Travelpayouts or Stay22: Which is the Best Travel Affiliate Program?
Estimated reading time: 15 mins
Right, this is the affiliate question I get asked more than any other, usually by a fellow blogger two coffees deep into monetisation research: Travelpayouts or Stay22? And I’m in an unusually good position to answer it, because I run both. On this site. Right now. My Booking.com links go through Stay22, my GetYourGuide and Hostelworld links go through Travelpayouts, and between them they handle most of what The Travel Tinker earns.
So this isn’t a spec-sheet comparison written by someone who signed up for both last Tuesday. It’s a working blogger’s honest head-to-head after living inside both dashboards for a long time. I’ll compare the brands, the tools, the payouts and the actual earning experience, then give you a proper verdict rather than a cowardly “it depends”. Spoiler: one of them does take it. But the margin is closer than you’d think, and there’s a decent case for not choosing at all.
This article may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps fund the site and keeps our guides free. See our full affiliate disclosure for details.
Try Travelpayouts: Free to join, 100+ travel brands in one dashboard. Create your free Travelpayouts account here and follow along as you read.
Try Stay22: Free too, with one clever script that monetises your accommodation links automatically. Grab your free Stay22 account here and compare the dashboards yourself.
Quick Facts: Travelpayouts vs Stay22 at a Glance
Both are free: No sign-up fees, no subscriptions, no traffic minimums on either platform. Zero risk to try both
Travelpayouts strength: Breadth. Over 100 travel brands (tours, stays, eSIMs, car hire, insurance) plus a superb dashboard and the Drive monetisation tool
Stay22 strength: Automation. One script that turns your accommodation mentions into tracked, optimised links, with Booking.com converting brilliantly behind it
My best sellers: GetYourGuide and Hostelworld on Travelpayouts, Booking.com on Stay22. Different platforms, different champions
They coexist happily: No exclusivity on either side. Running both on one site is completely normal and, honestly, my recommendation
My overall winner: Travelpayouts, on the strength of its dashboard and the Drive link integration. Full reasoning below
Tinker's Tip: Since both are free with no traffic gates, the smartest move is signing up to both and comparing the dashboards against your own content. Ten minutes in each tells you more than any review, including this one. Then come back for the nuance.
Why I Run Both (And Why This Comparison Matters)
Quick context on where this is all coming from. The Travel Tinker covers destination guides, transport guides and planning resources for a global audience, which means my content mentions hotels, hostels, tours, eSIMs, car hire and airport transfers constantly. Every one of those mentions is a potential commission, and for ages I handled them badly: a patchwork of direct programmes, separate dashboards, and small earnings stranded below five different payout thresholds.
These two platforms fixed that mess between them. Travelpayouts became my everything-network: tours through GetYourGuide, hostel bookings through Hostelworld, eSIMs, transfers, the lot, all under one login. Stay22 became my accommodation engine, quietly converting my Booking.com mentions into my biggest single earner without me lifting a finger.
So the real question isn’t “which one is good”. They’re both genuinely excellent, and I’ve written a full Travelpayouts review and a full Stay22 review making exactly that case in detail. The question is which one deserves to be the backbone of your affiliate setup. And that’s where the differences get interesting.
Here’s how the split works in practice on my site, in case a concrete example helps. A “things to do in Lisbon” post carries GetYourGuide tour links through Travelpayouts, because tours are the natural next click from that content. A “where to stay in Lisbon” post leans on Stay22, because the script optimises every hotel mention without me touching a thing. A budget backpacking guide gets Hostelworld links via Travelpayouts, since hostel readers and hostel commissions were made for each other. And a packing or planning post picks up eSIM and insurance links from the Travelpayouts catalogue. Same city, four posts, two platforms, each doing what it’s best at. Once you see your content that way, the “or” in this article’s title starts looking a bit silly.
Good to know: Neither platform takes a cut from your side of the commission. Both earn their share from the brands, so what you see in either dashboard is what actually reaches your account. Rare honesty in this industry, and both deserve credit for it.
Travelpayouts in a Nutshell
Travelpayouts is a travel-only affiliate network that’s been running for well over a decade, hosting more than 100 brand programmes and having paid partners over $60 million (around £48 million / €55 million). Booking.com, Viator, GetYourGuide, Hostelworld, Discover Cars, Airalo, Trip.com: they’re all in there, accessible through one application, one dashboard and one combined monthly payout.
The everyday experience is what sold me. You connect to the brands that fit your content, generate deep links with Sub IDs so you know exactly which post earned what, and watch everything feed a single balance. Small commissions that would sit stranded across separate programmes stack together and actually reach payout. For a solo blogger, that structural difference is worth real money in year one alone.
And then there’s Drive, their content monetisation tool, which I’ll rave about properly in the tools section because it’s the main reason Travelpayouts takes the crown in this comparison. If you want the deep dive first, my free Travelpayouts account link gets you into the dashboard in about two minutes, and everything below will make more sense with it open.
Fact: Travelpayouts has operated since 2011 and kept partner payments running on schedule even through the pandemic. On my site, GetYourGuide and Hostelworld through Travelpayouts are the two best-converting programmes I run on the network, month after month.
Stay22 in a Nutshell
Stay22 is a Canadian travel tech company trusted by over 5,000 creators, processing more than $1 billion (around £800 million / €920 million) in travel transactions a year. Where Travelpayouts hands you a toolbox, Stay22 hands you a butler. You install one script (they call it Let Me Allez), and it automatically converts the accommodation links across your site into tracked, optimised affiliate links. Old posts included. All of them. Overnight.
Behind that script sit the platforms readers already trust: Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Kayak, TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide and Agoda. Their AI decides which offer suits which reader, their Spark tool finds monetisation gaps you’ve missed, and their interactive maps let readers browse stays without leaving your post. You also get a dedicated Partner Success Associate: a named human who knows your site and answers emails like one.
The result on my site speaks for itself. Booking.com through Stay22 is my single biggest-earning partnership, and it demands almost none of my time. If you write about places to stay at all, a free Stay22 account plus one evening of setup is about the best effort-to-income ratio in travel blogging.
Quick win: Whichever platform you pick, monetise your existing archive first. Stay22's script does it automatically for stays, and Travelpayouts' LinkSwitcher does it for its brands. Either way, your old posts are the fastest money you'll ever make.
Head-to-Head: Brands and Coverage
First proper battleground. Who lets you earn from more of your content?
← Swipe to scroll on mobile
| Category | Travelpayouts | Stay22 |
|---|---|---|
| Hotels & stays | Strong (Booking.com, Agoda, Hostelworld, Trip.com) | Exceptional (Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, optimised by AI) |
| Tours & activities | Excellent (GetYourGuide, Viator, Tiqets, Klook) | Decent (GetYourGuide) but not the focus |
| Flights | Yes (Aviasales, WayAway, Kiwi.com) | Not really its game |
| Car hire, eSIMs, insurance, transfers | Yes, all covered under one roof | No, stays-first by design |
| Winner | Travelpayouts on breadth | Stay22 on accommodation depth |
Honest summary: if your blog only ever recommended places to stay, Stay22's depth would edge it. But most travel blogs (mine included) monetise the whole trip, and only Travelpayouts covers the whole trip. Round one to breadth.
Check this first: Audit your ten most-read posts before choosing. Mostly "where to stay" content? Stay22's automation will earn from day one. Mostly "things to do" and planning guides? Travelpayouts' tours and extras coverage fits you better. Your archive already knows the answer.
Head-to-Head: Tools, Dashboards and Automation
This is where the contest is actually decided, so let’s take our time.
Stay22’s headline act is the Smart Script. Install it once and your accommodation links are monetised forever, including the archive. Their Nova system reads booking intent and serves the right offer to the right reader, Spark finds the affiliate gaps you missed, and the interactive maps are genuinely lovely under a destination guide. As pure automation, it’s brilliant. Set it, forget it, get paid.
Travelpayouts counters with Drive, and this is where it wins the whole comparison for me. Drive analyses your content, works out where readers are most likely to book, and integrates the right affiliate links into those exact spots, across the full brand catalogue rather than just stays. Tours in your “things to do” posts. eSIMs in your packing guides. Stays where stays belong. It’s the same automated philosophy as Stay22’s script, but applied to the entire trip instead of one slice of it. Pair it with LinkSwitcher for your archive and Sub IDs for tracking, and the link integration is simply a level above.
Then there’s the dashboard itself. Travelpayouts gives you programme-by-programme stats, booking dates, devices, countries and Sub ID breakdowns in one clean view. It turns your reporting into a to-do list: I can see that GetYourGuide converts brilliantly on my Rome content and Hostelworld dominates my budget guides, and then write accordingly. Stay22’s real-time dashboard is slick and satisfying (watching a booking land at breakfast never gets old), but for depth, filtering and turning data into content decisions, Travelpayouts is the one I keep open in a tab all day.
Must do: If you join Travelpayouts, switch Drive on in your first week and let it run for a month before judging. It needs a little data to find its feet, and the difference between week one and week four on my site was genuinely startling.
Head-to-Head: Payouts and Support
Money mechanics next, because a commission you can't withdraw is just a number on a screen.
← Swipe to scroll on mobile
| Factor | Travelpayouts | Stay22 |
|---|---|---|
| Payout style | Automatic monthly, no action needed | Monthly on request once you clear the minimum |
| Minimum threshold | From $50 (around £40 / €46) via PayPal | Varies by country, sometimes higher |
| Methods | PayPal or bank transfer | Bank transfer in your local currency |
| Support | 24/7 team, replies in under half an hour on average | Dedicated named Partner Success Associate |
| Winner | Payouts, for the automation and lower entry | Support style, if you like a named human |
Support is honestly a draw decided by taste. Stay22's named-human model is a lovely thing, and my Associate has proactively found me money more than once. Travelpayouts' round-the-clock team is faster for quick technical questions at odd hours. On payouts, though, Travelpayouts' fully automatic monthly payment with a lower, consistent threshold is the more beginner-friendly setup by a clear margin.
Money saver: Neither platform charges you transfer fees on their side, and neither skims your commission. Combined balances on Travelpayouts also mean small earnings from several brands stack toward one threshold instead of sitting stranded. Free money hygiene, both of them.
The Travel Tinker Shop
Gear we actually travel with
Passport holders, packing cubes, travel wallets. Stuff that earns its place in the bag.
Browse the shopWhat Each One Earns Me (Honest Numbers)
Now the bit everyone actually scrolled for. I won't publish my full income report here, but I'll happily show you the shape of it, because the shape is the useful part:
← Swipe to scroll on mobile
| On my site | Star performer | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Stay22 | Booking.com, my single biggest earner | Readers trust it, the script optimises it, stays are booked daily |
| Travelpayouts | GetYourGuide and Hostelworld, my best-converting duo | Tours are impulse-friendly, hostels dominate my budget guides |
| Typical per-booking commissions | Roughly $8 to $15 (around £6.50 to £12 / €7.50 to €14) on stays, tours as a % of booking value | Varies with platform, property and basket size on both networks |
| Effort required | Stay22 near zero, Travelpayouts low but hands-on | Drive is closing that gap fast, which is part of why it wins |
The pattern worth stealing: stays earn steadily because everyone needs a bed, while tours spike beautifully around "things to do" content. A single reader booking a week-long stay can out-earn ten tour bookings, but the tours convert far more often. Run both engines and the income smooths out across seasons, which your mortgage will appreciate more than any single big month.
And both platforms have published success stories far beyond my numbers: partners earning $3,000 to $5,000 a month (roughly £2,400 to £4,000 / €2,750 to €4,600) on Travelpayouts, and Stay22 case studies showing a 50% bookings jump and even a 14x revenue uplift after switching. Outliers, sure. But instructive ones.
Timing tip: Stays confirm after check-out and tours confirm after the activity happens, so both platforms pay with a lag. Plant links before peak booking season and treat the first quiet months as the fuse, not the verdict.
Where Stay22 Wins
Credit where it’s due, because Stay22 wins several rounds of this fight outright:
- Pure automation on stays. Nothing on Travelpayouts, Drive included, matches the install-and-forget simplicity of the Smart Script for accommodation. One evening of setup, years of earnings.
- Booking.com performance. The optimisation behind those links is superb. It’s my top single earner for a reason.
- The named human. A dedicated Partner Success Associate who knows your site beats a ticket queue on the days you need actual strategy rather than a quick answer.
- Interactive maps. Genuinely attractive, reader-friendly, and every booking through them credits to you. Travelpayouts has widgets, but Stay22’s maps are prettier. There, I said it.
- Retail earnings beyond travel. Stay22’s newer Retail side surfaces offers from brands like Walmart, Nike and Sephora when readers show shopping intent, so packing lists and gear content can earn too. Travelpayouts stays strictly in the travel lane.
If your content is heavily accommodation-led (hotel roundups, “where to stay” guides, honeymoon content), a free Stay22 account might honestly earn you more per hour of effort than anything else in this post.
Reality check: Neither platform rescues a blog nobody reads. Both multiply the booking intent already in your traffic. Get readers to content where they're deciding what to book, and either of these turns that moment into income. No readers, no rounds won by anyone.
Where Travelpayouts Wins
And now the rounds that decide the match:
- Coverage of the whole trip. Tours, hostels, flights, eSIMs, car hire, insurance, transfers and stays under one roof. Stay22 covers one (important) slice; Travelpayouts covers the journey.
- The dashboard. Deeper filtering, Sub ID tracking, and reporting that tells you what content to write next. It’s the difference between stats you glance at and stats you act on.
- Drive’s link integration. Automated, intelligent link placement across 100+ brands rather than one category. This is the feature that settles the comparison. It takes Stay22’s best idea and applies it to everything.
- Payout mechanics. Fully automatic, monthly, from a lower and consistent threshold, with everything feeding one combined balance.
- White Label. They’ll hand you a fully branded flight search engine, widget or standalone page, connected to around 250,000 flight providers, free and live in about a day. Your own “Skyscanner but mine” with zero build costs. Stay22 has nothing comparable.
- The Academy. Free, genuinely good courses on affiliate strategy and SEO. Would have saved me two years of trial and error if I’d had it at the start.
Stack those up and the verdict writes itself. Stay22 is the better specialist. Travelpayouts is the better platform. And a platform is what most bloggers actually need. Start with a free Travelpayouts account and you’ve covered every corner of your content from day one.
Watch out: On both platforms, bookings completed inside a brand's mobile app rather than the browser usually won't track to you. It's an industry-wide limitation, not a flaw unique to either, but budget for it mentally if your audience is very mobile-heavy.
Head-to-Head: The Referral Programmes
Both platforms will also pay you for bringing other creators on board, and the two programmes are structured very differently. Worth comparing properly, because if you're active in blogging communities this is genuine extra income:
← Swipe to scroll on mobile
| Factor | Travelpayouts | Stay22 |
|---|---|---|
| Total per referral | Up to $600 (around £480 / €550) | $500 cash (around £400 / €460) |
| How it's earned | Staged: $100 when they earn $500, $200 at $1,500, $300 at $3,000 | One payment when they reach 100 confirmed travel bookings |
| Referral's bonus | Yes, bonuses for onboarding and early milestones | Yes, $100 (around £80 / €92) at the same milestone |
| Extra track | None, one programme covers all creators | Retail track: $50 (around £40 / €46) gift card per qualified food or lifestyle creator |
| Best for referring | Creators of any size, since the first bonus triggers early | Established creators likely to hit 100 bookings |
My take: Travelpayouts' staged structure suits referring newer bloggers, because that first $100 lands when your referral earns their first $500, a milestone most committed beginners actually reach. Stay22's single $500 is the bigger headline, but 100 confirmed bookings is a proper bar, so it rewards you most for referring creators who are already established. And Stay22's retail track is a clever wildcard if your circle includes food or lifestyle creators rather than pure travel folk. Run both programmes and match the referral to the person, same as everything else in this comparison.
Good to know: Both referral programmes pay from the platforms' own funds, not from your referral's earnings. The creator you refer keeps every penny of their commission, plus they collect their own bonus. Nobody loses, which is exactly how a referral programme should be built.
My Final Verdict: Travelpayouts Takes It (But Keep Both)
So, Travelpayouts or Stay22? If I could only keep one account, it would be Travelpayouts, and the deciding votes are the dashboard and Drive. The reporting turns data into a content plan, and Drive’s automated link integration across the full brand catalogue means the platform now does the tedious work Stay22 pioneered, but for the entire trip rather than just the bed at the end of it. Add the automatic payouts, the combined balance and the sheer breadth, and it’s the stronger backbone for a travel blog’s income. My GetYourGuide and Hostelworld earnings alone would justify the account.
But (and it’s a big, well-earned but) I’m not closing my Stay22 account, and I wouldn’t advise you to skip it either. Booking.com through Stay22 remains my single biggest earner, the script is the best set-and-forget tool in the industry, and both platforms cost exactly nothing. This isn’t a divorce court. It’s a team sheet, and both make my starting eleven.
The full case for each lives in my detailed Travelpayouts review and Stay22 review if you want the deep dives. Or skip the homework: join Travelpayouts free here as your backbone, add Stay22 free here for your stays, and let the two of them argue over who earned you more this month. It’s a lovely argument to host.
Small print: Commission structures, payout minimums and programme terms on both platforms are set by the companies and their partner brands, and they can change. Always check the live terms in your own dashboards before building a strategy around specific numbers.
Ready to Put Your Content on the Payroll?
Here’s the whole game plan, and it fits in a weekend. Saturday: open your free Travelpayouts account, connect GetYourGuide, Hostelworld and Booking.com, and switch on Drive. Sunday: open your free Stay22 account, install the script, and tell your Partner Success Associate what links you already run. Done. Every accommodation mention and every “things to do” post you’ve ever written is now quietly on the clock.
Your readers are already booking trips off the back of your recommendations. The only question, as ever, is who gets paid when they do. Might as well be you, twice over.
Adventure on,
The Travel Tinker Crew 🌍✨
Tinker's Tip: After 60 days, compare the two dashboards side by side and double down where your data points. Some blogs turn out to be stays blogs, some turn out to be tours blogs, and most of us only find out by looking. Let the numbers pick your niche's favourite.
Happy tinkering, and even happier earning!
FAQs
Can I use Travelpayouts and Stay22 at the same time?
Yes, completely. Neither has exclusivity terms, and running both on one site is common. I do exactly that: Stay22 handles my accommodation links while Travelpayouts covers tours, hostels, eSIMs and everything else.
Which is better for beginners, Travelpayouts or Stay22?
Both are beginner-friendly with no traffic minimums and free sign-up. Travelpayouts edges it overall thanks to the lower automatic payout threshold and the free Academy courses, while Stay22 is the easier install if your content is mostly about places to stay.
Do Travelpayouts or Stay22 take a cut of your commission?
No. Both earn their share from the travel brands, not from your side of the commission. The figure you see in either dashboard is what gets paid out to you.
Which platform pays out faster?
Travelpayouts pays automatically every month once your balance passes the minimum (from $50, around £40 / €46, via PayPal). Stay22 pays monthly on request, with a minimum that varies by country and up to 30 days for the transfer, though it’s usually quicker.
What sells best on each platform?
On my site, Booking.com is the clear winner through Stay22, while GetYourGuide and Hostelworld lead on Travelpayouts. Your mix will depend on your content, which is exactly why both dashboards are worth watching for a couple of months.
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Nick Harvey
Hi, I am Nick! Thank you for reading! The Travel Tinker is a resource designed to help you navigate the beauty of travel! Tinkering your plans as you browse!
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