I’ve been running Amazon affiliate sites for over 10 years now, and I was “bleeding” money paying for AAWP and similar plugins every single year. Then one well known hosting company decided to disrupt this industry by launching its own free version.
This article shows you exactly how to get a free AAWP-like alternative that’ll do almost everything the expensive plugin does. By the end, you’ll know how to save hundreds of dollars annually while still creating those high converting product displays that help you make more money from your existing traffic.
If you’re lazy and don’t want to read the whole piece (which I highly recommend because I’m gonna show you the best practices that doubled my click-through rates), the free solution I’ll be talking about is Hostinger’s Affiliate Marketing Tools plugin.
What is AAWP and Why Amazon Affiliates Need It
First of all you need to understand what AAWP is and why you need it as an Amazon affiliate.
It’s basically a WordPress plugin that pulls Amazon product data through their API and creates fancy product boxes, comparison tables, and bestseller lists. These product boxes, comparison tables, etc, all come with your own tracking link and live prices.
Having your tracking link automatically placed on these fancy boxes saves you a TON of time. If you are already an Amazon affiliate, you know what I mean.
But, “What about the Live prices – what do you mean?”
When you promote products from Amazon as an affiliate you can’t write the price that you saw on the website. This is because, prices might change and you might be giving false information. Amazon doesn’t like that and if you get caught your are risking on getting banned from the Amazon affiliate program.
AAWP (Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin) starts at €79 and goes up to hundreds of euros annually depending on how many sites you run.
What can you do with it? Pretty much everything an affiliate marketer dreams of:
- Create product boxes that look professional
- Build comparison tables that convert like crazy
- Generate automated bestseller lists
- Update prices and availability automatically
- Customize designs to match your brand\
Anyways, the plugin (and similar plugins) is designed to increase click-through rates on affiliate websites, with some users seing 30 – 65% improvement in Amazon affiliate conversion rates (according to AAWP).
Other alternative paid tools like AAWP include Lasso (even more expensive), AzonPress, and AmaLinks Pro. They all do similar things but cost serious cash.
Although AAWP is the ultimate solution for Amazon affiliates, it’s expensive with pricing starting from €79 / year for a single website. This tool from Hostinger though is FREE and drops your initial investment to zero. No monthly costs, no nothing.
Right now, I have 5 affiliate websites and I would have to pay around €200 annually if I used AAWP across all of them. But, with Hostinger’s free Affiliate Marketing Tool, I pay €0.
What’s The AAWP Free Alternative? 🤔
Hostinger’s Affiliate Marketing Tool
The Hostinger Affiliate Marketing Tools plugin comes with Business and Cloud WordPress hosting plans, offering ample resources to keep your affiliate site up and running.
ℹ️ The Business plan is a great choice for starting your affiliate marketing business, as it can receive up to 100,000 monthly visits. Once your site grows, a cloud hosting plan becomes the next logical step to power your site.
This tool helps you create and promote products using affiliate links from Amazon and Mercado Livre marketplaces. (Mercado Livre = Latin America’s biggest e-commerce platform, think of it as the Amazon of South America).
ℹ️ TIP: If you are starting, keep in mind that in addition to the plugin, you’ll also receive a free custom domain name, Free SSL and advanced WordPress optimization with LiteSpeed cache.
What does this free solution from Hostinger allow you to do anyway?
- High-quality product displays = Professional-looking product boxes that don’t scream “cheap affiliate site”
- Comparison tables = Side-by-side product comparisons that help visitors decide (and click)
- No more searching on Amazon = Browse products directly from your WordPress editor
- Create listicles faster = More content = higher chances to get ranked
- List automatically the best sellers = Or choose specific products through the search function
- Fully editable blocks and tables = Customize everything to match your style
- Higher conversions = Clean, professional displays that people actually want to click
Now, the plugin DOES work without an Amazon API key, but I don’t recommend going that route. Without the API, you won’t get live pricing on your product boxes and your affiliate tracking codes won’t be embedded by default = you’re basically wasting time manually updating everything.
You can get your Amazon API credentials from your Amazon Associates account under Tools → Product Advertising API. You’ll need to request access (which requires at least $5 in earnings first), then grab your Access Key, Secret Key, and Associate Tag.
How to Use Hostinger’s Free Affiliate Marketing Tool
If you choose to start an affiliate marketing website during the onboarding process, the plugin is installed by default. But if you already have a website on Hostinger, here’s how to get it:
- Log in to your hPanel → Go to Websites tab
- Click Dashboard beside your domain name
- Select WordPress overview
- Scroll to Recommended installations → Find Hostinger Affiliate Marketing Tools
- Click Install to activate it
Once installed, you’ll see the Affiliate Marketing tab in your WordPress dashboard under the Hostinger menu.
Setting it up: Go to your WordPress admin dashboard → Hostinger → Amazon Affiliate tab and click Connect. Choose the country where you set up your Amazon affiliate account and enter your tracking ID.
That’s it. No complex API setup, no technical headaches.
Using it in posts: Insert affiliate links to new or existing posts using the Link Amazon product(s) block. Select products you want to display from the Amazon marketplace. Publish the post, and that’s it – you will get a commission for every eligible sale.
I will not go too deep on how to set everything up because I trust you are not completely new to WordPress.
ℹ️ Not hosted with Hostinger yet? I highly suggest that you do, you’ll pay far less with far more benefits and far more stability. Anyways, their automatic migration feature is super easy to use. Migration is way easier than you think. I moved ALL of my sites on Hostinger the past year and I never looked back. Hostinger has this detailed migration guide that walks you through the entire process step-by-step if you want to check it out first.
How It Compares to AAWP?
| Feature | AAWP | Hostinger Free Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Price | €79-395+/year | FREE with hosting |
| Product Boxes | ✅ Advanced | ✅ Good quality |
| Comparison Tables | ✅ Highly customizable | ✅ Basic but effective |
| Bestseller Lists | ✅ Automated | ✅ Manual selection |
| API Required | ❌ Mandatory | ✅ Optional |
| Design Templates | ✅ Many options | ✅ Clean, modern |
| Multi-site License | 💰 Extra cost | ✅ Included |
| Learning Curve | Steep | Easy |
AAWP has significantly more features – there’s no denying that. BUT it comes with a price that many starting affiliate marketers can’t justify.
Starting affiliate marketers are bootstrapped and this FREE solution is an excellent alternative. You just need to host your websites on Hostinger – which in my opinion – is an excellent and cheap hosting platform anyway.
Best Practices on How To Use This Plugin
Here’s how I like to use Hostinger’s affiliate plugin to get way more conversations (normally, I shouldn’t be revealing my secrets, but, anyways 😊)..
1. Lead with Your Top 3
When writing listicles – for example “Top 15 Summer Sundresses Every Woman Should Have in Her Wardrobe” – use the comparison table feature and list your top 3 choices at the beginning, then continue with your list.
This way you’ll get those spontaneous clicks from people who are too bored to go through the full list. I saw my click-through rates jump by 40% when I started doing this.
2. Help People Scan, Don’t Make Them Read
Let’s face it. People scan, they don’t read. So, instead of writing full descriptions for each product, just list them with key bullet points.
This way you help them scan the products and click on the ones they like. Think: “Waterproof • Machine washable • 4.5 stars” instead of a paragraph about fabric technology.
ℹ️ TIP: If you don’t like the automatic title and description generated (and for SEO reasons), you can change them in the plugin settings. Just enable the “Title Overwrite” and the “Description overwrite” and paste in your own descriptions.
Copy the title and product description into your AI writing assistant and tell it to write them for you. Here’s a simple prompt you can use:
Write me a 65 character title for this product as well as a short
description of about 200 to 300 characters. Use plain English and
highlight its pros.
## TITLE
HUHOT Women's Summer Square Neck Dress with Pocket Cute Sleeveless
High Waist A-line Sundress Midi Dresses
## PRODUCT DETAILS
Material composition: 95% Polyester, 5% Elastane
Care instructions: Machine Wash
Closure type: Pull On
Neck style: Square NeckAnd boom, you get results that look significantly better and convert higher.
You can adjust the prompt to your liking and your tone of voice.
3. Always Include Best Sellers
When I recommend supplements on my health website, I always like to include 1-3 best sellers of the supplement I recommend. This way the interested person can see immediately what the best sellers they can buy are.
People trust what other people are buying. It’s social proof in product form.
Bottom Line
I’ve been using this free alternative for 8 months now across my 5 affiliate sites. My conversion rates are nearly identical to what I was getting with AAWP, but I’m saving almost €200 annually.
Is AAWP better? Sure, if you have unlimited budget and want every bell and whistle. But for 90% of affiliate marketers – especially those starting out – Hostinger’s free tool does everything you actually need.
The money you save can go into content creation, better hosting, or actual marketing instead.
Stop overthinking it. Get the free tool, start building your affiliate empire, and upgrade to the premium stuff when you’re actually making enough money to justify the expense.
Your wallet will thank you.
In the meantime, check this very important article → 20 Truths About Blogging That No One Told Me
👉 Aκολούθησέ με στο Facebook και ενεργοποίησε τις ειδοποιήσεις για να λαμβάνεις τα νέα άρθρα μου.
Τα Links που υπάρχουν στα άρθρα μου ειναι πολλές φορές affiliate links. Αυτό σημαίνει ότι μπορεί να κερδίσω προμηθεια αν αγοράσεις κάτι χωρίς να επηρεάζετε το κόστος αγοράς της υπηρεσίας ή του προιόντος με οποιονδήποτε τρόπο.