ShareASale is closed. The platform shut on October 6, 2025, and shareasale.com now redirects to Awin. If you're here because a 2024 article told you to put your program on ShareASale, the short answer is: that door is bricked up, and the room behind it is now called Awin.
This is a short listing, because there's nothing to sign up for. It's here because thousands of people still search for ShareASale every month, because I was an affiliate on it, and because the story of how it ended tells you something about networks in general.
The history
Brian Littleton started ShareASale in Chicago in 2000, the same year zanox started in Berlin. For fifteen years it was the mid-market network: not the giant brands (that was CJ), not the enterprise SaaS (that didn't exist yet), but the thousands of small and medium online retailers who wanted a network without a six-figure contract. The sign-up fee was a few hundred dollars, the transaction fee was 20% of commissions, and the minimum was $35 a month. Small-business pricing for a small-business crowd.
Awin, which is what zanox became after Axel Springer put it together with Affiliate Window, bought ShareASale in 2017. For eight years the two ran side by side, Awin in Europe and the enterprise tier, ShareASale in North America and the mid-market. Then in 2025 Awin announced the "upgrade": every ShareASale merchant and publisher moved to Awin by August 15, platform closed October 6, done.
The Trustpilot reviews from the final year are worth reading. Merchants who paid $700 to $900 sign-up fees in early 2025 complain nobody told them the platform had months to live. Historical reporting and payment statements didn't come across. Publisher ratings didn't transfer. One agency owner describes clients left unsupported mid-migration. That's the brand-side story: if you'd joined in January 2025, you'd have paid full price for a nine-month lease on a building with a demolition order.
From the affiliate side
I had an account for years, and I'll say the thing the Trustpilot crowd won't: ShareASale was decent. The stats were good. You could see what sold, where, and when, without the archaeology CJ makes you do. Links were links. For a mid-market network it did the job.
The thing that wore on me was the inbox. ShareASale let merchants email affiliates directly, and it had a long tail of small vendors who used that to pitch their programs to anyone with a pulse. I run marketing and software sites. I'd get pitches for bedding. Women's clothing. Things with no conceivable connection to my audience, from merchants who'd clearly never looked at my properties and were blasting every publisher in the directory. Too many of them, too often. That's what happens when a network is cheap to join and gives merchants a megaphone: the megaphone gets used by the people with the least to say.
Credit where it's due on the exit: the migration tracked. Old ShareASale links kept working and resolved through to Awin, so my historical content didn't go dead the day the platform closed. For a publisher with years of links in the ground, that's the single thing that matters in a migration, and they got it right. I'll note the contrast with the brand side, where the reports and ratings didn't make the trip. The Romans had a habit of leaving the roads and the local laws in place when they absorbed a province, because the roads were what made the province worth having. Awin kept the roads. It just didn't bother with the archives.
What this means if you're choosing a network now
Three things.
Dead-vendor risk is real. ShareASale was 25 years old, owned by a large public company, and profitable. It still closed, on eight months' notice, with people paying full sign-up fees right up to the end. LinkMink, OSI Affiliate, JROX, PayDotCom and FOSHO are all gone or pivoted since 2025 too. Age and ownership don't protect you. Export rules do. Before you sign with anyone, know what you can take with you.
The cheap network has a noise problem. Low barriers for merchants mean more merchants, which sounds like a feature until your best affiliates are deleting pitches for duvet covers. Awin's Access plan is the closest thing to ShareASale's old entry point, and it's worth asking what controls Awin gives publishers over merchant messaging now that the two crowds share a building.
The ShareASale crowd is on Awin now. If you wanted ShareASale's publishers (the mid-market deal and content sites, heavy on North America), they're on Awin, along with their links. That's the whole reason to read the Awin listing next.
Verdict
There's nothing to pick. ShareASale is a redirect. If you came here looking for it, you want Awin at $49 plus 3.5%, with the warning that Awin won't give you your publishers' emails. If what drew you to ShareASale was the idea of a cheap, simple network for a small DTC brand, read the DTC networks guide first, because under about $20,000 a month in affiliate sales you probably don't want a network at all, and impact.com Starter at $30 plus 2.5% is the better entry point if you do.
Last verified November 1, 2026. Closure dates from Awin's ShareASale-to-Awin FAQ and announcement. Legacy pricing is third-party and historical. Reviews referenced from Trustpilot (1.4/5, 89 reviews, 2025). Founding and acquisition history from public records. Affiliate-side observations from the author's own ShareASale publisher account, now migrated to Awin. Some links on this page are affiliate links.
