Best Affiliate Programs for YouTube Tech Reviewers in 2026

The best affiliate programs for YouTube tech reviewers in 2026 are Amazon Associates (3% on electronics, unmatched product selection), B&H Photo (up to 8%, 30-day cookie), NordVPN (40% on annual plans plus 30% recurring), and software programs via impact.com (20-50% recurring commissions). But the program list is only half the equation. Most tech reviewers leave 15-30% of their affiliate revenue on the table because their links send international viewers to the wrong Amazon storefront, where those clicks earn exactly zero commission.

TL;DR: Amazon’s 3% electronics commission rate means tech reviewers cannot survive on one affiliate program. The move is to stack Amazon for volume, B&H or Adorama for premium gear margins, a VPN program for high payouts, and one or two SaaS tools for recurring income. Then use geo-targeted smart links so your international audience actually converts instead of generating wasted clicks.

If you run a tech channel and your affiliate strategy is “paste an Amazon link in the description,” you are doing the bare minimum and getting paid accordingly. A $1,000 laptop earns you $30 through Amazon. Then a quarter of your viewers are in the UK, Canada, Germany, or Australia, and those viewers earn you nothing because they are clicking a link to the wrong store. This post breaks down the 10 programs that actually matter for tech creators, shows you how to stack them strategically, and fixes the international revenue leak that no other guide talks about.

The Tech Reviewer Affiliate Problem Nobody Talks About

Amazon Associates pays 3% on consumer electronics. That is not a typo. A $500 graphics card earns you $15. A $1,500 laptop earns you $45. Compare that to Amazon Games at 20% or Luxury Beauty at 10%, and you see why tech reviewers are working harder for less money than almost any other niche on YouTube.

But the commission rate is only the first problem. The second one is worse: your audience is global.

A tech review on the best wireless earbuds or the latest MacBook attracts viewers from everywhere. Check your YouTube Analytics right now. If you are an English-language tech channel, somewhere between 15% and 30% of your views come from outside the United States. Every one of those international viewers who clicks your amazon.com affiliate link gets redirected to the US store, where they either bounce or buy without your affiliate tag. You earn nothing.

That means you are stacking two penalties: a thin 3% commission rate on a narrower-than-expected audience. The fix requires two moves. First, build a smarter program mix so you are not capped at 3% on everything. Second, use geo-targeted smart links to capture the international revenue you are already generating but not getting paid for.

The 10 Best Affiliate Programs for YouTube Tech Reviewers

Not every affiliate program belongs on a tech channel — these ten do, ranked by how well they complement each other in a working program stack. Here are the real commission rates, cookie windows, and the specific content types where each one converts best.

Program	Commission	Cookie	Best Content Type
Amazon Associates	3% electronics	24 hours	Any product review
B&H Photo	Up to 8%	30 days	Camera/audio/monitors
Adorama	4-10%	30 days	Camera and studio gear
Newegg	1-3%	7 days	PC builds, GPU reviews
Best Buy	0.5-1%	1 day	Avoid for most creators
NordVPN	40% annual, 30% recurring	30 days	Privacy/security content
ExpressVPN	$13-$36 flat	90 days	International audiences
Antivirus (Norton, Avast)	15-35%	Varies	Security reviews
Microsoft	0.8-5.6%	Varies	Surface/Xbox/Office
SaaS via impact.com	20-50% recurring	30-90 days	Productivity tool roundups

Amazon Associates

Amazon is still the foundation of any tech reviewer’s affiliate strategy. Not because the commission rates are good for electronics (they are not), but because Amazon converts better than any other retailer. Viewers trust the platform, most already have Prime, and the 24-hour cookie captures everything they add to cart after clicking your link, not just the product you linked.

The 3% electronics rate means Amazon works best as your volume play. You will not get rich per sale, but the conversion rate and cart-add behavior compensate when you are driving serious traffic. The biggest limitation: Amazon Associates operates as separate programs per country. Your US tag earns nothing on UK purchases. You need international accounts and geo-routing to capture that revenue.

B&H Photo

B&H Photo, one of the largest professional photography and video equipment retailers in the US, pays up to 8% commission with a 30-day cookie. For camera gear, lenses, monitors, audio equipment, and professional video production tools, this is meaningfully better than Amazon’s 3% with a 24-hour window. A $2,000 camera body earns $60 at Amazon and up to $160 at B&H.

B&H is the strongest Amazon alternative for tech reviewers in the photography, videography, and audio space. If you review cameras, microphones, or studio monitors, this should be your primary link for those products, with Amazon as the fallback for viewers who prefer it.

Adorama

Adorama, a camera and electronics retailer with an affiliate program managed through CJ Affiliate, pays 4-10% on a 30-day cookie. It competes directly with B&H in the camera and studio gear space. For tech reviewers covering photography or video production, running both B&H and Adorama links gives your audience options while keeping you in the higher commission tier regardless of where they buy.

The 30-day cookie is the key advantage over Amazon. Viewers researching a $1,500 lens will not buy in 24 hours. They will buy in a week. Adorama still pays you for that sale.

Newegg

Newegg, the largest online retailer specializing in PC components and DIY hardware, pays 1-3% on a 7-day cookie. The commission rate is low, but Newegg is the default retailer for PC builder content. If your channel covers GPU reviews, CPU benchmarks, or complete build guides, your audience expects Newegg links. They will click them, and the 7-day cookie gives you more runway than Amazon’s 24 hours.

This is a niche play. If you do not cover PC hardware, skip it. If you do, it belongs in your stack alongside Amazon.

Best Buy

Best Buy pays 0.5-1% and excludes laptops, tablets, and all Apple products from commissions. Read that again. The exact product categories that tech reviewers promote most heavily are explicitly excluded from Best Buy’s affiliate program.

This program exists here as a warning. Unless you are specifically driving traffic to smart home devices or appliances that happen to be at Best Buy, your time is better spent on every other program in this list. The 1-day cookie makes it even worse.

NordVPN

NordVPN pays 100% commission on 1-month plans, 40% on annual plans, and 30% recurring on renewals. The 30-day cookie is generous, and the product sells itself to a tech-savvy YouTube audience that already understands why VPNs matter.

This is the single highest-paying affiliate program accessible to most tech channels. A viewer who signs up for a 2-year NordVPN plan generates more commission than selling a $1,000 laptop through Amazon. NordVPN pairs naturally with content on privacy, security, public Wi-Fi, streaming, and travel tech. If you produce any of that content, this should be one of your top two affiliate programs by revenue.

ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN pays $13-$36 flat per referral depending on the plan, with a 90-day cookie — the longest cookie window on this list. The flat-rate model means predictable earnings per sale.

ExpressVPN is particularly strong for channels with audiences in regions where VPN usage is high for access reasons, not just privacy. If your YouTube Analytics shows meaningful traffic from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, or parts of Europe, ExpressVPN converts well with those viewers.

Antivirus Programs (Norton, Avast, AVG)

Antivirus and security software programs pay 15-35% commissions, available through CJ Affiliate or direct partnerships. Norton, Avast, and AVG all run active affiliate programs with competitive rates.

The buying cycle for antivirus software is short. Someone watches your security review, gets concerned, and buys within 24 hours. That impulse-purchase behavior means high conversion rates relative to hardware, where viewers comparison-shop for weeks. If you produce any content touching on malware, security, or device protection, these programs convert at rates that make the 3% Amazon electronics commission look absurd.

Microsoft Affiliate Program

Microsoft pays 0.8-5.6% depending on the product category. Surface devices, Xbox accessories, Microsoft 365 subscriptions, and Windows licenses all fall under this program.

The rates are not spectacular, but Microsoft is a high-trust brand and the product range is broad. For channels that regularly cover Surface laptops, Xbox hardware, or Office productivity content, this is a straightforward addition. The commission on a Microsoft 365 annual subscription is small per sale but consistent if your audience is the productivity-focused tech crowd.

Software and SaaS via impact.com

Software affiliate programs available through impact.com, a major affiliate network that also manages ShareASale and Awin (which merged in October 2025), pay 20-50% recurring commissions on tools like Canva, productivity apps, cloud storage, and creative software. This is the long-term revenue play that most tech reviewers ignore entirely.

A single viewer who signs up for a $12/month SaaS tool through your link earns you $2.40-$6.00 per month, every month, for as long as they remain a subscriber. After 12 months, that one conversion has earned you $29-$72, far more than a $1,000 laptop sold through Amazon. Tech channel audiences buy software. They use productivity tools, cloud services, and creative apps. Recurring affiliate commissions compound over time and become your most stable revenue stream.

How to Build a Program Stack (Not Just a Single Link)

The best affiliate programs for YouTube tech reviewers share one trait — they are stackable. Most tech channels paste a single Amazon link in the description and call it a day. That is leaving money everywhere.

The smart approach is a program stack: multiple affiliate programs running simultaneously across your content, matched to the products and topics in each video. Here is what that looks like for a single video reviewing the best laptops under $1,000:

Amazon Associates link for each laptop (3% commission, high conversion from Prime members)
B&H Photo link for the same laptops (up to 8% commission, 30-day cookie for viewers who research before buying)
NordVPN link with a mention like “protect your new laptop on public Wi-Fi” (40% commission on annual plans)
A SaaS tool link for software the laptops run well, like a video editor or note-taking app (20-50% recurring)

Four programs in one video. The viewer picks the retailer they prefer. You earn a commission regardless of which link they click. And the VPN and SaaS links generate revenue long after the video is published.

Put your highest-converting links in the first two lines of the description (before the “Show More” cutoff) and duplicate the full list in a pinned comment. YouTube viewers scroll descriptions and comments differently, so covering both surfaces maximizes clicks.

The International Audience Problem — and How Smart Links Solve It

Every tech review on YouTube attracts a global audience. A video on the iPhone 17 or the RTX 5090 does not care about borders. But your affiliate links do.

When a viewer in the UK clicks your amazon.com affiliate link, one of two things happens: they get redirected to amazon.co.uk without your affiliate tag (earning you nothing), or they stay on amazon.com, see prices in USD, and leave. Either way, you lose that commission.

This is not a small problem. If 25% of your audience is international and you are earning $1,000/month from US affiliate sales, you are losing $250-$400/month in commissions from viewers who wanted to buy but clicked a link that did not work for them.

The fix is geo-targeted smart links. A smart link is a single URL that detects each viewer’s country and routes them to the correct local storefront with your regional affiliate tag. A UK viewer goes to amazon.co.uk with your UK tag. A German viewer goes to amazon.de with your DE tag. One link in your description handles every country automatically.

Youfiliate, a smart links platform that turns any affiliate link into a geo-targeted, app-opening smart link with a branded short URL (youfil.to), does this with flat-rate pricing and a YouTube auto-convert feature that updates all your existing video descriptions in one click. That last part matters because if you have 200 videos with bare Amazon links, you are not going to manually rewrite each description. Compare that to Geniuslink, a competing smart link service that charges per click ($5 per 1,000 clicks), which becomes expensive as your channel grows past 50,000 monthly clicks.

If you have tried Amazon’s built-in OneLink tool and found it unreliable, that is a common experience. OneLink supports only about 13 countries, provides no click analytics, and breaks for a number of common reasons. A dedicated smart link platform is the more reliable solution.

Where to Place Affiliate Links on YouTube (And What Actually Converts)

Link placement directly affects how many viewers actually click your affiliate links. Here is where to put them, ranked by conversion impact:

First two lines of the description. This is the text visible before YouTube’s “Show More” cutoff. Your highest-value link goes here with a clear label: “The laptop I reviewed: [link].” No one clicks a link they cannot see.
Pinned comment. On videos with high comment engagement, a pinned comment with your affiliate links gets significant visibility. Some creators report that pinned comments outperform description links on certain video types because viewers are already scrolling comments.
End screens and cards. YouTube’s interactive cards can link to external URLs if you are in the YouTube Partner Program. These work well on how-to and tutorial content where the viewer reaches the end ready to buy.

One detail most guides skip: smart links with deep linking open the Amazon app directly on mobile devices instead of loading the mobile browser. Over 70% of YouTube watch time happens on mobile, so reducing the friction between your video and the retailer’s checkout page directly improves conversion rates. The fewer steps between your video and the purchase, the higher your commission earnings.

For a deeper look at tracking which videos actually drive your affiliate revenue, see our guide on tracking affiliate link clicks per YouTube video.

Frequently Asked Questions

What affiliate programs do most YouTube tech reviewers use?

Most YouTube tech reviewers use Amazon Associates as their primary program for hardware links, NordVPN or ExpressVPN for VPN affiliate revenue, and impact.com or ShareASale/Awin for software and SaaS commissions. Larger channels like Linus Tech Tips and MKBHD also run B&H Photo and Newegg links alongside Amazon to capture higher commissions on camera gear and PC components. The common pattern across successful tech channels is stacking multiple programs rather than relying on Amazon alone, because the 3% electronics commission rate makes single-program strategies unsustainable at scale.

How much does Amazon pay for electronics affiliate sales?

Amazon Associates pays 3% on consumer electronics purchases in 2026. A $500 graphics card earns $15 in commission. A $1,500 laptop earns $45. A $250 pair of headphones earns $7.50. This is one of the lowest commission rates in the Amazon Associates program, which is why experienced tech reviewers supplement Amazon with programs like B&H Photo (up to 8%), NordVPN (40% on annual plans), and recurring SaaS commissions through impact.com.

Do I need a website to use affiliate programs as a YouTuber?

No, you do not need a website. Most major affiliate programs accept YouTube channels as your primary platform. Amazon Associates, NordVPN, B&H Photo, and programs on impact.com and CJ Affiliate all allow you to list your YouTube channel URL during application. You place affiliate links directly in your video descriptions and pinned comments without needing a blog, website, or landing page. Some programs like Adorama (via CJ) ask for traffic metrics, which you can provide via YouTube Studio screenshots.

How do I earn affiliate commissions from international viewers?

Use geo-targeted smart links that detect each viewer’s country and route them to the correct local storefront with your regional affiliate tag. Without smart links, a viewer in the UK clicking your amazon.com link earns you zero commission because your US tracking ID does not apply to amazon.co.uk purchases. Platforms like Youfiliate create a single URL that handles every country automatically. You also need regional Amazon Associates accounts for each storefront where you want to earn. For every 10% of your audience that is international, geo-localized links recover roughly 5% more total affiliate revenue.

Is Best Buy’s affiliate program worth it for tech reviewers?

No. Best Buy pays 0.5-1% commission and explicitly excludes laptops, tablets, and all Apple products from earning commissions. Those three categories represent the majority of what tech channels promote. The 1-day cookie compounds the problem. B&H Photo (up to 8%, 30-day cookie) and Adorama (4-10%, 30-day cookie) are better alternatives for virtually every product category a tech reviewer would link to. The only scenario where Best Buy makes sense is if you regularly feature smart home devices or appliances that are Best Buy exclusives.

Do I need smart links for my YouTube tech channel affiliate links?

Yes, if your YouTube Analytics shows that 15% or more of your views come from outside the United States. Without geo-targeted smart links, you lose commissions on every international click because your US affiliate tag does not apply to foreign storefronts. Smart links also provide per-link click analytics, deep linking that opens retailer apps on mobile, and the ability to update a link destination across all your videos from one dashboard. For tech channels with any meaningful international traffic, the revenue recovered from smart links typically pays for the service within the first month.

Affiliate revenue for YouTube tech reviewers comes down to two things: the programs you use and how well your links serve your actual audience. Stacking Amazon with higher-commission programs like B&H, NordVPN, and recurring SaaS tools lifts your per-video earnings beyond what a 3% electronics rate can deliver alone. And routing every international viewer to the right storefront with geo-targeted smart links turns wasted clicks into commissions you were already earning in principle but never collecting.

Stop leaving international revenue on the table. Start free with 10 smart links at Youfiliate.com and geo-route your affiliate links so every viewer, from every country, earns you the commission you deserve.