Shareasale Review – Scam or Legit?

In this Shareasale review we try to break down the pros and cons of being a Shareasale affiliate.

Shareasale Review – Merchants and Offers

One of the key factors in deciding if you should join an affiliate network is the size of their merchant database. In this aspect, Shareasale does really well.

Shareasale affiliate network

Shareasale merchants range from small businesses like us, to Fortune 500 companies. You can search offers and merchants, see new merchants added recently, top 100 merchants, and all the standard stuff you would expect with similar networks. Merchants can also use sponsored posts and placements to get more exposure via Shareasale’s login page, and other areas of the website.

You can also engage merchants in the Shareasale “Aquarium” – which is a weird name for nothing more than a forum. However, the forums look dead.

Shareasale Review – Design and Usability

This is where Shareasale sucks big time. While most affiliate networks like Commission Junction and ClickBank have revamped their design and improved their usability in the past year, Shareasale’s interface remains a big turn-off for most new affiliates.

There’s way too much information, too many options, too many features you will probably never use, and a total lack of coherence in design.

As a new affiliate who just signed up, you will find the Shareasale website too clunky and confusing. Affiliates who have been on board since the last design update (like 99 years ago) would have no trouble finding what they want, but it’s one heck of a maze for everyone else.

In fact, the vast majority of complaints from Shareasale affiliates have been about it’s overwhelming, rigid user experience. It’s a turn-off for any newbie affiliate.

Shareasale Review – Tools and Integration

The more tools an affiliate network provides, the more ways their affiliates can make money. Shareasale has its own share of features such as a text ad widget builder, where you can build your own Adsense-styled widget for your blog or website. You can also create custom deep links, which is a much better way to promote a merchant. Datafeeds are also readily available for more advanced affiliates.

Shareasale affiliate tools

Other tools include an affiliate API, affiliate page builder, and RSS notifications. Although it may seems like Shareasale is choked full of these awesome tools, I find that the quality and ease of use of almost every tool is mediocre.

In fact, it feels like they have added all these features just for the sake of having them. Actually using them will be a struggle, unless of course, you’ve been a Shareasale affiliate for a while and have learned to navigate the maze.

Shareasale affiliate tools 2

Shareasale Tracking and Payments

How do you get your commissions?

For international affiliates, you have to choose check as your payment option. Unlike networks like Ashadee or JVZoo that allow payments via PayPal, international affiliates may find it too cumbersome to wait weeks for their checks to arrive, only to spend another few weeks waiting for it to clear in their local bank.

For US / Canada affiliates, you can opt for bank transfer. There’s a fee of $30 for checks via FedEx in the US, $35 for FedEx to Canada, and $55 for all other countries.

On a side note, LinkTrackr’s affiliate program is also on Shareasale, and you can earn up to $331 per sale for each referral. Our program has one of the highest EPCs in the Marketing category, and we are frequently in the Top 100 list at Shareasale. You can get more information about our affiliate program here:

http://ww3.linktrackr.com/affiliates

I hope this Shareasale review was helpful, and cleared any doubts you may have had if Shareasale is legit or just another scam. If you have anything to add to this Shareasale review good or bad -please leave a comment below.

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8 Responses

  1. Shareasale.com is run by a very aggressive internet marketer who supports and encourages large scale content theft and plaigarism.

    Without these spam sites, Shareasale would go broke!

    They encourage internet marketers to create anonymous sites and publish other peoples content without permission.

  2. After 5 months of paying out $650 and not one sale. All I got was coupon sites from China, India and US garbage sites.

    Be warned that they will try to scam you out of more money with a clever $2000 affiliate tool. The idea is this. Shareasale offers you a free affiliate tool worth $2000 for free if you sign an agreement that you will only use them for your affiliate program. If you do anything with affiliates anywhere else there is a penalty of $24,000.00. Crazy. This means that they hold you in their scheme for 12 months at a cost of an aditional $220 for nothing. So to get no sales and have the privilege of being a Shareasale merchant they charge you $870.

    What a scam.

    1. i join them last month as a free affiliate but i all ready had someone else before them as an affiliate how can i cancel with shareasale i receive an email 4 days ago saying i was remove from one of the site i join, do they also do that i sold perfumes to 146 people and all of a sudden they remove me.

  3. Hi,
    Thanks for the review.

    IMHO, I think they don’t accept non-US affiliates. I’ve applied for an account with them and they rejected my application although my website is in English language. I don’t know why they did that?!

    Also, you said that they don’t support PayPal which is a great Con especially for non-US users. Currently, I’m promoting some in-house affiliate programs and some programs on ImpactRadius platform and so far, IR is the best affiliate marketplace I’ve ever seen. They support PayPal, and international Wire Transfers for non-US residents, moreover their support is very helpful and responds in less than an hour.

    Regards,
    Ahmed Elgameel

  4. There complete garbage. I was inactive for two years which they used as a reason to close my account with no warning. There old system, never received notifications and sucked and there new system still sucks. Their condescending support is not worth your time. One last thing, good luck with tons of spam sites (inbound links) wrecking your SEO.

  5. I am a blogger and promoting merchants by writing reviews and placing banner ads. I had made over $250 Commission through Shareasale program and all the commissions are locked successfully. But when the payout time come they suspended my account without any reasons. I have send several emails but they didn’t replied to me. Stay away from these scammers.

  6. Shareasale used to be a great affiliate network when Brian was the owner. He cared for his network and always worked hard to improve it. But then he sold the network to some douchebag company. I’m still their affiliate but many of my sales go untracked. I thought probably the merchant is being a fag but nah, it’s SAS being a faggy here. The thing is, they don’t give a damn about we think. Only when people will begin quitting, they will probably realize that bullshit doesn’t go too far. Anyway .. I’m promoting merchants on CJ now.

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