74
ThirstyAffiliates – Affiliate Links, Link Branding, Link Tracking & Marketing Plugin
It cleans up your links but clutters your dashboard with ads.
HealthyDeclining
74/100
The plugin offers reliable link management despite annoying admin banners and reports of licensing issues.
Active installs
~49,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 30k+
Rating
4.6★
251 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-33%
Declining fast
156 → 105 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORdownloads down 33% vs a year ago
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining fast · -33% in the last year
156/day a year ago→105/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayThirstyAffiliates is well-regarded as a straightforward, reliable affiliate link management plugin, but a recurring intrusive admin banner and at least one serious licensing dispute are notable caveats.
What people like
- +Easy to use for creating and managing affiliate links×5
- +Keeps affiliate links organized and makes them easy to swap out×2
- +Supports link cloaking/uncloaking and rel tag options (e.g. sponsored)
- +Provides basic analytics/click tracking×2
- +Does not break sites and is considered stable×2
- +Passes variables through short links
Common complaints
- −Persistent, oversized promotional banner on every WP admin page load that cannot be disabled×3
- −Click tracking / reporting does not work for some users — shows no data and no errors
- −Setup wizard and admin UI fail to render correctly for some users (broken CSS, unclickable buttons)
- −Lifetime license stopped working and support asked the user to repurchase rather than resolving the issue
- −No device targeting in the paid version, only geo targeting
- −Support unresponsive to reported issues in the forums
Review trustReviews look organic
- 4.73★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.60★
- 10%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-09-182025-02-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 251 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-04-14★★★★★Busted from the get-gopulsewebdesigns
- 2026-02-02★★★★★Shop With HamEdhamed54861-shot
- 2026-01-10★★★★★Very Good Pluginlusi23
- 2025-12-17★★★★★Excellent Affiliate Pluginphillip2532
- 2025-10-30★★★★★“The Ultimate Affiliate Link Manager for WordPress — A Must-Have Plugin!”Greg Rice
- 2025-10-30★★★★★Thank youMJ Habib
- 2025-10-11★★★★★Greatdancool1975
- 2025-08-29★★★★★perfectpwfjci
- 2025-06-23★★★★★Easiest Affiliate Plugincanuckart
- 2025-06-17★★★★★Lifetime license is not lifetime, they will charge you again!Styling Desigins
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
103
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
105
Prior 7-day baseline
109
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
8,965
Mean release-day peak (30d)
416
Latest day · 2026-06-03(spike)
-1.9%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
15%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
1.24
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
89%
5★ share in analyzed sample
10%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
-33%
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.76 → 4.73★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered