Is Amazon Associates A Scam or Legit? (It Should Be Free To Join)

Amazon Associates is the name of Amazon’s affiliate program & the official program provides a legitimate way to earn money by recommending Amazon products (it is not a scam).

However, whilst the official Amazon Associates affiliate program is legitimate & free to join, unfortunately, there are many Amazon Associates scams trying to take advantage of newbie affiliate marketers.

So, on this page, we will help you differentiate a legitimate Amazon Associates affiliate program opportunity from a scam one & uncover if Amazon’s affiliate program is worth it.

And we’ll start from the top, with the most important question first…

Is Amazon Associates Legit?

Yes, Amazon Associates (located at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com) is legit. It is Amazon’s official affiliate program & it provides you with an opportunity to earn commissions by recommending products from the Amazon website.

The program also has separate URLs for each country it operates in. For example, the UK-specific Amazon Associates website is located at https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk.

What you notice, though, from the URLs is that they all end in an Amazon domain name. So, if you remove the “affiliate-program.” from the URL, you should be taken to the official Amazon website for that geo.

However, scammers know that the different URLs can cause confusion & so they often set up fake Amazon Associates scams on suspicious URLs to catch people out.

Usually, they set up their versions of the websites to look very similar to the official Amazon Associates website, but they ask for payment during the registration process.

We’ll explain more about those scams & how they work in a moment, but the key point I want to stress here is that the official Amazon Associates opportunities hosted on Amazon’s own domains are legitimate.

You can indeed, as they claim, earn money by recommending their products or services to others.

In another post, we uncovered how much Amazon affiliate links pay.

Plus, we also uncovered the top Amazon affiliate earners.

And in our free training, we teach you exactly how you build a thriving affiliate marketing business & actually start making money with the Amazon affiliate program.

So, in short, yes, Amazon Associates is legitimate… And that brings me to the next point.

Is Amazon Associates Free?

Yes, Amazon Associates is completely free to join. As we discussed in another blog post, you should never have to pay money to join an affiliate program.

After all, as an affiliate of a company, you will be promoting that company’s products or services, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to exclude affiliates by charging a fee.

And as you can imagine, companies want as many affiliates promoting their products or services as possible & Amazon are no different.

So you should be able to join Amazon Associates without any payment whatsoever, meaning that if you’re being asked for money to join, it’s very likely that you’re on a scam website.

This brings me nicely to the next point.

Avoiding An Amazon Associates Scam

356,000 people search for Amazon Associates every single month on Google. 225,000 people search for the Amazon affiliate program (as shown below):

So, as you can imagine, scammers try to take advantage of this by creating Amazon Associates scams.

Each scam will work & look slightly different, but they all follow a similar premise.

Basically, the scams will use a copied version of the Amazon Associates website & they will try to make it seem like an official Amazon website.

However, during the signup process, you will be asked for payment.

Or, in the more elaborate version of the scams, you will receive fake earnings in your account & be asked for payment prior to being able to withdraw your earnings (often referred to as a “release fee”).

Either way, you will be required to hand over some of your hard-earned cash to either take part in the opportunity or receive your earnings.

And that alone proves that it’s a scam because the official Amazon Associates program does not require any payment whatsoever. No signup payment, no withdrawal payment & no tax payment, etc.

So here is how you can avoid an Amazon Associates scam:

• Check the domain (URL) is an official Amazon domain
• Avoid any Amazon affiliate opportunities that require you to hand over money
• Access the affiliate program by visiting Amazon directly & clicking “Associates Programme” at the bottom of the page (the safest method of avoiding a scam)

Is Amazon Associates The Same As Amazon Affiliate?

Amazon Associates is Amazon’s own name for their affiliate program, meaning that, in short, Amazon Associates is the same as Amazon Affiliate.

So if you see people mentioning Amazon Affiliate, the Amazon affiliate program or Amazon Associates, they will all be referring to the same thing.

There is also a program named the Amazon Influencer Program & this is similar but not exactly the same.

Users can still earn commissions through the Amazon Influencer Program by promoting products from the Amazon website, but they do so via their own “storefront”.

So essentially, they’ll create their own mini Amazon website & promote that, rather than promoting products or services directly as an affiliate.

Overall, it’s better to join the Amazon Associates program.

The influencer program is primarily geared more towards people with less experience, but with the help of our free affiliate marketing training, you’ll do better with Amazon Associates.

Is Amazon Associates Worth It?

Yes, absolutely. Amazon Associates provides a fantastic way for you to earn commission by promoting products or services from the Amazon website.

You’ll likely hear people complaining that the commission rates are low & it’s true, Amazon’s rates are lower than a lot of other affiliate programs. However, their conversion rate is typically much higher.

So this means whilst you might earn less per sale, you will likely get a lot more sales overall.

And the reason for the heightened conversion rate is simply that most people trust Amazon & already have their payment details stored on file.

So all they have to do to purchase is simply click on your affiliate link & hit “buy now”.

Therefore, in short, Amazon Associates is certainly worth it & it definitely makes for a great affiliate program to start with.

And you can see even more reasons why Amazon Associates is worth it here.

The Bottom Line

Amazon Associates is not a scam. It’s a perfectly legitimate way to earn money online by promoting products from the Amazon website as an affiliate.

However, scammers are trying to latch on to the Amazon Associates’ name in an attempt to part people with their cash, so you should check you’re on the correct website before signing up.

As mentioned further up on this page, the legit Amazon Associates website will not ask for any payment whatsoever, whereas a scam website will.

You should never have to pay to join an affiliate program.

So, hopefully, this post has given you a good bit of insight into the legitimacy of the Amazon Associates program & if you’d like to learn how you can get started with it, be sure to check out our free training.

In our free training, we teach you step-by-step how you can become an affiliate marketer.

So if you haven’t yet done so, be sure to sign up for the training before you leave.

And, of course, if you happen to have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.