pros seem to be outweighing the cons when it comes to the BigCommerce affiliate program. First off, this is not a brand that was built recently, so lots of people have heard of it, including those that haven’t yet built their online stores.

The commission rate itself is a good reason to become an affiliate of the program, mainly because not a lot of companies out there are willing to pay twice the value of a full subscription even when there’s no guarantee that your referrals are going to continue using the product for three months or more.

On top of that, there are no obligations when it comes to the number of sales you must make in order to remain an affiliate and there are also no limits as for the amount of money you can make.

Impact, the platform that is utilized for managing the program, is one of the largest and most effective ones we have reviewed in the past. It allows you to consult everything you need in terms of sales, clicks, trials, and more (everything related to BigCommerce affiliate conversion tracking), and all this info should allow you to get some pointers as to how you can improve your performance.

The 90-day cookie is another advantage that we have to point out here, especially since the majority of the other programs use a typical 30-day one.

In terms of drawbacks, we would have liked a little more information on the program’s page on the company website, in the sense that affiliates have no way of knowing if their media properties even qualify.

And finally, the only way this program could have been better would have been with another earning model, one that allows marketers to earn for the whole duration of their referrals’ subscription – a recurring commission would have been much appreciated, even if it would have been impossible to continue the 200% rate.

You might also like: How much does an eCommerce website cost?

BigCommerce affiliate marketing program alternatives

If you don’t seem to be thinking that becoming an affiliate for BigCommerce makes sense for you right now, have a look at the options that we have showcased below.

Shopify

This is probably BigCommerce’s biggest competitor. While Shopify is indeed one of the most comprehensive and generous platforms for building and managing eCommerce websites, it’s also quite expensive, so you may have some trouble converting your followers.

Also, Shopify pays its affiliates only through PayPal and the tracking cookie lasts for just 30 days by comparison. The brand does pay a $150 rate for every qualified referral, so at least there’s that — but with BigCommerce, you can make as much as almost $600 off the bat.

SolidAffiliate

This is a WooCommerce plugin that works for affiliate marketing, so if you manage to recommend it to your audience and convert some of your followers, you can make a flat 20% rate for every customer that purchases a plan.

By the way, the license for a whole year for individual store owners is $199 while that designed for agencies costs $999 — so that should give you a clue as to how much you can make with this one.

Unfortunately, payments are only processed by PayPal in USD, so there’s no other way of receiving your earnings. Also, the program is self-managed, so you will have to apply on the website.

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