Research · Policy comparison · Living page
Which affiliate programs actually let you put links in email
The short answer: of the four programs we checked, only Kit addresses email promotion explicitly and permits it (CAN-SPAM conditions apply). GetResponse permits it by inference, gated on prior consent. Amazon Associates allows it only to opted-in recipients, far narrower than most roundups claim. beehiiv's partner program is live again at a new address (we checked again on July 2, 2026); its new terms are under review and don't yet give us an email answer to quote.
The comparison
"Affiliate links in email" here means: does the program's official terms allow you to promote your affiliate link in email you send to your list? Every cell below is backed by a quoted clause further down rather than a paraphrase from someone else's listicle. (A separate question, whether your sending platform's acceptable-use policy tolerates affiliate email, gets its own comparison, now published as our email marketing tools compared page.)
| Program | Email links | Conditions | Commission | Cookie |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | Yes — explicit | CAN-SPAM compliance; opt-out required; you must be identifiable as the sender. No SMS/text, ever. | 50% × 12 mo | 90 days |
| GetResponse | Yes — by inference | Prior consent required; CAN-SPAM; unsolicited email or purchased lists can deactivate your account. No explicit allow-sentence. | 40–60% × 12 mo | 90 days |
| Amazon Associates | Opted-in only | Solicited (opted-in) recipients only; the clause's wording may be narrower than it looks (see caveat below). | ~1–4.5% | 24 hours |
| beehiiv | Unclear — new terms under review | Program live at beehiiv.com/partners (we checked again on 2026-07-02). The page's stated terms don't address email promotion; we're locating the full legal terms before scoring it. | up to 60% × 12 mo | 60 days |
The exact clauses
Kit: explicit, with conditions
"if you choose to promote our Program via e-mail campaigns, you represent and warrant that you will comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 … placing an opt-out in the email and making it clear that you are the sender … and not acting at the direction of Company."
"You will not send your Link or any marketing messages … via SMS or text message."
Commission is 50% of revenue for 12 months per referral (referrals from Oct 15, 2024 onward), with status tiers extending 10–20% beyond 12 months, and "clicks on Links are valid for 90 days." Kit's Help Center separately recommends keeping roughly 70–80% of your email about your own content; that guidance is not in the legal terms, but we treat it as a live condition anyway.
GetResponse: permitted by inference, consent-gated
"The Affiliate shall not send unsolicited e-mail and shall not send e-mail nor any other communication to a recipient if the recipient has not expressed their prior consent thereto."
"if the User provides a referral link to the Referred Customer by email, the email must be created and distributed according to CAN SPAM guidelines. Sending unsolicited e-mail messages (SPAM) can result in deactivation of their affiliate account."
Read carefully: that's a permission with conditions rather than an explicit allow-sentence like Kit's. It regulates how referral links travel by email without plainly blessing the channel. Workable, but if your entire strategy is email promotion, "explicit" beats "inferred."
Amazon Associates: opted-in only, and read the caveat
"You may include Special Links in emails, SMS and direct messaging from your social media Sites; provided, that such communications are solicited (i.e., opted into by the receiving customer) and are otherwise in compliance with the Agreement."
The caveat most posts miss: "from your social media Sites" may scope this permission to messaging that originates from your registered social channels, potentially narrower than a general newsletter allowance. We flagged this internally as requiring a full Operating Agreement read before anyone relies on it. Add the 24-hour cookie and physical-goods rates of roughly 1 to 4.5 percent, and email-first Amazon promotion is a weak strategy even where it's technically permitted.
beehiiv: a corrected call — the program is live at a new address
"Sorry, this affiliate program is no longer active."
"Earn up to 60% of revenue from your referrals for a full year." … "Cookies are valid for 60-days."
When this page first shipped, we scored beehiiv "moot — program inactive" from the old partner address. Checking again two days later, we found a live native program at a new URL: tiered commissions (Bronze 50% after first conversion → Silver 55% → Gold 60%), a 60-day cookie, paid-search brand bidding prohibited. We can't date the relaunch — the new address may already have been live when we checked only the old one, so the original call may have been wrong at publication, and we treat it that way. The page's stated terms don't address email promotion, so the honest cell is unclear until we've read the full legal terms (which we're still locating); this entry gets re-scored when that read completes. The lesson is sharper than "keep pages fresh": check every current address a program might live at before you score it dead. We still earn nothing from beehiiv.
Method: replicate this check yourself
Roughly 20 minutes per program:
1. Find the program's legal terms (not the marketing page): search
site:vendor.com affiliate terms. For Kit that's
kit.com/affiliate-tos, for GetResponse
getresponse.com/legal/affiliate-program.
2. Search the document for email, CAN-SPAM, solicit, and
SMS. The absence of the word "email" is itself an answer (that's inference territory).
3. Record the quote, the URL, and the retrieval date. Terms change; undated quotes rot.
4. Distrust any roundup that gives you a yes/no without a quoted clause, including
this one. That's why the clauses are here.
Is this the same as whether my email tool allows affiliate links?
No, and it is worth separating the two. This page checks whether an affiliate program, Kit's, GetResponse's, Amazon's, or beehiiv's, lets its links travel by email at all. A different question is whether the sending platform you use lets you put any affiliate link, from any program, inside the mail you send through it: that is each tool's own acceptable-use policy, and it can shut down your account for it even where the program itself permits email. Kit is both a program (checked here) and a tool (checked there) with two separate rules. That comparison, for sixteen sending tools, is on our email marketing tools compared page.
What this page doesn't know yet
We haven't sent affiliate promotions through any of these programs ourselves; this is a terms-of-service analysis, and deliverability data comes later, from our own sends. As our own newsletter operation accrues real send data, it gets added here. beehiiv's full relaunched legal terms are still being read; the email cell above stays "unclear" until they are.
Changelog
This page updates when the terms change. Want the change notices?