If you have spent any time looking into affiliate marketing, you have probably noticed that the “recommended” tools list adds up fast. Ahrefs at $99 a month. Fancy scheduling software. Premium hosting at twice what you need to spend. Before you have made a single dollar, you are already bleeding cash every month. That is the trap that stops a lot of people before they ever get started.
What I want to show you in this post is the exact opposite of that. These are the six inexpensive tools I use every single day to run my own affiliate marketing business. A couple of them are completely free. The rest cost less than a dinner out. If you are brand new and working on a shoestring budget, or if you are already running something and want to cut your overhead without cutting your results, this list is for you.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- A free keyword research tool that gives you difficulty scores and search volume without paying $99 a month
- A design tool that lets you create hundreds of Pinterest pins, lead magnets, and Facebook images at no cost
- The WordPress plugin that makes Amazon affiliate links fast and clean on any blog post
- How to go from zero to a live website in 15 to 20 minutes for $2.95 a month
- A scheduling tool that puts your Pinterest and Facebook content on autopilot so you are not glued to your computer
- An AI image tool that generates unique, original blog images in under a minute so you never have to steal or recycle stock photos
- A simple six-step workflow that chains all these tools together to build a real affiliate income stream
- Not sure which tool or niche to start with? finder.platformproof.com matches you to the right starting point for free
Tool 1: The Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator
The number one question I get from people who are just starting out is this: Ahrefs is great, but it is $99 a month and I cannot afford that right now. Is there a free alternative? The answer is yes, and it comes from Ahrefs itself.
The Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator lives at ahrefs.com/keyword-generator. You type in a topic or a seed phrase, hit enter, and you get back the first 100 related keywords. For each keyword in that list, you can see two things that matter: the keyword difficulty score and the monthly search volume.
The keyword difficulty score runs from 0 to 100. The closer a keyword scores to 100, the harder it is going to be to rank for it. New sites and new creators need to stay on the lower end of that scale. The monthly search volume tells you how many people are actually searching for that phrase each month.
Here is the example I walked through in the video. I typed in “can dogs eat” and got a list of 100 keywords back. One of them was “can dogs eat bananas,” which came back with a keyword difficulty of 26 and a monthly search volume of 93,000. A difficulty of 26 is very manageable for a newer site. And 93,000 searches a month means there is real traffic available for whoever answers that question well.
From that single keyword, you could write a blog post, film a YouTube video, or create a TikTok. You could also build out an entire content calendar just from the other keywords in that same 100-result list. The tool does not expire and it does not require a credit card. You can start using it today.
The idea here is straightforward. Find low-difficulty keywords with real search volume, create content that answers those questions, and reinvest your early revenue into paid tools once you have money coming in. The free keyword generator gives you everything you need to get that first phase going.
Tool 2: Canva
Canva is the tool I use every single day, and I genuinely think it is one of the most powerful free tools available to any online creator. The free plan gives you access to a massive library of templates and design tools. The pro plan costs roughly $10 to $20 a month depending on how you pay, and you only need to upgrade when you start hitting features marked with the crown icon in the left-hand panel.
Here is what I actually do with Canva. Inside my free Facebook group, I regularly post images that share affiliate marketing tips. I will put together five or six ChatGPT prompts for starting an online business, design them as a clean graphic inside Canva, download it as a PNG, and upload it directly to the group. It takes maybe ten minutes and drives real engagement from people who are serious about starting.
But the real power for affiliate marketers comes from Pinterest pin creation. Canva has a feature built in called Bulk Create, and it is a serious time saver. Here is how it works: you design one Pinterest pin template in Canva, then go to the Apps section in the left panel, click Bulk Create, and enter your data manually. You can type in a list of words, phrases, or topics specific to your niche. Once you connect that data to your template using the three-dot menu and the “Connect data” option, Canva generates multiple unique pins automatically. Three words in your list means three unique pins. Ten words means ten unique pins. All from a single template in a few minutes.
This feature appears to be available on the free plan, which makes it even more valuable for people who are just starting out. You can also use Canva to create lead magnets, planners, items to sell on Etsy, and any other visual content your business needs. It is a serious tool at a price that works for everyone.
Tool 3: AAWP (Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin)
If you have a WordPress blog and you are in the Amazon Associates program, this plugin will change the way you work. AAWP stands for Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin, and it is built specifically to make Amazon affiliate links faster and cleaner on any blog post.
The problem it solves is real. Without a plugin like this, adding Amazon products to a blog post means jumping back and forth between your WordPress editor and Amazon, copying links, formatting them, and hoping your disclosure is in the right spot. It is slow and messy. AAWP handles all of that with a few clicks directly inside WordPress.
The features that matter most are the comparison tables and the product boxes. If you want to compare two phones, two sets of dog food, or two cameras, you can pull up a comparison table that displays product images, prices, and buy buttons in a clean layout that embeds directly into your post. Product boxes work the same way for single items. Both update automatically when Amazon prices change, which means you do not have to go back and manually fix outdated numbers.
You also get text links and link shorteners built in, which keeps your links looking clean and professional rather than the long messy strings that Amazon generates by default.
The price for a single site license is around $49. That is a one-time or annual cost depending on the plan you choose. For anyone running an Amazon affiliate blog, that investment pays for itself quickly in time saved and in higher click-through rates from better-looking product displays. I use it across multiple websites and would not want to go back to doing it manually.
Tool 4: Bluehost Web Hosting
Every serious affiliate marketer needs their own website. This is not optional advice. It is the foundation of a real online business. Social platforms change their rules. Algorithms shift. Accounts get suspended. Your website is the one thing you actually own, and it is the place you can always drive traffic back to when everything else is in flux.
On top of that, a lot of affiliate programs require you to have a website before they will approve your application. If you do not have one, you are cutting yourself off from the programs with the highest commissions.
Bluehost is the hosting platform I recommend for beginners because it makes the whole setup process straightforward. You can go from having no website at all to a fully functional WordPress site in about 15 to 20 minutes. Bluehost walks you through picking a domain name, sets up your hosting package, and installs WordPress for you. You do not need any technical knowledge to get through it.
Pricing starts at $2.95 a month. That is the cost of a cup of coffee, and it gives you a live website on the internet that you can start building affiliate content on immediately. I will put an affiliate link in the resources section below, because yes, I am an affiliate marketer. But the recommendation is genuine. Bluehost is where I send every beginner because the experience is clean and the price is right.
Once your site is live, you can combine it with the Ahrefs keyword generator to find what to write about, use ChatGPT to help draft your posts, and plug in the AAWP plugin to monetize with Amazon products. Your website becomes the hub that everything else feeds into.
Tool 5: Tailwind
Here is the reality of content marketing on Pinterest: you need to post consistently to see results. The people who win on Pinterest are posting multiple times a day, every day, for months at a stretch. If you try to do all of that manually, you will burn out before the traffic shows up. That is where Tailwind comes in.
Tailwind is a scheduling tool that connects to your Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook accounts and posts your content automatically on a schedule you set in advance. You batch-create your pins in Canva, upload them to Tailwind, pick your time slots, and then step away. Tailwind handles the actual posting while you focus on creating more content or running other parts of your business.
The free plan lets you upload somewhere between 30 and 1,000 images per month depending on the current offer. That is more than enough to get started and see whether the traffic from Pinterest is worth investing in the paid tier.
To show you what this looks like in practice, inside my own Tailwind account I currently have hundreds of pins already scheduled and lined up to publish automatically. On the specific days I showed in the video, I had eight pins scheduled for Sunday, six for Monday, and as many as 23 on other days. None of those require me to sit at my computer and manually post. They go out on their own while I work on other things.
I use Tailwind primarily for Pinterest and Facebook. The Facebook scheduling feature alone is worth setting up, especially if you manage a Facebook group or a business page and want to keep it active without spending your whole day on it.
Tool 6: Midjourney
This one addresses one of the biggest mistakes I see new affiliate marketers make with their blogs. They need images for their posts, so they go to a free stock photo site like Unsplash or Pexels. The problem is those images have been downloaded hundreds or thousands of times already. Google knows it. Your readers have probably seen the same photo somewhere else. And if you skip the stock sites entirely and grab an image from somewhere random on the internet, you are now using someone else’s copyrighted work without permission, which can get you a takedown notice and your site penalized.
Midjourney solves this problem completely. It is an AI image generation tool that you access through Discord. You type a prompt describing the image you want, and within about a minute you get four unique, original images to choose from. Nobody else has those images. They were made from your prompt right now, and they belong to you.
Here is the exact workflow I showed in the video. I went into the Midjourney bot inside Discord and typed: imagine dog eating bananas. About a minute later, four different images of dogs eating bananas appeared. I picked the one I liked, clicked to get the full-resolution version, and downloaded it to my desktop. That image is ready to go into a blog post, a Pinterest pin, or anywhere else I need it.
The time savings here are real. Instead of spending 15 minutes hunting for a stock photo that is not quite right, you spend about 60 seconds getting an image that is exactly right. And because every image is unique, you do not have to worry about duplicate content issues or copyright problems.
You can also feed these Midjourney images directly into Canva. Drop the image into a Pinterest pin template, add your keyword as the overlay text, and you have a pin that is visually original and keyword-specific. That combination is a real advantage over generic stock-photo pins.
Not sure which niche or platform to start your affiliate marketing on?
The free Platform Proof Finder matches you to the right starting point based on your skills, schedule, and goals. Try it at finder.platformproof.com.
How All Six Tools Work Together
The tools are useful on their own, but the real value shows up when you chain them together into a repeatable workflow. Here is the exact example I walked through in the video, using the dog niche as a demonstration.
- Find your keyword. Go to ahrefs.com/keyword-generator, type in “can dogs eat,” and pull up the full list of 100 keywords. Pick one with low difficulty and solid volume. For this example, “can dogs eat bananas” came back with a keyword difficulty of 26 and 93,000 monthly searches. That is your target.
- Write your blog post. Use ChatGPT to help you draft a blog post answering that question. You do not need to write 1,500 words from scratch. Use the transcript or outline as input, ask ChatGPT to expand on each section, and edit for your voice. This takes maybe 30 to 60 minutes the first few times, faster as you get the hang of it.
- Publish on your Bluehost site. Paste your finished post into your WordPress site hosted on Bluehost. Add your meta title and description targeting your keyword. You are now competing for that 93,000 monthly search.
- Add Amazon products with AAWP. In your post about dogs eating bananas, add related Amazon products using the AAWP plugin. Dog treats, dog supplements, chew toys, probiotics. Anything that a dog owner reading that post might want to buy. AAWP lets you drop in a clean product box or comparison table in a few clicks without leaving WordPress.
- Create your image with Midjourney. Open Discord, type “imagine dog eating bananas” in the Midjourney bot, and pick the best image from the four options. Download it. This is your unique, original blog image that also works as Pinterest content.
- Design your Pinterest pin in Canva. Drag your Midjourney image into a Pinterest pin template in Canva. Add the text “Can Dogs Eat Bananas?” as the overlay. Download it as a PNG. You have just made a pin that links back to your blog post.
- Schedule in Tailwind. Upload your finished pin to Tailwind, select your Pinterest board, and add it to the scheduling queue. Tailwind posts it automatically at the time slot you set. You do not have to go back to Pinterest yourself. The traffic pipeline runs while you move on to the next keyword.
Run this workflow consistently across multiple keywords and niches and you are building a real traffic and revenue engine. Each piece feeds the next. Keyword research creates content opportunities. Content creates something to pin. Pins drive traffic. Traffic drives Amazon clicks. Amazon clicks drive commissions. None of this is complicated once you see how the pieces connect.
Honest Drawbacks to Know Before You Start
These tools are genuinely low-cost, but there are a few things worth knowing upfront so you are not surprised later.
The Ahrefs free keyword generator shows you the first 100 keywords with difficulty and volume, but it does not give you the full competitive analysis you get with a paid Ahrefs account. You will not see backlink data, traffic estimates for competitors, or content gap analysis. That is fine for getting started. It is a real limitation once you are trying to compete in more saturated niches.
Canva’s free plan is generous, but you will start hitting the crown-marked pro features fairly quickly if you want access to the larger template library, background removal, or brand kit tools. The upgrade cost is low, but it is not zero.
AAWP requires an active Amazon Associates account. If you are not already in that program, you need to apply and get approved before the plugin has any value. Amazon’s approval process requires you to have a website with content already on it, which is another reason to get your Bluehost site set up early.
Midjourney is not free. It has a paid subscription. The images you get are high quality and genuinely useful, but this is one tool on this list where you are paying for the service from day one. Factor that into your startup budget.
Tailwind’s free tier is real, but the caps on how many pins you can schedule per month mean you will likely want to upgrade once your Pinterest traffic starts growing. Think of the free tier as a proof-of-concept phase, not a long-term operating plan.
Find Your X
The six tools in this post are the infrastructure. They handle keyword research, design, website hosting, Amazon product display, scheduling, and images. But none of them matter until you know what niche you are building in and what you are actually going to promote.
If you are still figuring that part out, the Platform Proof Finder was built for exactly that moment. Answer a few questions about what you already know, how much time you have, and what kind of money you want to make, and it tells you where to start. Free to use at finder.platformproof.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Ahrefs free keyword generator really free with no time limit?
Yes. As of this video, the free keyword generator at ahrefs.com/keyword-generator does not require an account or a credit card and does not expire. It gives you the first 100 keywords for any query along with keyword difficulty scores and monthly search volume estimates. It is a legitimate free tool Ahrefs makes available as an introduction to their platform.
How many Pinterest pins should I make each week when starting out?
There is no single number that works for everyone, but consistency matters more than volume when you are starting. Making five to ten pins a week and scheduling them to post daily is a reasonable starting point. The Canva bulk create feature can help you produce that batch in one sitting, and Tailwind spaces them out automatically so you are not flooding your audience or triggering spam filters.
Do I need AAWP if I already use the standard Amazon affiliate link copy tool?
The standard Amazon link copy tool gives you a basic text or image link. AAWP gives you comparison tables, product boxes with live prices, and short clean links, all embedded directly in your WordPress editor without leaving the page. If you are publishing more than a few Amazon affiliate posts a month, the time you save and the improved appearance of your product displays will likely outperform whatever you are currently doing. For very casual affiliate use, the standard tool is fine.
Can I build a full affiliate website on the basic Bluehost plan?
Yes. The basic Bluehost plan at $2.95 a month supports a full WordPress site with as many posts as you want to publish. It includes a free domain for the first year, one-click WordPress installation, and enough storage and bandwidth for a blog in its early to mid-growth stages. You would only need to upgrade if your monthly traffic grew into the tens of thousands and you needed more server resources.
Does Tailwind work for Facebook as well as Pinterest?
Yes. Tailwind connects to Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Alston mentioned in this video that he uses Tailwind specifically for Pinterest and Facebook scheduling. If you manage a Facebook business page or group and want to schedule posts in batches rather than posting manually every day, Tailwind handles that inside the same dashboard where you manage your Pinterest queue.
What is the difference between Midjourney and using free stock photo sites like Unsplash?
Free stock sites like Unsplash and Pexels offer real photos at no cost, but those same photos have been downloaded and used across thousands of websites. Google can recognize duplicate images. Midjourney generates a completely original image from your text prompt that no one else has. That originality matters both for visual distinctiveness and for avoiding any risk of duplicate-content penalties. The tradeoff is that Midjourney has a paid subscription cost that Unsplash does not.
Do I need to know how to code to use any of these six tools?
No. All six tools are built for non-technical users. Bluehost installs WordPress for you. AAWP operates through a visual interface inside WordPress with no code required. Canva is drag-and-drop. The Ahrefs keyword generator is just a search box. Tailwind is a scheduling calendar. Midjourney works through Discord with typed prompts. The only technical step across the entire stack is installing the AAWP plugin, which takes about two minutes and is done through the standard WordPress plugin installer.
What is a realistic timeline to see affiliate commissions using this setup?
Honest answer: most affiliate marketers who build blog and Pinterest traffic see their first few commissions somewhere between one and three months in, assuming they are publishing consistently. Blog posts can take six to twelve months to rank well in Google depending on the competition. Pinterest traffic can show up faster because pins can get picked up by the algorithm within days of being scheduled. Using Tailwind to post consistently and targeting low-difficulty keywords from the Ahrefs free tool shortens that timeline compared to picking random topics and posting inconsistently.
Read Next
These six tools give you the infrastructure. If you want to go deeper on how to actually build the business side of affiliate marketing with little to no starting budget, the post below walks you through the full process from zero.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing With Zero Dollars
Sources
- Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator: ahrefs.com/keyword-generator
- Canva free and pro plans: canva.com
- AAWP Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin: getaawp.com
- Bluehost web hosting: bluehost.com
- Tailwind scheduling tool: tailwindapp.com
- Midjourney AI image generator: midjourney.com (access via Discord)
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.