You’re staring at two tabs. Digistore24 on the left, Clickbank on the right. Both are affiliate marketplaces. Both pay you a commission when someone buys through your link. And yet if you pick the wrong one for your situation, you’re going to spend months building around a platform that doesn’t fit where you live, what you want to promote, or how you want to get paid.
Alston broke both platforms down side by side in real time, pulling up the actual marketplaces and walking through the real differences. This post captures every comparison he made so you can make a clear decision before you sign up for anything.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- A clear picture of how many products each platform actually offers
- Which countries each platform accepts affiliates from
- How Clickbank and Digistore24 each pay you out
- Why link quality matters and which platform wins on that front
- What CPA marketing is and which platform offers it
- A simple decision rule: which platform fits your situation right now
- The honest drawbacks of each so you’re not surprised six weeks in
- A free tool at finder.platformproof.com that helps you identify what to sell based on skills you already have
What These Two Platforms Are
Clickbank and Digistore24 are both affiliate marketplaces. A vendor creates a digital or physical product, lists it on the platform, and sets a commission rate. You, as an affiliate, apply to promote that product and get a unique link. When someone buys through your link, you earn the commission. The platform handles the tracking, the payment, and the relationship with the vendor.
That’s the shared model. The differences are in the details, and those details matter a lot depending on where you live, what niche you’re in, and how you plan to promote.
Clickbank has been around for a long time. When people search “affiliate marketing for beginners” on YouTube, Clickbank comes up constantly. It’s the household name in the space. Digistore24 is newer, with roughly five or six years in the market as of the time this video was recorded. Fewer people talk about it, but it has carved out a real position, especially for affiliates outside the United States.
Product Selection: 3,000 vs 380
This is the most striking difference between the two platforms when you look at them side by side. When Alston pulled up the Clickbank marketplace and clicked the search bar to find products, the results returned over 3,000 products. Over on Digistore24, the same search returned roughly 380 results.
That’s approximately ten times more products on Clickbank. And Alston is clear that this is both a strength and a weakness. On the strength side, you can almost certainly find something in your niche on Clickbank. Health, wealth, relationships, technology, arts and entertainment, as-seen-on-TV style offers, home and garden, pets. The catalog is wide enough that virtually any content creator can find something relevant.
On the weakness side, a lot of that catalog is junk. There are products on Clickbank that are poorly made, poorly supported, or borderline deceptive. As an affiliate, you’re putting your name behind whatever you promote. If someone buys a product through your link and it’s garbage, they associate that experience with you. So you have to spend real time going through the Clickbank marketplace to separate what’s worth promoting from what isn’t.
Digistore24’s smaller catalog is partly a function of being newer. A platform that’s been around for five or six years simply hasn’t had time to accumulate as many vendors as one that’s been running for much longer. But the flip side is that the smaller catalog may have a higher signal-to-noise ratio. When there are fewer products, there’s less junk to sort through.
Digistore24 also carries a noticeable percentage of physical products relative to its total catalog. Clickbank has physical products too, but Digistore24’s physical product share is proportionally higher. If your niche is better served by a tangible product rather than a PDF or a course, Digistore24 is worth knowing about for that reason alone.
Niche Coverage and Sub-Categories
One structural difference Alston noticed when browsing both platforms is that Clickbank has more developed sub-niches. If you click into a top-level category on Clickbank, you’ll find sub-categories that let you drill down further. That kind of structure makes it easier to find exactly what you’re looking for within a broad space.
Digistore24’s category structure is flatter. You can still browse by category, but you won’t find the same depth of sub-niche organization. That’s a minor friction point, not a dealbreaker, but it does mean that browsing the Digistore24 marketplace takes a slightly different approach.
Clickbank covers some unusual categories that Digistore24 doesn’t seem to have at the same depth. As-seen-on-TV products, for example, are a real Clickbank category. If you’re in content niches that sit outside the core health-wealth-relationships triangle, Clickbank probably has more to offer you right now.
Digistore24, on the other hand, skews heavily toward internet marketing and online business products. If that’s your primary niche, you’ll find strong options there. And there are notable vendors operating on Digistore24 who have built large followings, which means the products have real traffic and real buyers behind them.
Global Reach: Who Can Actually Join
This difference matters enormously depending on where you live. Clickbank has become increasingly restrictive about which countries it accepts affiliates from. It was once fairly open, but over time the platform has tightened its acceptance criteria. If you’re outside the United States, particularly if you’re in a developing country, there’s a real chance you either won’t qualify or will face significant friction getting approved.
Digistore24 has stepped into that gap. It works with affiliates across a broader range of countries, including developing nations that Clickbank has become less receptive to. If you’re based outside the US and you’ve tried to get started with Clickbank only to run into walls, Digistore24 may be the more practical starting point for you.
Alston makes this point directly: if you’re in a developing country or outside the United States, you’re probably going to want to start with Digistore24. Not because the platform is better in every way, but because accessibility is a prerequisite. You can’t earn from a platform that won’t let you in.
For affiliates in the United States, this distinction matters less in terms of access. Both platforms are available to US-based affiliates. But for anyone building from a location where Clickbank has pulled back, Digistore24 is the clear path forward.
How You Get Paid
Both platforms pay on a weekly basis, assuming you hit the minimum payout threshold. That’s a shared baseline. Where they differ is in the payment methods available.
Clickbank pays via check or direct deposit. Those are the primary options. For affiliates in countries where US bank transfers are difficult to receive, or where physical checks are impractical, those options create real friction.
Digistore24 supports more payment methods. The exact methods vary depending on your location and account setup, but the platform is designed to accommodate a wider range of financial situations and geographies. If Clickbank’s payment options don’t work for where you are, that’s another reason Digistore24 is worth considering as your starting point.
Both platforms require you to meet a minimum threshold before they’ll send your payment. You’ll want to check the current threshold on each platform when you sign up, as these numbers can change over time.
Link Quality and Tracking
When you generate an affiliate link on Clickbank, the result is what’s called a hop link. Hop links are functional but they’re not pretty. The URL is long, contains your Clickbank ID, and looks like the kind of link people are sometimes suspicious of clicking. You can work around this by using a link masking tool or a redirect service, but that’s an extra step you have to take every time you set up a promotion.
Digistore24 affiliate links look cleaner out of the box. When Alston showed them side by side, the visual difference was clear. The Digistore24 link looks more like a standard URL that someone would feel comfortable clicking.
However, Clickbank has something Digistore24 doesn’t: tracking IDs. When you generate a hop link on Clickbank, you can attach a tracking ID that identifies where the sale came from. If you’re running traffic from multiple sources, say YouTube, a blog, and email, you can tag each link differently and know exactly which source drove each sale. That kind of attribution data is genuinely useful when you’re trying to figure out where to focus your effort.
Digistore24 doesn’t offer that tracking ID feature. You get the link, you promote it, and you know a sale happened, but you won’t know which traffic source it came from unless you build that tracking yourself through a third-party tool. For someone just starting out, that’s a manageable gap. For someone running larger campaigns across multiple channels, Clickbank’s built-in tracking is a real operational advantage.
CPA Marketing: A Clickbank-Only Feature for Now
CPA stands for cost per action or cost per acquisition. In standard affiliate marketing, you earn when someone buys. With CPA, you can earn when someone takes a specific action short of a full purchase. That might be submitting their email address, signing up for a free trial, or completing a form. The commission per action is smaller than a full sale commission, but so is the barrier for the person taking the action.
Clickbank added CPA marketing as an option. Digistore24 had not added this feature at the time Alston made this video. He noted that it’s possible Digistore24 would add it in the future, but it wasn’t available yet.
For beginners, this difference may not be the deciding factor. CPA marketing has its own learning curve, and most people starting out in affiliate marketing will focus on standard commission-based sales first. But as you grow and explore more advanced traffic strategies, having CPA as an option expands what you can do on Clickbank.
Not sure which platform fits the skills and resources you already have?
The free Finder tool at finder.platformproof.com helps you match your background to the right online income path, so you’re not guessing about where to start.
Big Names and Established Vendors
One thing that signals a platform’s credibility is whether serious vendors choose to list there. Both Clickbank and Digistore24 have established vendors with real audiences and real sales volume.
Alston specifically mentions Wesley Virgin as a notable name on Digistore24. Wesley is a well-known figure in the internet marketing space with a large YouTube following. His products were previously on Clickbank, but at the time of this video, Alston could not find them there anymore. Wesley’s offers appear on Digistore24, where one example showed an 80 percent commission rate and average affiliate earnings of around $46 per sale on an offer priced around $50.
That’s a real example with real numbers: an 80 percent commission on a $50 product works out to $40 per sale at the base price. The average earnings per affiliate were slightly higher at $46, which may include upsells or order bumps in the funnel.
The point isn’t that one platform has better vendors. Both have real vendors running real offers. The point is that Digistore24 is not a ghost town with nothing worth promoting. Established marketers are actively listing products there and paying affiliates.
Honest Drawbacks of Each Platform
Every comparison like this deserves a straight look at what’s actually difficult about each option, not just the marketing pitch.
Clickbank drawbacks:
- The marketplace has a lot of low-quality products. Sorting through them takes time, and if you accidentally promote something that disappoints your audience, the damage to your credibility takes longer to repair than the commission was worth.
- Hop links are ugly by default. You need to take an extra step to clean them up before putting them in front of an audience.
- Clickbank has tightened country acceptance over time. If you’re in a country that’s been cut off or limited, this platform may simply not be available to you.
- Payment is limited to checks and direct deposit, which doesn’t work for everyone globally.
Digistore24 drawbacks:
- Fewer products means fewer options, especially in niche categories outside internet marketing and health. If you’re in arts, entertainment, or a very specific vertical, you may struggle to find a product that fits.
- No built-in tracking IDs. If you want to track which traffic source is driving sales, you’ll need to add that layer yourself with a third-party tool.
- No CPA option currently. If cost-per-action campaigns are part of your strategy, Digistore24 doesn’t support that yet.
- Less name recognition in the affiliate marketing community. Fewer tutorials, fewer communities, and fewer people you can ask when you hit a problem specific to the platform.
A Simple Decision Framework
Based on what Alston walked through, here’s a clear decision rule you can apply right now:
Start with Digistore24 if: You’re outside the United States, particularly in a developing country. You want more payment method flexibility. You prefer a cleaner affiliate link by default. Your niche is primarily in internet marketing, online business, or physical products.
Start with Clickbank if: You’re based in the United States and access isn’t an issue. You want the largest possible product catalog to choose from. You need built-in tracking IDs to manage multi-channel campaigns. You’re in a niche that’s well-covered by Clickbank but thin on Digistore24, such as arts, entertainment, or specific physical categories.
Use both if: You’ve been doing affiliate marketing for a while and you want to diversify your promotions. There’s no rule that says you can only work with one platform. Many experienced affiliates have accounts on both and promote whichever product fits the content they’re creating at a given time.
The most important thing is that you actually start. Spending weeks comparing platforms without ever getting your first affiliate link live is a pattern that keeps a lot of people stuck. Pick the platform that removes the most friction for your situation, get your account set up, find one product worth promoting, and start creating content around it. You can evaluate the other platform later with actual experience in your hands.
Find Your X
Knowing the platform is one piece. Knowing what to promote and which of your existing skills can drive traffic is another. If you’re not sure where you fit in the affiliate marketing picture, the free Finder at finder.platformproof.com asks you a few questions about what you already know and how you already spend your time, then shows you which online income path is most likely to work for you. It takes a few minutes and gives you something concrete to work with.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Digistore24 legitimate or is it a scam?
Digistore24 is a legitimate affiliate marketplace. It processes real transactions, pays affiliates on a weekly basis, and has been operating for roughly five to six years. Like any affiliate platform, the quality of individual products varies, but the platform itself is real. Alston has an account there and was actively promoting products through it, though he discovered this mid-video, which should tell you something about how low-friction the signup process is.
How many products does Clickbank have compared to Digistore24?
When Alston pulled up both marketplaces side by side, Clickbank returned over 3,000 products and Digistore24 returned approximately 380. That’s roughly a ten-to-one difference. The gap is largely a function of Clickbank being older and having more vendors. It doesn’t mean Clickbank’s products are better, just that there are more of them to choose from and more junk to sort through.
Can I use both Clickbank and Digistore24 at the same time?
Yes. Nothing prevents you from having accounts on both platforms. Many affiliates promote products from multiple marketplaces. If you find a product on Digistore24 that fits one piece of your content and a Clickbank product that fits another, you can run both links. The platforms don’t have exclusivity requirements for affiliates.
How does Digistore24 pay affiliates?
Digistore24 pays on a weekly basis once you hit the minimum payout threshold, and it supports more payment methods than Clickbank. The specific options depend on your country and account setup, but the platform was built with international affiliates in mind and offers more flexibility than Clickbank’s check-or-direct-deposit approach.
What is a Clickbank hop link and why does it matter?
A hop link is Clickbank’s term for an affiliate link. When you generate one, it includes your Clickbank affiliate ID in a URL format that Clickbank tracks. The downside is that hop links look unusual, often like a string of characters that doesn’t resemble a normal website address. Some audiences are suspicious of unfamiliar-looking links. Best practice is to run your hop link through a link masking tool before putting it in front of your audience. Digistore24 affiliate links look cleaner by comparison without any extra steps.
What is CPA marketing and does Digistore24 offer it?
CPA stands for cost per action. Instead of earning only when someone makes a purchase, CPA lets you earn when someone completes a specific action, like filling out a form or signing up for a free offer. Clickbank added CPA as a feature. At the time of Alston’s video, Digistore24 had not introduced CPA marketing. This may have changed since then, so it’s worth checking the platform directly when you sign up.