Beacons alternatives and Beacons competitors for creators who earn from affiliate links
Nearly every page ranking for Beacons alternatives is written by a company selling one of the alternatives, and most of them stop at a list of names. We read the Beacons plan page and each rival's own pricing page, kept what each vendor publishes apart from our own arithmetic, and sorted the field by the question that decides a switch: does your money come from things you sell on the page, or from commission on things you recommend? Beacons is strong at the first. This page is mostly for creators who live on the second, and it says plainly where Beacons is still the better pick.
The short answer
The best Beacons alternatives are Linktree for a plain link page, Stan Store or Pillar for selling courses and downloads, Komi or Milkshake for a cheaper mini site, and Favly for creators whose income is affiliate commission. Beacons costs $0, $100, $300 or $1,000 a year and takes 9% on sales and on commission from its own brand marketplace until you pay for Creator Plus at $300 a year. Commission from programs you join yourself never passes through Beacons. If that commission is most of your income, pick the tool that shows which link earned it. Favly Pro does that for $288 a year.
Beacons plans, prices and fees read on beacons.ai/i/plans on 23 October 2026, shown there in US dollars. Rival prices come from each vendor's own pricing page, with the date we read it · No commission fee
Read your post as your collection. This is a preview of the cards Favly builds. Your own links go on in the studio.
Curated by ยท affiliate links clearly labeled
Estimated monthly
from monetized favorites
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Estimated and illustrative, not a guarantee. Real earnings depend on your audience and what fans buy.
At a glance
Beacons pricing and the main alternatives in one table.
Rows marked OFFICIAL quote a vendor's own pricing page on the date shown. Rows marked STRUCTURAL are arithmetic or reasoning that follows from those figures, with the working shown. Vendor pricing changes, so check the plan page before you enter a card.
| What you want to know | The answer | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Beacons Free | $0, free forever | OFFICIAL, beacons.ai/i/plans, 23 October 2026. 30 daily AI credits, a customizable link in bio, a daily-updating media kit, unlimited digital products, affiliate links, 50 email sends a month and Instagram auto-DM, at a 9% seller fee. |
| Beacons Creator | $100 a year, or $10 monthly | OFFICIAL. $8.33 a month on annual billing. Adds 300 daily AI credits, a free custom domain and 500 email sends a month. The 9% fee stays. |
| Beacons Creator Plus | $300 a year, or $30 monthly | OFFICIAL. $25 a month on annual billing. The fee drops to 0%, and unlimited courses, memberships, email sends and Buy Now Pay Later start here. |
| Beacons Creator Max | $1,000 a year, or $100 monthly | OFFICIAL. $83.3 a month on annual billing. Adds white glove onboarding, prioritized support and an NFC card. In September the same card read $900 a year; it now reads $1,000. |
| Beacons fee on its own marketplace commission | 9% below Creator Plus | OFFICIAL. The plan comparison lists affiliate links from its 12k brand partners at a 9%, 9%, 0%, 0% transaction fee across the four plans. |
| Beacons fee on programs you join yourself | None | STRUCTURAL. Amazon Associates, Impact, Awin and direct software partner programs pay you from their own systems. That money never reaches Beacons, so no Beacons plan changes it. |
| When Creator Plus pays for itself on fees | About $3,333 a year | STRUCTURAL. $300 is 9% of $3,333. Below roughly $278 a month in sales plus Beacons marketplace commission, the 9% costs less than the upgrade. |
| Linktree | $0, $72, $144 or $360 a year | OFFICIAL, linktr.ee pricing, read 7 October 2026. Free, Starter, Pro and Premium on annual billing, with a 7 day trial on Pro and Premium. A plain link page with the largest template library. |
| Stan Store | $300 or $948 a year | OFFICIAL, Stan owned pages, read 9 September 2026. Creator is $29 a month and Creator Pro $99 a month, 0% platform fee, no free plan, a 14 day trial. Built for selling courses, bookings and downloads. |
| Pillar | $29 or $99 a month billed yearly | OFFICIAL, pillar.io/pricing, read 23 October 2026. Creator is $39 monthly with a 5% seller fee, Entrepreneur $129 monthly with 0%. Annual billing saves 25%. Its affiliate tool is for running your own program, not earning as an affiliate. |
| Komi | Free, or $192 a year for Pro | OFFICIAL, komi.io/pricing, read 14 October 2026. Pro is $16 a month billed yearly or $20 monthly, with a 0% fee on digital products, email campaigns and a custom domain. |
| Milkshake | Free to $99.99 a year | OFFICIAL, milkshake.app/pricing, read 19 October 2026. The cheapest route to a custom domain, billed through the App Store or Google Play, with a 12%, 9% or 7% selling fee. |
| Favly Pro | $288 a year ($24 a month billed yearly) | OFFICIAL, favly.com/pricing. No fee on affiliate commission on any plan. Revenue attribution imports each program's report and matches commission to the link that earned it. One free demo storefront to try first, no card. |
| Selling your own products on Favly | Not a Favly feature | Honest limit. Favly has no product checkout, course host or booking calendar. If those are your income, Beacons, Stan Store or Pillar do that job and Favly does not. |
what you are really choosing
Beacons sells you a business in a box. Ask which part of the box pays you.
Beacons bundles a link in bio, a store, a media kit, email, Instagram auto-DMs and an AI assistant called Beam. For a creator selling presets and booking brand deals, that bundle is good value. A creator who reviews cameras, AI apps or desk gear earns differently. Most of the money is commission from someone else's affiliate program, paid days after the tap, and the page that sent the buyer never sees the sale. The useful question is which tool helps that money grow, not which one has the longest feature list.
What to check before you switch
What a Beacons alternative has to do better for an affiliate creator.
Find out where your affiliate links come from
This is the one Beacons question most reviews skip. Beacons runs its own brand marketplace, and when you earn through those links Beacons sits in the middle of the payment and keeps 9% on Free and Creator. Commission from programs you joined yourself, such as Amazon Associates or a software partner program, is paid to you directly and Beacons never touches it. Open your earnings and split them into those two piles before you price any alternative. The answer changes which plan, and which tool, makes sense.
Price the income, not the page
Beacons wins most contests about features per dollar, since $100 a year buys a custom domain and a media kit that updates itself. That is the wrong contest for a creator whose money is commission. Add up last year's income by source. If commission is the biggest pile, the question is which tool helps that pile grow, and a cheaper or busier page cannot do that by itself.
Know which link earned, not which link was tapped
Beacons analytics show views and clicks in real time. They cannot show what an outside program paid, because an affiliate sale is recorded inside the merchant's system, often days later. Commission per link needs each program's report matched back to the link that sent the buyer. That is what tells you which recommendation to move to the top and which to drop.
Treat software and AI tools as products, not buttons
A tripod pays once. Many software and AI partner programs pay a share of the subscription every month the referred customer stays. A creator who recommends editing apps, AI writing tools or hosting can earn more from a few software referrals than from a page of retail links, so the page should present those tools with a reason to buy them.
Do not pay for a store you will not stock
Stan Store, Pillar and Beacons Creator Plus all charge mostly for selling tools: checkout, courses, memberships, funnels and email. If you have nothing of your own to sell, those features are worth $0 to you, and so is a 0% seller fee. Pay for them when you have a product, not before.
Price the switch against what your links earn
Favly Pro costs $288 a year against $100 for Beacons Creator and $300 for Creator Plus. Against Creator it has to earn back about $188. It does that only if seeing commission per link changes what you recommend. At a typical 20% to 30% recurring rate on a $30 a month software plan, one referral who stays a year pays $72 to $108, so two or three retained referrals cover the gap. If it would not change anything, stay on Beacons.
Switch without losing taps
How to move from Beacons to an affiliate storefront in four steps.
List what earned in the last 12 months
Open every affiliate dashboard you use, Amazon Associates, brand programs, software partners and the Beacons marketplace, and export the products or plans that paid commission. Add the things you still recommend that never sold. That list, sorted by money, is your new storefront.
Rejoin marketplace brands directly where you can
Many brands in the Beacons catalog also run their own affiliate program, often through Impact, Awin or PartnerStack. Joining those directly moves the commission out of the 9% marketplace fee and into a program that pays you without a middleman. Brands that exist only inside the marketplace stay there.
Build collections and tag every link
Create your storefront at favly.com/@you and group recommendations into collections such as camera, desk, AI tools and editing. Put the Favly tag in each program's sub ID or tracking field, so each commission row can be matched to the link that earned it.
Move your domain, then keep Beacons for what it does best
If your Beacons page sat on your own domain, point that domain at the new storefront on Pro and every printed link keeps working. If it sat on a Beacons address, update your Instagram, TikTok and YouTube bios first. A creator who sells a course or uses the media kit can keep Beacons Free for that and link to it from the storefront.
If it is not a fit
If you sell your own products or pitch brands with a media kit, stay on Beacons.
This page is not going to talk you out of a tool that fits. If your income is courses, memberships, presets or other products you sell yourself, Beacons Free lets you sell from day one, and Creator Plus removes the fee for $300 a year, which beats Stan Store Creator on price. Its auto-updating media kit, rate cards and invoices are genuinely useful when you pitch brands, and Favly has no product checkout at all. Favly earns its $288 a year only when affiliate commission, especially recurring software commission from programs you join yourself, is your main income and you want to see which link earned it.
What Favly does differently
- ✓ No follower gate and no application queue. Claim favly.com/@you and start today.
- ✓ Built for the AI tools, SaaS and tech gear you already recommend.
- ✓ Recurring commissions: subscription tools can pay every month a fan stays subscribed.
- ✓ Affiliate income and brand deals in one storefront, with #ad disclosure by default.
Side by side
Beacons Creator Plus and Favly Pro side by side, including where Beacons wins.
This table sets Beacons Creator Plus against Favly Pro, because those are the two plans a creator paid mostly in commission is actually choosing between. Beacons figures come from beacons.ai/i/plans, read on 23 October 2026. Where Beacons wins, the table says so.
| Capability | Favly | Beacons | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price billed yearly | $288 a year (Pro) | $300 a year (Creator Plus) | OFFICIAL. Creator is $100 a year with the 9% fee |
| Free plan | One free demo storefront | Free forever | OFFICIAL. 9% seller fee on Free |
| Sell your own products and courses | × | Unlimited courses with video hosting on Creator Plus. A genuine Beacons strength | |
| Media kit, rate cards and invoices | × | OFFICIAL. Daily-updating media kit on every plan | |
| Email sends | Email and deal-alert capture | Unlimited on Creator Plus | OFFICIAL. 50 a month on Free, 500 on Creator |
| Fee on its own marketplace commission | No marketplace fee | 0% on Creator Plus | OFFICIAL. 9% on Free and Creator |
| Fee on programs you join yourself | None | None | STRUCTURAL. That commission is paid by the merchant, never through the page |
| Commission reports matched to each link | × | Not listed on the Beacons plan comparison | |
| Priority recurring SaaS and AI programs | × | Beacons lists a general 12k brand catalog | |
| Custom domain | OFFICIAL. Free custom domain from Creator | ||
| AI assistant | AI builds your lists from your posts | Unlimited Beam credits | OFFICIAL. 30 and 300 daily credits on Free and Creator |
FAQ
Questions creators ask about Beacons and what to use instead.
What is the best alternative to Beacons?
It depends on where your money comes from. For a simple link page, Linktree is the familiar pick. For selling courses and downloads, Stan Store and Pillar are the closest swaps. For a cheaper mini site, Komi and Milkshake cost less. For creators whose income is affiliate commission on tools and gear, a storefront that reports earnings per link fits better. Favly Pro does that for $288 a year.
How much does Beacons cost?
Beacons Free costs nothing. Creator is $100 a year or $10 monthly, Creator Plus is $300 a year or $30 monthly, and Creator Max is $1,000 a year or $100 monthly, according to beacons.ai/i/plans on 23 October 2026. Annual billing is advertised as two months free.
Does Beacons take a percentage of sales?
Yes, below Creator Plus. Beacons takes a 9% fee on products you sell on Free and Creator, and the same 9% on commission earned through its own brand marketplace. Creator Plus and Creator Max drop both to 0%. Commission from programs you join yourself is never touched, because it is paid to you directly.
Is Beacons better than Linktree?
For selling, yes. Beacons includes a store, a media kit and email on its free plan, while Linktree is mainly a link page. Linktree has the bigger brand, more templates and a better reputation on review sites. For affiliate income specifically, neither one matches commission to the link that earned it.
Is Beacons better than Stan Store?
Beacons is cheaper and has a free plan, which Stan Store does not. Creator Plus at $300 a year removes the fee, against $300 a year for Stan Creator. Stan is simpler to set up and scores higher on Trustpilot. Both are built for selling your own products, not for tracking affiliate commission.
Is Beacons free?
Yes. Beacons Free costs $0 forever and includes a link in bio, a store for unlimited digital products, affiliate links, a daily-updating media kit and 50 email sends a month. The catch is the 9% fee on what you sell and on Beacons marketplace commission, which only goes away on Creator Plus.
Can you put affiliate links on Beacons?
Yes. Every Beacons plan lets you add affiliate links, both from programs you joined yourself and from Beacons' own catalog of brand partners. Only the catalog links carry the 9% fee below Creator Plus. Beacons does not list matching outside program reports to each link.
Is Beacons Creator Plus worth it?
On fees alone, only once your own sales plus Beacons marketplace commission pass about $3,333 a year, since $300 is 9% of that. Below it, the 9% costs less. If your income is commission from programs you joined directly, the fee cut is worth $0 and the case rests on courses, memberships and unlimited email.
What are sites like Beacons?
Sites like Beacons fall into three groups. Link in bio pages such as Linktree, Taplink and Milkshake. Creator shops with checkout such as Stan Store, Pillar and Komi. And affiliate storefronts such as Favly, ShopMy and LTK, which are built around commission on products you recommend rather than products you sell.
Go deeper
If you are still deciding whether Beacons itself is worth it, our Beacons review reads every plan limit and the support response times, and Beacons pricing for affiliate creators works through the 9% fee with your own numbers.
If you sell your own products as well, Stan Store alternatives prices each creator shop from the vendor's own page, and Pillar pricing for affiliate creators shows when its 5% and 0% plans pay back. For a cheaper page, our Komi alternative and our Milkshake alternative read both plans at source, and Linktree alternatives compares the biggest name in the field.
If your income is commission, an affiliate link in bio shows how a commission-first page differs from a list of buttons, our affiliate link manager shows how program reports are matched back to each link, and recurring affiliate programs lists the software programs that keep paying after the first sale.
Every storefront, link page and program, and who each one is built for
No application. No follower gate.
Claim your favly.com/@you storefront and turn the AI tools, software and gear you already recommend into affiliate commissions and brand deals.