Key Takeaways

• Most platforms allow affiliate links, but they want real, helpful content first, not just a wall of links.
• Owning your own website is the safest bet. No algorithm or policy change can take it away from you.
• Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Medium each have their own clear rules worth knowing before you post.
• Instagram and TikTok don’t let you post clickable links directly, so you’ll need a link-in-bio tool instead.
• Reddit, Discord, and Facebook Groups are stricter, and enforcement depends on the community, not just the platform.
• Always disclose your affiliate links. It’s required by law, by most affiliate programs, and by the platforms themselves.
• Spreading your content across a few platforms can help protect your income if one of them changes the rules.

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We’ve been revamping our own affiliate operations lately, so I sat down and researched the best places to build a content business right now. Here’s what I noticed: half the internet wants to be a creator, but most people who actually post content think too narrowly.

By “too narrowly,” I mean this: a lot of people build a solid following on one platform, but they never treat it like a real business, and they never expand past that one platform.

Maybe you already post TikTok videos. Maybe you write on Medium, or run a WordPress blog. Maybe you already have a few affiliate partnerships going. Good. But, have you thought about cross-posting to reach more people?

This post covers what to avoid, the best practices for promoting affiliate links, a full list of platforms that allow them, and answers to the questions people ask most.

Every platform on this list allows affiliate links, but each one has its own rules about how you can use them.

What to Avoid When Promoting Affiliate Links

Every affiliate program has its own rules, and you need to follow them to keep the partnership.

Amazon, for example, is one of the strictest. You can’t share Amazon links in emails or PDFs, you can’t cloak them, and you only get 24 hours to turn a click into a sale. Break the rules, and you get permanently blacklisted — no warnings.

Most programs also ban bidding on a brand’s own trademarked keywords in paid search ads, and using false or misleading claims to get the click.

You might also like: Here’s How to Start an Online Business at Home for Free

Affiliate Link Promotion Best Practices

By law, you have to clearly disclose your affiliate relationship before someone clicks your link. The disclosure needs to sit right next to the link, and it needs to be easy to understand. Check the FTC’s Endorsement Guides if you want the exact wording.

Beyond the legal side, platforms like Facebook and Pinterest can shadow-ban you if they think you’re spamming. So it pays to:

1. Build a following before you start posting affiliate links.
2. Pick a niche audience instead of trying to reach everyone.
3. Make content people actually want to read (and search engines want to rank).
4. Post across a few different platforms, not just one.
5. Track your clicks so you know what’s working.
6. Only promote brands and products you trust.
7. Check your links regularly. Dead links cost you money.

Now, let’s dive into the platforms where you can promote your affiliate links.

Related: 9 Best Freelancing Jobs for Beginners: Create Your Next Income Stream

Where You Can Promote Your Affiliate Links

None of the platforms below ban affiliate links outright. But each has its own quirks. For example, some will let you drop a link right into your content while others make you work around it. And, a few are riskier than they look. Here’s how they break down.

1-5. Content Management Platforms for Your Own Website

If you own the domain, you make the rules. That’s the one channel here with zero platform risk — no algorithm change, no policy update, no bio-link workaround needed. Affiliate links are unrestricted on Shopify (designed for eCommerce), Wix, Ghost, Squarespace, and Weebly, since you’re not answering to anyone’s content policy except your own affiliate network’s terms and the FTC’s disclosure rule.

You might also like: Can I Create an Affiliate Site With Shopify?

6-7. WordPress (Self-Hosted or Managed)

If you self-host a WordPress site (the.org version), you’re free to post any affiliate links you want. You own the site, so nobody else’s rules apply. The only rules you need to follow are just your affiliate network’s terms and the FTC’s disclosure rule.

WordPress.com (the free, hosted version) is different: affiliate links are only allowed if your site is mostly original content, not just a page built to redirect people to affiliate offers.

Recommended: Managed WordPress Hosting vs Self-Hosting: What are the Trade-Offs?

8. Pinterest

Pinterest lets you put affiliate links right in your pins (and it’s one of the few platforms that spells this out clearly). Check Pinterest’s own affiliate link guide and its Commercial Content Guidelines for the details. Just don’t redirect or mask your final link. That’s the one thing that can get you flagged.

9. YouTube & YouTube Shorts

You can post affiliate links in your video description and in pinned comments. YouTube also tells you exactly how to disclose a paid or affiliate relationship in its paid promotion policy, so there’s no guesswork needed. The same rules apply to YouTube Shorts.

10. LinkedIn

You can post affiliate links in regular posts, articles, and comments, per LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies. One catch: LinkedIn won’t let you use affiliate links in paid Sponsored Content, so keep them in your organic posts only.

11. Medium

Medium allows affiliate links in your posts, as long as you disclose the relationship clearly. One rule worth knowing, per Medium’s Rules: a monetized Partner Program story can’t exist just to drive affiliate clicks. It needs to stand on its own as real, valuable writing first.

12-18. Email & Newsletters

Beehiiv doesn’t just allow affiliate links; it builds its own ad tools right into the platform.

Substack allows them too, per Substack’s support docs, as long as your whole newsletter isn’t just one big ad. One catch: Amazon links will get automatically stripped out of Substack emails (they still work on your web archive, though).

Omnisend, GetResponse, MailerLite, Kit (formerly ConvertKit), and ActiveCampaign all allow affiliate links with no restrictions of their own.

Heads up: Amazon’s Associates agreement restricts affiliate links in email and offline material. Check the current version before you build an email funnel around Amazon links. They update these rules more than most.

19-29. Content & Social Platforms

On Facebook (your profile and Business Pages, not Groups), links can go right in your posts. Check Meta’s Branded Content Policies for disclosure rules.

X (Twitter) allows clickable links in posts and your bio, per X’s Ads Policies, though non-Premium accounts have seen link posts get less reach since 2025, and it’s allowed, just not favored.

Bluesky works the same way as X, with lighter moderation for now.

Twitch allows links in your bio, panels, and chat commands. Just disclose them the way you would on any livestream.

Snapchat and Flipboard both allow direct links in your content.

Apple Podcasts and Spotify let you share affiliate links and codes in your show notes or out loud during the episode.

Finally, Slideshare, Steemit, and Answers.com all allow direct links/ These platforms have smaller audiences, but barely any moderation to worry about.

30-35. Free Webinar Platforms

None of these restrict affiliate links. You just say the link out loud, drop it in chat, or send it in the replay email.

Some good free options include:

• Zoom (40-minute cap on group calls)
• Google Meet (60-minute cap)
• StreamYard (free with a watermark, streams straight to YouTube and Facebook)
• Livestorm (limited attendees and sessions on the free plan)
• Zoho Meeting (small participant cap)
• Whereby (better for small or 1:1 calls than a real webinar crowd)

None of them have affiliate-specific rules. Instead, you’ll just need to adhere to usual anti-spam terms, which don’t stop you from recommending your own tools.

36-38. Where You Can Promote With a Link-in-Bio Workaround

These platforms allow affiliate links. They just won’t let you make them clickable inside your post or caption.

Link-in-bio tools aren’t really a place you “post” links; they’re just the workaround. Since Instagram and TikTok won’t let you post a clickable link, you put one link in your bio that points to a page listing all your affiliate links.

Notable link-in-bio tools include:

• Linktree (the free, simple option)
• Beacons (adds media kits and a shoppable storefront)
• Carrd (the most flexible with a real page builder instead of a link list)

None of these give you any extra permission. They just give your bio somewhere useful to point.

You can use link-in-bio tools as a workaround to post afffiliate links on:

• Instagram (captions can’t hold clickable links, so you need a link-in-bio tool or a Stories link sticker. Meta’s Branded Content Policies still apply either way)
• TikTok (has the same problem: no clickable links in captions, so it’s bio link or TikTok Shop tagging instead) Check TikTok’s content policy and its disclosure rules, and know that TikTok has started showing less reach on posts that send people off the app, so this workaround is getting harder, not easier.
• Threads (has the same limit as Instagram: no clickable links in posts)

39-44. Platforms Where it’s Allowed, But Risky

These platforms don’t ban affiliate links. However, the community decides whether your post survives. That’s a lot less predictable than a platform rule.

Some platforms to carefully consider are:

• Reddit (Reddit’s content policy doesn’t ban affiliate links, but it treats heavy self-promotion as spam, and plenty of subreddits ban them outright in their own sidebar rules)
• Discord (has no platform-wide ban in its community guidelines, but almost every server bans unsolicited self-promotion on its own)
• Facebook Groups (come down entirely to that group’s admin — a different story from your own profile or Page)
• MeWe, Imgur, and FindAForum (all work the same way: nothing stops you at the platform level, but the community and its moderators decide if your post stays up)

If you’re going to share affiliate links on these platforms, it can be best to:

1. Simply ask consent to share partner links
2. Post affiliate links in your bio for users to find organically
3. Only share very helpful and hyper-relevant content

With these methods, you MIGHT be able to establish enough trust to get people to click through and convert.

Final Thoughts

There’s no single “best” platform for affiliate links — it depends on your content style, your audience, and where you want to be in a year. Some creators build their income through blogs and search traffic. Others focus on newsletters, social media, video, or online communities.

The most successful affiliate marketers share genuinely useful content first, and treat their links as a way to recommend things that actually help their audience. Follow each platform’s rules, solve real problems for real people, and the traffic (and the income) builds over time.

Ready to build your affiliate marketing business?

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Frequently Asked Questions About Affiliate Link Promotion