Ultimate Affiliate Pro vs Affiliate for WooCommerce

Let’s guess that you’re here for a grand affiliate marketing process, and you probably need a robust affiliate program to boost your WooCommerce store.

The problem is that the majority of affiliate plugins were not designed with you in mind. They either overload you with hundreds of settings that you will never use or your affiliates lose interest in them more quickly than a Monday flash sale, since they are so simple.

In this article, we will compare two widely recognized WooCommerce affiliate marketing plugins: Affiliate for WooCommerce (by StoreApps) and Ultimate Affiliate Pro.

So, grab your coffee and read this blog for a detailed comparison.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro vs Affiliate for WooCommerce – Compared head-on

Ultimate Affiliate Pro vs Affiliate for WooCommerce: Brief

You’re deep down in the WooCommerce affiliate marketing jungle, and now you’re staring at two signs: the left shows Ultimate Affiliate Pro and the right points to Affiliate for WooCommerce by StoreApps. Now, you have to dig deep to find your ideal tool.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro

Ultimate Affiliate Pro is a potent affiliate management plugin for WooCommerce and is used by over 10,000+ stores.

It’s known for its robust tracking, an array of integrations and a quick payout system. With Ultimate Affiliate Pro, you can:

• Set up and manage an affiliate program
• Track clicks, sales and commissions
• Pay affiliates easily via Stripe or PayPal

While Ultimate Affiliate Pro is scalable, it’s often considered better suited for new businesses and startups. Plus, you may have to rely on free and paid add-ons to make things work well.

Affiliate for WooCommerce

Affiliate for WooCommerce is purpose-built for WooCommerce stores, offering a native, user-friendly experience. It is used by over 5,700 stores.

Unlike many generic affiliate plugins, Affiliate for WooCommerce is super easy to use, jargon-free and designed so you can handle everything – from setting up commission rates and tracking referrals to making payouts – all from a centralized interface.

It is known for:

• Customizable commission plans (flat, percentage, recurring, lifetime…)
• Multi-tiers and unlimited affiliate structures
• Bulk payouts, advanced analytics and marketing asset management
• Robust coding backend and compatibility with shared hosting sites

It’s designed for small, medium and large WooCommerce stores and enterprise businesses who want to launch and manage an affiliate program directly from their WooCommerce dashboard, without third-party fees, paid add-ons or complicated setups.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro vs Affiliate for WooCommerce: Detailed comparison

Installation and setup

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
Ultimate Affiliate Pro may look a little fancy out of the box. It has tons of bells, whistles and popups to “wow” you but users may need a steeper learning curve due to extensive settings and integrations.

You’ll need WordPress 5.4 or higher and PHP 7.4 or higher to support the plugin’s functionalities.

Download the plugin from Code Canyon.

To activate: Go to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to “Plugins,” and activate the plugin.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Affiliate for WooCommerce keeps things more native. There’s no integration madness or jumping between admin screens. Setup feels more than easy, straightforward and minimal.

You can download the plugin as a zip file from your WooCommerce account after making a payment.

Simply go to your dashboard now to install the plugin.

Affiliate registration

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
It offers customizable registration forms, including unlimited custom fields, password strength, captcha and TOS validation.

You can use 13 inbuilt registration form templates or style forms with built-in templates or custom CSS.

To add custom fields, go to the Ultimate Affiliate Pro Dashboard and navigate to “Showcases.”

From there, select “Registration Form” and then click on “Custom Fields.” To create a new custom field, click on the “Add New Registration Form Field” button.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Affiliate for WooCommerce lets you place the registration form anywhere via shortcode, with unlimited custom fields and full control over what affiliates can edit later.

When you activate the Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin, it will automatically generate a registration page with the [afwc_registration_form] shortcode. This page is automatically added to your site; however, you can manually enter the shortcode on any page or post where you want the affiliate form to display.

The default registration form includes essential fields such as email, first name, last name, contact method, website, password, confirm password, a section for promotional details and a checkbox for terms and conditions.

To edit the form, simply go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Affiliate > Registration form > Edit form.

Although you can’t directly add new fields within this interface, you can use popular form plugins like Elementor or Contact Form 7 to create extended forms and integrate them as needed.

You can also use Affiliate Contact Form 7 integration to create custom affiliate registration forms with full control over the fields and allow users to sign up for your affiliate program.

Affiliate approval

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
The affiliate approval process in Ultimate Affiliate Pro is either automatic or manual, depending on how you wish to manage new affiliate entries.

If you want a hands-off approach, you can turn on automatic affiliate status. Simply go to the plugin’s General Settings and enable the Automatically Affiliate option. Once engaged, every new user who registers on your website is immediately enrolled as an affiliate—no more procedures are required.

On the other hand, if you want to inspect and approve affiliates before they join your program, you can disable the automatic setting.

In this scenario, navigate to the Affiliates tab on the plugin dashboard and manually examine and approve each applicant.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
By default, all affiliate sign-ups require manual approval. Once someone registers using the affiliate form, their application lands in the Pending tab under WooCommerce > Affiliates. From there, you can review each applicant’s details and decide whether to approve or reject them.

If you don’t want to go through each application manually, you can set automatic approval.

Simply navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Affiliate > General and select the box for Auto-approve affiliate registrations. With this option activated, anyone who registers is accepted right away – no admin intervention required.

You can also convert user roles, such as Customers, into affiliates automatically.

Affiliate referral links and coupons

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
Affiliates can create their own unique referral URLs directly from the Affiliate Account Page.

These links can lead to any page on your website and can be personalized with special slugs or campaign attributes to improve tracking and branding.

Use three simple ways to create affiliate referral URLs or links.

1. Manual link building: Affiliates can append their ID or username to any URL (e.g., ?ref=smith).
2. Affiliate dashboard: Affiliates can generate custom referral links from their account using any site URL and optional campaign tags.
3. Admin provided: You can generate and share referral links with affiliates by attaching their ID/username to any site URL.

Affiliates can also quickly share their referral links on social networks using the built-in social share tools, as well as generate bespoke links for special campaigns or landing pages.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro lets you attach WooCommerce (or Easy Digital Downloads) coupon vouchers to individual affiliates. When a customer applies an affiliate’s coupon at checkout, the affiliate is credited with the referral and paid a commission.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Each affiliate receives a unique referral link that tracks their referred visits and commissions.

By default, the referral link follows this format:
https://yourstore.com/?ref=affiliateID

For example, an affiliate with ID #46 would have:
https://yourstore.com/?ref=46

You can customize the tracking parameter (such as using aff, partners or a brand name), and affiliates can personalize their identifier, so links can look like https://yourstore.com/?ref=silvia or even https://yourstore.com/partners/CookStores.

The plugin also allows you to create pretty affiliate links, turning URLs into clean, branded formats like https://yourstore.com/ref/silvia or https://yourstore.com/aff/54.

Affiliates can promote your store by using vanity coupon codes rather than URLs.

Read the documentation for more help!

Affiliate commission plans

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
You can create multiple commission levels based on products, user roles, membership levels or even specific affiliates.

Commission types can be fixed or percentage-based, depending on your pricing scheme.

The plugin also enables performance-based compensation tiers, which means that the more affiliates sell, the more money they make. You can set up milestones that enhance commission rates when specified thresholds are hit (such as affiliates earn 20% instead of 10% after 50 sales).

In addition, if you’re using a multi-level marketing structure, Ultimate Affiliate Pro lets you define different commission rates for each affiliate tier.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Affiliate for WooCommerce’s biggest USP is its unmatched range of custom commission plans – something no other plugin offers. You have complete flexibility to reward affiliates based on product, category, specific affiliate, subscription and more conditions.

Create your commission plans in a few clicks. Go to WooCommerce > Affiliates > Plans and click Add a Plan.

Name the plan, set commission rates and rules and activate it.

Here’s a list of commissions available with the plugin.

• Unlimited commission plans: Create as many plans as needed, each with unique rules.
• Global rate: Set default flat or percentage-based commissions storewide.
• Affiliate-specific: Reward VIP affiliates with custom rates.
• Product & category commissions: Set different rates by product or category.
• Subscription commissions: Offer separate rates for initial and renewal orders (WooCommerce Subscriptions compatible).
• First-time, recurring or one-time: Choose when commissions apply – first order, every order or recurring.
• Multi-tier commissions: Pay affiliates across unlimited levels of referrals with tier-based rates.
• Flexible rules: Combine conditions using AND/OR logic (by user role, product, referral source, etc.).
• Lifetime commissions: Credit affiliates for all future customer purchases—no referral link needed.
• Number of successful referrals: Reward affiliates based on their number of previous successful orders.
• Order payment method: Set different commission rates depending on how the customer pays, like COD, credit card, etc.
• Product taxonomy: Offer targeted commissions based on product categories, tags, brands, any custom taxonomy.

Read the documentation for more plan details!

Multi-tier affiliate program

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
Let affiliates recruit sub-affiliates and earn commissions not just on their own sales, but also on the sales generated by their downline.

You can enable multi-level marketing in your affiliate platform and let each affiliate invite new affiliates beneath them.

The plugin supports a variety of MLM structures, including unilevel (flat network), force matrix (fixed width and depth) and binary matrix (two legs per affiliate).

For example, if you set up a 3-level plan, a sale referred by a third-tier sub-affiliate could pay 20% to the direct affiliate, 10% to their recruiter and 5% to the next level up.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Affiliate for WooCommerce’s multi-tier affiliate system is unlimited and fully customizable. You can set up as many commission tiers as you want – two, three, five or more – without any restrictions.

Multi-tier commissions can be set globally or targeted to specific products, categories, affiliates or other conditions.

As an admin, you can manually assign a parent affiliate to any new or existing affiliate.

Suppose Mike is your affiliate and he recruits Jenny. Jenny then recruits Taylor.

If Taylor refers a sale, Taylor (tier 1) earns the highest commission, Jenny (tier 2) earns a smaller commission and Mike (tier 3) earns an even smaller commission.

You can set the exact rates for each level, such as 30% / 20% / 10% and apply them to specific products or categories as needed.

Brand marketing and creatives

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
Ultimate Affiliate Pro equips you and your affiliates with a dedicated suite of brand promotion and creative marketing tools.

For example, you can upload and manage banners, images or other creatives for affiliates to use. You can find these assets in the affiliate dashboard. You can categorize these assets by campaign, product or promotion type for quick access to affiliates.

Admins can create custom ad types – image ads, text links and even custom HTML creatives. Affiliates can copy-paste these assets directly into their blogs, emails or websites.

Affiliates can generate referral links to any page of your site, often paired with specific creatives.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Within the plugin, you can set up specialized marketing campaigns and upload a range of promotional materials for each one, including banners, pictures, PDFs, email templates, swipe files, logo, videos, HTML and more.

When a campaign is active, affiliates can access all of its assets through their personal dashboard.

You can also restrict campaigns to specific affiliates or tags and ensure the right promotions reach the right people.

Additionally, you can create custom landing pages for affiliates (no referral links or coupons needed). All you have to do is use merge tags to tailor headlines, images, text and CTAs for each affiliate.

Dashboards and performance metrics

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
Admins can get a bird’s-eye view of affiliate-driven revenue, total and net sales and more.

Affiliates also get a powerful, user-friendly dashboard featuring real-time statistics. Affiliates can monitor:

• Commission tracking
• Referral links
• Performance insights

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Whether you’re running the store or pushing the promos, Affiliate for WooCommerce gives you the metrics that matter – clear, actionable and right where you need them.

There’s a dashboard for both admins and affiliates.

Admins can easily:

• Track net affiliate sales and customer conversions
• View unpaid commissions, refunds and traffic performance
• Monitor top-performing affiliates and products

Affiliates get a sleek “My Account” dashboard where they can:

• View total and net commissions
• Track conversion rates and sales performance
• Detailed earnings per customer and product
• Check payout history with ease

Affiliate payouts

Ultimate Affiliate Pro
Ultimate Affiliate Pro makes sure your affiliates get paid quickly, accurately and securely. Pay your affiliates in just a few clicks using built-in payout methods.

• Pay multiple affiliates at once or handle individual payouts easily.
• Send payments instantly via PayPal (including Mass Pay) or Stripe (US-based affiliates).
• Support offline payments for affiliates preferring wire transfers.
• Let affiliates convert earnings into store credit via auto-generated coupons.
• Tailor payout rules by rank, performance or subscription-based earnings.

Affiliate for WooCommerce
Whether you want control, automation or a clever retention strategy, Affiliate for WooCommerce makes payouts easy, secure and customizable.

Affiliate for WooCommerce gives you six versatile payout options:

1. PayPal (manual & automated): Quick, reliable payments using the WooCommerce PayPal payouts plugin and PayPal Payouts API. Ideal for global affiliates. Read the documentation.
2. Stripe (manual & automated): Sleek alternative with built-in reporting and smooth automation via the WooCommerce Stripe payment gateway plugin. Read the documentation.
3. Manual payouts: Use for bank transfers, checks or any offline method. Mark commissions as paid while handling payments your way.
4. Fixed cart coupons: Reward affiliates with fixed cart discount coupons using Payouts via Coupon – a simple, non-cash way to incentivize repeat purchases.
5. Store credit: Reward affiliates with store credit using Smart Coupons.
6. Reward points: If your business is community-driven or if you have membership-based stores, you can offer commissions with WooCommerce Points and Rewards plugin.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro pricing

The standard license for the plugin costs $79 as a one-time payment—no monthly fees or hidden charges.

This price includes use on one site, unlimited affiliates and commissions, unlimited creatives and access to all 43 standard add-ons.

For businesses seeking even more advanced capabilities, there’s a Pro AddOns Bundle that includes 29 additional premium or paid add-ons, 12 months of premium support and unlimited updates.

Get Ultimate Affiliate Pro

Affiliate for WooCommerce pricing

Affiliate for WooCommerce is a premium plugin available through WooCommerce.com.

The plugin is priced at around $179 per year for a single-site license. There are no recurring monthly charges or commissions taken from your sales.

Your license includes access to all core features—unlimited affiliates, flexible commission plans, multi-tier and lifetime commissions, advanced reporting, automated payouts and complete campaign management.

You also get one year of premium support and plugin updates. Plus, with a 30-day money-back guarantee, you can try it risk-free.

Get Affiliate for WooCommerce

Conclusion

Let’s put it this way: your choice between Ultimate Affiliate Pro and Affiliate for WooCommerce depends on how you define “better.”

If you’re looking for a plugin with tons of integrations, Ultimate Affiliate Pro might fit your tech-savvy team or large-scale setup. Ultimate Affiliate Pro is cheaper but with the necessary add-ons, the overall price can hit you hard.

But if you value ease of use, a native WooCommerce experience and an all-in-one solution that doesn’t hinder your growth with hidden fees, Affiliate for WooCommerce wins hands down.

Affiliate for WooCommerce is intuitive, powerful and designed specifically for WooCommerce users, so everything just works.