If you’ve been looking for new ways of increasing your passive income just by writing about services that can actually be helpful to your audience, for example, you’ve ended up in the right place. 

This is a review of the Podia affiliate program, complete with everything you should know about it so that you can decide for yourself whether it makes sense to submit an application or not. Read on to find out more!

Podia Affiliate Program Review

What is Podia?

Podia is a platform that people can use to build courses and market them to their following. It’s quite versatile (and we have compared it to several bigger ones, such as Teachable or Teachery, for example) and it comes with heaps of features that can take the task of selling courses to a whole new level. 

The best thing about the brand is that they do not charge any fee relating to a user’s course sales, which means that users get to pay the money they make without worrying about anything.

There’s also a 14-day trial available, which we believe is a serious advantage for affiliates. It just makes the task of recommending Podia features a lot easier for you because your referrals will know that they can first try them for free and only then get a paid subscription if they feel that the platform matches their needs. 

What services can you promote to your audience?

The course creation feature is, without a doubt, one of the most important ones that you can recommend to your readers. If you’re lucky enough for your audience to be composed of potential business owners or just highly skilled individuals who may want to teach other people, this one’s a great option for you. 

But besides course creation, Podia can be used for a variety of other things, such as managing everything regarding shopping per se, carts, and marketing, and even building landing pages just by using the templates provided by the platform. 

Email marketing solutions are also available, and there’s also the option of people customizing the way they want to sell their courses. What we mean by this is that besides paying for a course, people can also opt for memberships that can easily be created by Podia users right from the dashboard. 

All in all, the software takes the cake when it comes to ease of use as it eliminates any coding necessity whatsoever. We’d also like to note that Podia users can also create their own affiliate programs if they feel like that would lead to better conversions. For more features, we suggest checking out the brand’s own website — you’ll find everything you should know in this respect over there. 

How can you become a Podia affiliate?

Before moving on to the actual application process, we would like to note here the plans that you can actually promote. The most affordable one is called Mover and is billed at $39 per month (at the time we are writing this, it was discounted for $33 per month). The next one costs $89 per month and comes with a variety of additional features, including unlimited webinars and the ability to manage affiliates. 

The most expensive one, called the Earthquaker, is charged at $199 per month and includes virtually everything that a seasoned course creator and seller might need — from unlimited downloads and life chat to a full website, onboarding calls, affiliate program management, and more. 

As for joining the program, we have to note that unless you are already using Podia for your own courses, it will be more challenging for you to become an affiliate. When you are a Podia user, you get paid in your own account, which means that you can both withdraw your earnings and also use them to pay your subscription. 

If you do not have an account, you will need to join the Impact platform (one of the largest affiliate networks out there right now) or log into your Impact account if you are already using it for affiliate marketing. 

Read more: Impact Affiliate Platform Review 

Anyway, this is an advantage as managing everything in one place, especially if you have several different affiliate websites, can be quite convenient. 

Do take the time to read some of the terms and conditions before deciding to submit an application — for example, one of the negative things that we found is that you’re strictly forbidden from advertising your affiliate link using paid ads of any kind, even if you do not specify the brand’s name. 

How much can you make with Podia?

The answer to this question is that it actually depends. If you are a Podia user, you may earn $30 off the bat each time someone gets a paid account using your affiliate link. 

But that same commission can actually mean 30% on other affiliate networks, such as Impact and Rewardful, if you are not a Podia user. We’d also like to note that the tracking cookie lasts for just 15 days, which is not something positive, especially when putting it side by side with the cookie length of other affiliate programs. 

The good thing, on the other hand, is that Podia does not charge anything extra besides the subscription fee itself, which means that your audience might be less reluctant to try the services even after the trial ends. On the other hand, whereas other affiliate programs increase your rate if your performance is top-notch, that does not happen here — it will remain 30% forever. 

Pros and cons to being a Podia affiliate

When it comes to joining virtually any type of affiliate program out there, you need to take a step back and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of submitting an application. Luckily, this one doesn’t rely on a platform that charges you a monthly fee, so there will be no risks involved. 

But you do have to carefully assess your audience’s behavior and see whether your readers or followers may find any value in Podia services or not. If they have nothing in common with courses, whether because they haven’t enrolled in one themselves or just because they don’t want to build one, becoming a Podia affiliate might not even make sense. 

In terms of pros, the 30% commission along with the fact that Podia uses Impact for affiliate management can be two that we’d like to note here. But that’s pretty much where it all stops. 

Drawbacks are aplenty and they start with the 15-day cookie window. We couldn’t find any specific info regarding whether or not that includes the 14-day trial period or not, because if it were to, it would actually mean that the cookie would only last for 24 hours instead. 

Then, there’s the fact that the commission isn’t recurring, which means that every time someone pays for their monthly subscription, you’re not going to see a single cent out of that transaction. Even if the brand were to pay only 10% recurring, it would still be better than nothing. 

Despite the ease of use and the many attractive features it comes with, along with the fact that it doesn’t charge its users anything extra besides the plan itself, Podia is still less known compared to other bigger platforms like Thinkific or Teachable. 

Therefore, your conversions will also depend on that. Anyone knows that people are less willing to spend their hard-earned money on something they might not have heard of before. 

What if Podia affiliate marketing isn’t right for you? Podia affiliate program alternatives

For most of the affiliate programs showcased below, we’ve already written detailed reviews. For this reason, we suggest you take the time to search our blog and give them a read separately — you’ll find out everything there’s to know about commissions, payment methods, and more in those articles. 

If you do not have the time for that, though, here’s a look at some of the best Podia alternatives right now, at least in terms of affiliate marketing. 

Thinkific

This one is the best choice you now have available. For one, it’s somewhat better known compared to the other platforms we will note in this section, which will make the task of recommending it to your readers not that much of a hassle. 

Read more: Thinkific affiliate program review

Secondly, Thinkific really has a great affiliate program and what we mean by that is that the brand pays its affiliates a 30% commission for all purchases made through their affiliate links throughout the duration of their referral’s subscriptions. So, each time someone renews their subscription, you’ll get the same rate. 

Plus, the cookie lasts for 90 days, which is way better than what other companies have to offer in this respect. 

Teachery

The Teachery affiliate program also offers a lifetime commission, but it is lower than that of Thinkific, for example — a 25% lifetime rate. The cookie lasts for just 30 days, though, and even if this is pretty much the industry standard at this point, it could have been better.

It’s better than what Podia has to offer, in any case, so we suggest you do a bit of extra reading on how you can use Teachery to monetize your content. 

Teachable

While the standard rate that you can expect with this one is 30%, there are ways of increasing it whether by negotiating with your affiliate manager or just by being upgraded to a different tier automatically as a result of the number of conversions you manage to score each month. 

The cookie lasts for 90 days, which is definitely not something to complain about and the commission we mentioned is a recurring one. The downside is that if you create courses yourself and plan on hosting them on Teachable, that is what you will be earning for selling your educational materials. 

Udemy

If you also dabble in creating courses and you want to market them to your audience while also making an extra buck from that, becoming a Udemy affiliate might be a good idea. 

Udemy does have a somewhat limited collection of courses although they have been branching out for the past few years. They do still heavily rely on courses revolving around programming languages, web design, and various other technical skills — so do take that into account. 

As a Udemy affiliate, you can make 20% of whatever your referrals spend on courses, but the biggest drawback is that the cookie lasts for just 7 days. So, if you aren’t sure that your audience might convert in a week, it might make more sense for you to recommend other services. 

Kajabi

This one is a pretty good alternative in the sense that the brand pays its affiliates a recurring commission of 30% for every purchase made through their affiliate links. 

While there is a Net60 waiting period that you should take into account, at least Kajabi uses PayPal for all affiliate payments, which simplifies the whole process to some extent. 

There are different tiers to the program and while 30% is the rate you can expect, depending on the number of conversions you manage to score, the brand can reward you with Amazon gift cards or various bonuses that can amount to $500 per month. 

You might also like: Kartra affiliate program review

Final thoughts

So, does becoming a Podia affiliate make sense for you? Take the time to jot down the pros and the cons and do consider everything before taking this step — from your commission rate to the cookie duration and all the terms and conditions you need to abide by. 

Also, do consider that not all people out there are interested in creating courses and selling them, so your audience might not vibe with whatever you’re suggesting they buy.

If this is an issue for you, you may have better success promoting services such as Coursera or Skillshare, where courses are already available and people can simply buy a subscription or pay for a certification when they need to. 

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