Anthropologie made far more money off this image than I did, but we both did well.
I came across a newsletter recently that equated sharing affiliate links with “monetizing taste.” The newsletter was about how traditional 9-5 workers (some in high level positions) are now using affiliate links alongside traditional influencers. Not because they want to quit their jobs to become full-time influencers, but because (and I’m paraphrasing here) affiliate companies like ShopMy have made it so dang easy for people to “put their taste on display,” and make money off of it.
It’s true, using affiliate links, and making money from them, has literally never been easier. ShopMy has exploded in popularity with 185,000 people using the platform. Overall in 2025, affiliate links accounted for over $200 billion in US e-commerce sales. That’s around 20% of all e-commerce sales in the United States.
On any given day, if you are a person on the internet, you will undoubtedly come across affiliate links. They’re used by influencers on every social media platform. Most fashion newsletters are overflowing with them. You can find them online everywhere from Glamour to The New York Times Wirecutter.
I decided to give myself a real mindf$ck and go through the top 10 fashion/beauty newsletters on Substack to see how affiliate links are playing out there (One very well known fashion writer had 157 affiliate links in ONE newsletter.) What was illuminating though, was how little if at all, any of the top fashion newsletters disclosed their sponsored content, brand gifting or use of affiliate links (even though this is legally required by the FTC1).
In fact regarding affiliate links, the FTC says that disclosures should be “clear and conspicuous, close to the link, and before the consumer clicks so they understand the financial connection.” Of the top 10 fashion/beauty newsletters on Substack that use affiliate links, NONE OF THEM followed those guidelines. The other two in the top 10 are newsletters that do not use affiliate links or run ads (we’ll get to that), Blackbird Spyplane and Flesh World (both excellent, check them out!).
It’s interesting, because fashion newsletter writers on Substack got big mad about Totally Recommend’s piece earlier this month where she outlined how fashion newsletters make money, calling her piece misogynistic and anti-feminist because “everybody knows how it works” and “no one can stand when women make money.” Let’s unpack that a little bit.
I can say with confidence most people in my life have no idea how affiliate links work2. How would they? How could they? I’ve never seen an influencer or fashion newsletter clearly spell it out (guilty here, sorry). There’s a reason fashion newsletters don’t properly disclose their use of affiliate links (or sponsored content for that matter). Because using affiliate links is very lucrative. I know because I did it for 10 years.
If you appreciate my work in this newsletter please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, which I offer on a sliding scale (pay what you can afford). This newsletter does not contain affiliate links or ads and I’ll never try to sell you stuff you don’t need (except a subscription to this newsletter, which you may not need but I think you’ll enjoy).
During that time I justified it to myself with the same logic influencers are using now. I was just “helping” people. Getting paid for “my time and work.” But I was a pawn. A mouthpiece for brands and corporations that profit off our insecurities and addiction to consumption. I got other women to participate in the same system I was trapped in, because it can’t be that bad if everyone’s doing it right?
Over time I recognized I was a part of the problem. And if we’re going to talk about feminism and “hating on women making money,” let’s talk about the people propping up the fashion industry who barely make enough money to survive. As I wrote last month, “80% of our clothing is made by young women between the ages of 18 and 24, and they suffer from exploitation, abuse, low wages, and forced labor.” These women are making the very items influencers and fashion writers are selling. I’m not sure how you reconcile that? I couldn’t, and it’s (one of the many reasons) why I walked away from making thousands a month selling people stuff they didn’t need.
The truth is, we are far more likely to buy something based on a genuine recommendation from a friend. This is part of the reason why para-social relationships with influencers and fashion writers are so crucial to their business. Because it’s human nature to be influenced by someone who feels like a friend, or at the very least you feel personally connected to.
Let me give you an example (inspired by a fashion newsletter that does not disclose their use of affiliate links).
What they said:
You already know about my obsession with ______ brand pants. They're the pants I grab when I want to feel pulled together but also want to feel like I'm on vacation. They just dropped a new print, and I know these will sell out.
Reading between the lines:
You already know about my obsession with _____ brand pants. I talk about them a lot because they sent me a pair in every color for free. Last month I earned $15k in commission (at a 20% commission rate), and now they’re going to sponsor a newsletter for $10k. They're the pants I grab when I want to feel pulled together but also want to feel like I'm on vacation. And I go on vacation a lot because I make millions selling this lifestyle to people like you. They just dropped a new print, and I know these will sell out. I’m creating a sense of urgency because doing so gets you to buy them faster.
See what I mean? It’s becomes pretty obvious why people use affiliate links with reckless abandon, and avoid disclosing it, or do so in a manner that is SO inconspicuous you would most likely miss it. For example including a tiny sentence at the end of a very long newsletter.
With so many people using affiliate links now it’s starting to seem like everyone is doing it. So I wanted to hear from some people who are not.
(Some quotes and responses below have been edited for clarity and brevity.)
Leslie Stephens is the writer of the newsletter Morning Person, a culture newsletter with 50,000 subscribers. When Leslie started her newsletter she intentionally chose not to use affiliate links, and she knows better than anyone how lucrative it can be. Working for a lifestyle brand six years ago Leslie said, “a blog post about a beauty sale could bring in as much as $60,000 from a single post.”
I asked Leslie why she decided not to use affiliate links in her newsletter and how her feelings towards them shifted:
In my role at the lifestyle blog, I was rarely honest about what I was actually buying. In an "Everything I Bought" post, I rarely purchased the items I mentioned. I came to see my "blog self" as a character that felt further and further from who I actually am. In doing so, my trust in other influencers began to erode, since I knew many weren't actually buying the products they claimed to (or bought them because the affiliate revenue could be hundreds of times the cost of the product). It generates a dopaminergic cycle of buying and internalized feeling of lack that I still fall into, but try my best not to contribute to.
I created Morning Person without any affiliate links because I wanted to protect that trust and didn't love the idea of my income being determined by how much I convinced my readers to buy. I still post links to products, but I don't get any discounts or kickback—readers know I'm sharing the items because I genuinely love them. Instead, my income stream comes from subscriptions, rather than affiliate or sponsored revenue. There's also the argument to be made that it's set me apart in an affiliate-saturated market.
Rufina from Totally Recommend started her newsletter after spending years working in marketing and performance advertising making commissions off affiliate links. She understood how affiliate structures shape behavior. As she put it, “The incentives are simple: the more people buy, the more the publisher earns. Over time that tends to push content toward constant product promotion, frequent “roundups,” and urgency driven recommendations.”
When she launched her own newsletter, she knew she did not want to use affiliate links:
If a recommendation is tied to a commission, there’s always a subtle pressure to keep recommending things. Removing affiliate links eliminates that pressure. It also makes it easier to talk honestly about marketing tactics and overconsumption without being financially tied to the same system.
Clara who got her start online as a style blogger and now writes the culture newsletter Hmm That’s Interesting said she used some affiliate links early on but made “at most a few hundred dollars over the last decade or so.” She said she’s been approached by affiliate businesses and brands offering products or services in exchange for reviews/links, but isn’t interested because “there's an inherent awkwardness (for lack of a better word) in recommending a good or a service that I haven't purchased myself. The motivations are off.”
She says she doesn’t really share links to things because she purchase a lot less stuff now. “It took a while, but I trained myself out of the buying things makes me happy approach that I subscribed to in my twenties, when I followed a million and one fashion bloggers and lifestyle creators who kept recommending things I could buy to bridge the gap from their life to mine. Now, the mindless accumulation of stuff makes me anxious.”
For writers who aren’t using affiliate links, the motivation comes from a desire to be in alignment with their personal values, and to ensure they maintain trust with their readers. Brittany Viklund, writer of the newsletter In Joy, said she doesn’t use affiliate links because she doesn’t want to profit from people’s shopping habits or feel financially incentivized to encourage consumption.
As someone who is trying to be more mindful about what I buy— and about the environmental impact of consumerism— it simply doesn’t align with my values to monetize shopping.
I want my work to offer value because of the ideas, perspective, or inspiration it provides, not because of what it can sell. And as a consumer of creative content myself, I’m drawn to content that doesn’t make me feel like I’m lacking something or that I need to buy more in order to feel complete. I’m genuinely happy to pay a small monthly subscription to support creators whose work I enjoy, especially when it means I can engage with their content without being sold to.
ShopMy, one of the leading affiliate platforms, has a tagline that reads “Curated by the obsessed, not the algorithm.” It’s easy to see why the argument that affiliate links are simply a way to “monetize taste” or to “pay a creator for their time” seems to prevail. It’s the story I sold myself for a decade. I spent years talking myself out of walking away from an industry I knew was predatory and destructive because the money was just so good.
But once you see how the sausage is made, it’s hard to unsee it. The thing is, what they call curation and inspiration is actually just optimization and extraction in disguise. Taste is not a transaction. It’s not something that can be packaged in the form of a link. It comes from lived experience, built slowly, intentionally, offline, and far away from anyone who would try and convince you it’s something that can be bought or sold.
Let’s give a special shoutout to all the newsletters out there not using affiliate links. I’ll share a few that I haven’t already mentioned in today’s newsletter, drop your favorites in the comments!
Newsletters that don’t use affiliate links:
Maybe Baby by Haley Nahman
Meets Most by Leah Reich
Stir the Pot by Michelle Albanes-Davis
From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
Teniade Topics by Marion Teniade
Links I Would GChat You If We Were Friends by Caitlin Dewey
1 The FTC has settled ONE case against two individuals for lack of disclosure. To say it plainly, there is no enforcement, and therefore very little risk in not following what’s legally required.
2 There are several ways affiliate links work. By using an affiliate link you are potentially earning money any time someone clicks on or makes a purchase through that link. For many affiliate links the person does not actually have to buy the product the person linked to, they only need to make a purchase within the allotted cookie window (average 30 days) from that website (this is why Amazon is so lucrative for influencers, people buy a lot of shit from them). Commission percentages with affiliate links can vary widely and can also change during promotional periods. For example during holidays or sales commissions may increase to incentivize linking, and rates usually range between 10% (low end) to 50% (high end). The reason influencers use so many affiliate links is because it increases the chances of a click, and therefore a commission. And we’re not even getting into gifted product and paid partnerships from brands that dictate how and what products are featured.