SaaS Affiliate Programs: A Blogger's $680K Semrush Case
Anil Agarwal reports $679,985 in Semrush commissions from 2016 to April 2026. His yearly numbers show a 2020 peak and a long slide; he blames the switch to one-time pay for the later drop.
Blogger Anil Agarwal reports earning $679,985 from Semrush's affiliate program between 2016 and April 2026, a ten-year record of one SaaS affiliate income stream, published year by year. Income peaked at about $107,000 in 2020, then fell every year, to $17,620 in 2025. All figures are his own and have not been independently audited.
Results at a glance
| Metric | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Lifetime commissions | $679,985 | Reported by the affiliate, not independently verified; earlier versions of his post said "over $650,000" |
| Two reported totals | $459,000 and $220,985 | Reported as BeRush plus Impact.com combined; the post does not say which figure belongs to which program |
| Peak year | $107,000+ (2020) | Reported by the affiliate; "+" marks a lower bound |
| Latest full year | $17,620+ (2025) | Reported by the affiliate; about 84% below the peak |
| Period | 2016 to April 2026 | 2026 shows $1,795+ for January to April only, too short to read a trend |
| Spend | Not published | The posts give no content, staff or ad costs, so ROI cannot be calculated |
Figures come from the BloggersPassion review updated 25 April 2026 and the case study updated 24 June 2026. Semrush terms were checked on 30 October 2026.
Context: a B2B tool among SaaS affiliate programs
Agarwal runs BloggersPassion, a blog about blogging, SEO and affiliate marketing that he says has earned more than $1.4 million in affiliate revenue. Semrush accounts for close to half of that. He documents the figures in a long review of the Semrush affiliate program and in a separate case-study page.
Semrush is a B2B SaaS tool for keyword research, site audits and competitor analysis. His readers are bloggers and site owners, the people who buy that kind of tool. Among affiliate programs for SaaS, few products sit this close to the audience of an SEO blog.
His income came through two programs. According to Agarwal, BeRush, Semrush's older affiliate program, was officially discontinued on 31 January 2023, and Semrush then moved its whole affiliate system to Impact.com. Semrush's help centre now describes the program as running on Impact. His posts do not say when his Impact account opened.
Semrush affiliate program terms (as of October 2026)
Semrush's affiliate page lists the following:
Per sale: the headline says $100 to $300 for a new subscription. The rate table behind it runs from $50 (Social and Local toolkits) to $450 (Semrush One at the Platinum tier, 50 or more sales a quarter). The AI Visibility Toolkit pays a flat $100.
Per trial: $10 for each free-trial activation, for most toolkits.
Cookie: 120 days, with last-click attribution.
Payouts: by electronic funds transfer or PayPal; transactions lock 27 days after the end of the month.
The help centre describes the payouts as "fixed commissions for every sale or trial activation". Neither Semrush page says whether renewals pay. Agarwal, who lists the loss of the "recurring commission" model among the program's cons, says the program on Impact is not recurring. If he is right, a customer who renews for years earns the affiliate a single commission.
What they did
Used the tool before writing about it
Agarwal says he promoted Semrush because he had used it personally since 2016, the year his commissions start. That is the tactic he credits most. Hands-on use gives a reviewer screenshots, real workflows and honest limits, which a writer working from a feature list cannot supply.
Built search content around buying decisions
Blog content carried most of the load. For Semrush he wrote detailed reviews, tutorials, comparisons with similar products and case studies. He stresses reviews with real pros and cons, and comparison posts because many buyers compare tools before they pay. This is the same model that drives iGaming SEO sites, applied to software. A 120-day cookie suits it, because a reader who finds a tutorial today may only subscribe after a trial weeks later.
Kept email and community as support channels
He also points to email subscribers and people in his Facebook and YouTube community, and advises collecting emails from day one because a list stays with the publisher. He gives no breakdown by channel, so the relative weight of search, email and social is unknown.
Results
| Year | Reported commissions |
|---|---|
| 2016 | $9,300+ |
| 2017 | $40,000 |
| 2018 | $85,000+ |
| 2019 | $95,000+ |
| 2020 | $107,000+ |
| 2021 | $102,000+ |
| 2022 | $90,000+ |
| 2023 | $75,000+ |
| 2024 | $57,270+ |
| 2025 | $17,620+ |
| 2026 (to April) | $1,795+ |
Income grew every year from 2016 to 2020, peaked in 2020 and has declined every year since. The five years from 2016 to 2020 brought about $336,000; the five from 2021 to 2025 brought about $342,000. A lifetime total hides that the stream is now a fraction of what it was.
His post gives two totals, $459,000 and $220,985, and describes their sum as BeRush plus Impact. It does not say which figure came from which program, so the split by platform cannot be read from the current page.
What did not work
The switch to one-time commissions. Agarwal says that when BeRush ended and the new program moved to one-time commissions, the change had a "HUGE negative impact" on his earnings. He calls it an 80% drop, which matches the fall from $90,000 in 2022 to $17,620 in 2025. The fall was not a single step: 2023 was down 17% on 2022, and the steep losses came in 2024 and 2025. Under recurring pay, past referrals kept paying; under one-time pay, income depends on fresh sales every month.
An earlier slide. Commissions also fell in 2021 and 2022, before BeRush closed. Neither of his pages explains those years, and neither says how much of that income was already coming through Impact.com. Whether changes in search, such as AI answers taking clicks from review content (see our note on ChatGPT SEO), played a part is an open question; he does not make that claim.
Concentration. Close to half of the blog's affiliate revenue depended on one vendor's terms. When those terms changed, the affiliate had no say.
Unaudited numbers. Every figure here is self-reported, and most carry a "+". The review page says a second editor verified it, but no third party has published an audit.
Takeaways for affiliates
Read the payout model, not just the headline rate. A recurring commission and a one-time fee of similar size produce very different incomes after year two. iGaming affiliates know this as RevShare versus CPA; see our comparison of CPA, RevShare and hybrid deals.
Assume terms can change. BeRush ran for years, then closed. Keep a record of what each contract promises on existing referrals.
Track income by year and by program. A lifetime total can look healthy while the annual figure falls by 80%.
Diversify vendors early. Even a strong program can close or reprice; spreading revenue across several programs limits the damage.
Use the product before you review it. First-hand detail is harder for competing sites to copy than a feature list.
Treat screenshots as claims. Income reports are useful for direction, not as benchmarks for your own forecasts.
FAQ
What do SaaS affiliate programs usually pay?
Structures vary. Some pay a fixed fee per sale, others a percentage of each payment, sometimes for the life of the customer. Semrush, as of October 2026, lists $100 to $300 per new sale (from $50 to $450 by product and partner tier) plus $10 per trial; the affiliate says the program no longer pays on renewals.
Is Semrush one of the highest paying SaaS affiliate programs?
Its top rate is $450 per sale, for Semrush One at the highest partner tier, but fees are fixed per new customer and its pages do not mention renewal pay. Over time, a recurring program at a lower rate can pay more, because renewals keep earning. Agarwal's own income fell sharply after Semrush ended recurring commissions, by his account.
How long does the Semrush affiliate cookie last?
120 days, with last-click attribution, according to Semrush's affiliate page. If another affiliate's link is clicked later in that window, that affiliate gets the sale.
What are the best SaaS affiliate programs for a content site?
The best affiliate programs for SaaS content sites sell a product your readers already need and you use yourself. Look for a long cookie and a payout model you understand. Check whether commissions are one-time or recurring and what happens to existing referrals if the program changes.
