Ashley Kemp · 8 min read

Affiliate Marketing vs Running an Agency: Which Actually Pays Better?

Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. We also publish The Stack Insiders, an independent software review site.

The short answer: an agency pays faster and affiliate marketing pays longer. An agency can reach $5,000/month within a few months of hard work but the income stops when you stop. Affiliate income takes six to twelve months to become meaningful and then largely continues without you. The right answer depends on whether you need money now or leverage later.

They are pitched as the same thing. They are opposite businesses.

Both get sold to beginners as "start an online business from your laptop." Underneath, they are structurally different, and choosing badly costs people a year.

The case for the agency

An agency pays you fast, and that is not a small thing. If you need income inside ninety days, this is the only one of the two that reliably delivers.

You can close a $1,000/month client with a phone, a case study and a conversation. There is no algorithm between you and the money. Three clients at $1,500 is $4,500 a month, which is a real income, and you can get there in a quarter if you are willing to have uncomfortable conversations.

The catch is the one nobody puts on the sales page: you have built a job. A demanding one, with several bosses who can each fire you. Revenue is linear in your hours, and the month you stop selling is the month the pipeline empties.

The escape from that is delegation or automation, and this is where the maths has genuinely changed in the last two years. A solo operator running AI for inbound calls, lead qualification and follow-up can now carry a client load that used to need two or three staff. It is not the full "one person, no work" fantasy that gets sold -- closing, strategy and quality control still need a human. The Stack Insiders looked at whether one person can really run an agency with AI and split it honestly into what AI actually handles and what still needs you, which is the useful version of that question.

Pick the agency if: you need income within ninety days, you can tolerate sales conversations, and you have a skill someone will pay for today.

The case for affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is the opposite trade. You do the work up front and get paid later, possibly for years.

The critical variable -- and the one beginners get wrong -- is whether the commission is one-off or recurring. A 50% commission on a $200 course pays you $100 once. A 40% recurring commission on a $297/month subscription pays you roughly $119 every month, for as long as that customer stays.

Ten referrals on a one-off product is $1,000 and then silence. Ten referrals on a recurring product is roughly $1,190 a month, and it is still there next year. That is the entire game.

Software affiliate programmes are where recurring commissions live. GoHighLevel's, for example, pays 40% recurring on plans of $97, $297 and $497, which works out to $38.80, $118.80 and $198.80 per referral per month; The Stack Insiders broke down the commission structure and realistic earnings scenarios if you want the specific numbers rather than the hype version.

The catch on this side is equally real: you will earn nothing for a long time. Content needs to be indexed, ranked and trusted. Six to twelve months of publishing before meaningful income is normal, not a sign of failure. Most people quit in month four, which is exactly when the curve is about to start bending.

One thing worth sorting out before your first commission rather than after: if you are marketing to anyone in the US, the FTC requires affiliate relationships to be disclosed clearly and close to the recommendation itself, and its endorsement guides set out what that means in practice. Labelling something an "affiliate link" on its own does not count.

Pick affiliate marketing if: you have income covering the next six to twelve months, you can publish consistently without feedback, and you would rather write than sell.

The order that actually works

For most beginners the honest answer is not "pick one." It is sequence them.

Months 1-6: run the agency. Get clients, get paid, learn what buyers actually struggle with. This funds your life and -- more importantly -- it teaches you the real language of a real market, which is the single hardest input to good affiliate content.

Months 4-18: build the affiliate asset alongside it. Publish what you are learning from client work. Your content is now dramatically better than a beginner's, because it is grounded in problems you have actually solved for money. Choose recurring-commission products you genuinely use in client delivery -- that overlap is what makes the recommendation honest and the content specific.

Month 18+: choose. By then the affiliate income tells you whether to scale it or keep the clients. You will have real data instead of a guess.

The people who struggle most are the ones who pick affiliate marketing first with no income, no audience and no market knowledge, then spend nine months writing generic content about a product they have never used in anger.

The three questions that decide it

1. How many months of expenses do you have covered? Under six: agency. Over twelve: either. It really is that blunt.

2. Would you rather have a hard conversation or write for six months with no feedback? Both are difficult. They are difficult in completely different ways, and people are rarely good at both. Be honest about which one you will actually still be doing in month five.

3. Do you already have a skill someone will pay for? If yes, the agency is nearly always the faster start. If no, affiliate marketing lets you build the skill and the asset at the same time -- it just takes longer.

What both require, and nobody mentions

Neither is passive. Neither is fast. Both need roughly twelve to eighteen months of consistent work before they look like the screenshots.

The difference is only *when* you get paid relative to when you work. An agency pays you this month for this month's work, forever. Affiliate marketing pays you nothing for nine months and then pays you for work you did last year.

Pick the one whose pain you can actually tolerate, because both of them will hurt.

Frequently asked questions

Which is easier for a complete beginner, affiliate marketing or an agency? An agency is easier to get paid from and harder to enjoy. Affiliate marketing is easier to start and much harder to stay consistent with. Beginners who need income should start with services.

How long until affiliate marketing makes money? Six to twelve months before income is meaningful, assuming consistent publishing. Anyone promising faster is selling something.

What is recurring commission and why does it matter? Recurring commission pays you every month a referred customer stays subscribed, rather than once at purchase. Ten referrals on a 40% recurring commission on a $297/month product is roughly $1,188 a month rather than a single payment.

Can you do both at the same time? Yes, and it is usually the best route -- run services for income while building affiliate content from what you learn doing client work. The client work makes the content better.

Do you need an audience to start affiliate marketing? No, but you need a distribution plan -- search, a platform, or a list. Affiliate marketing without any distribution is just writing.