123 Affiliate Marketing Review: Pat Flynn Course Worth Getting?

⚠️ Update (April 2026): 123 Affiliate Marketing is no longer sold as a standalone $699 course. Pat Flynn has moved all his courses — including this one — behind the SPI Community membership, which costs $99/month or $990/year. This review has been fully updated to reflect the current model.

My 123 Affiliate Marketing Rating: 3/5

The course content is solid if you already have an online audience you want to monetize. But at $99/month for a membership you may not fully use, and with no SEO or traffic training anywhere in sight, it's a tough sell for most people searching for affiliate marketing help.

What Is 123 Affiliate Marketing?

123 Affiliate Marketing is an online course by Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income (SPI) that teaches you how to earn affiliate commissions from an existing online audience. The course covers how to choose the right products to promote, how to set up passive promotional structures like resource pages and email autoresponders, and how to run active affiliate campaigns using demos, interviews, and email broadcasts.

It's worth being clear about what this course is not. There is no SEO training, no paid ads, and no guidance on growing a blog, YouTube channel, or email list from scratch. The course assumes you already have an audience — some kind of following online — and focuses entirely on converting that audience into affiliate revenue. If you were hoping to learn how Pat built his traffic, that answer isn't here.

Who Is Pat Flynn?

Pat Flynn is the founder of Smart Passive Income, a blog he started in 2008 after being laid off from his architecture job. He became well known for publishing detailed monthly income reports, breaking down exactly what he earned and from where — a level of transparency that was genuinely rare in the online business space at the time.

Since 2010, Pat has earned over $3.5 million in affiliate commissions. He also runs the SPI Podcast, two YouTube channels with over 1.45 million combined subscribers, and has advised companies including Kit, Circle, and Maven. He's a real operator with documented results.

I've followed Pat Flynn for years and I think he's one of the most credible people in this space. He doesn't overpromise, he doesn't use shady marketing, and the strategies he teaches are ones he actually uses himself. That reputation carries real weight when evaluating a course like this.

How Has 123 Affiliate Marketing Changed?

This is the most important update in this review, so pay attention here.

When 123 Affiliate Marketing launched, it was available as a standalone purchase for $699. That option no longer exists. As of 2026, the only way to access this course is through an SPI Community membership — Pat Flynn's all-in-one platform that bundles his full course library, live events, office hours, and community forums into a monthly or annual subscription.

The course content itself hasn't changed significantly. The five modules, the lessons, and the Affiliate Marketing Recipe Book are all still intact. What has changed is the business model around it. You're no longer buying one course — you're joining an ongoing membership. I think that's genuinely a better deal if you plan to engage with everything the community offers, but it does mean there's no one-time purchase option anymore.

What Do You Get With the SPI Community Membership?

The paid SPI Community tier includes access to over 17 full-length and mini courses — advertised at over $5,500 in combined value — along with Pat Flynn's office hours twice per month, monthly live workshops led by Pat and guest experts, cohort-based course accelerators, downloadable templates and cheat sheets, and a community forum with over 1,000 active entrepreneurs.

123 Affiliate Marketing itself is four-plus hours of video content. The membership wraps that course in a support structure the old standalone version never had. If you show up for the office hours, attend the workshops, and engage with other members, $99/month is easy to justify. If you just want to watch the videos and log off, the math gets harder.

There is a free "Explore" tier, but it only includes introductory 101 courses and some public events. You need the paid tier to access 123 Affiliate Marketing and the rest of the premium course library.

What Are the Course Modules?

Welcome and Orientation

The course opens with a welcome video from Pat, links to course downloads, and an introduction to how Office Hours work. It's short — three items total — but it establishes the low-hype, direct tone Pat carries through the whole course.

What You Need to Know Before You Begin

This three-lesson section covers Affiliate Marketing 101, Pat's non-negotiable rules for doing affiliate marketing ethically, and how to work through the course. I feel like this intro does something most affiliate marketing courses skip entirely — it makes the case for why audience trust comes before everything else.

Pat is explicit that promoting products you don't believe in will kill both your income and your reputation. It's a mindset section as much as a tactical one, and it's worth taking seriously.

Step 1: Choosing the Right Product

This nine-lesson module walks you through how to identify products your audience will actually buy, how to pick a "focus product" to build a full campaign around, and the mechanics of affiliate links — how to get them, what to do when no program exists, and how to approach the relationship with the affiliate company before you start promoting.

I'll be honest — parts of this module will feel basic if you've been doing affiliate marketing for a while. A lesson explaining what an affiliate link is adds limited value for experienced marketers. But if you're newer to monetizing an existing audience, the product selection framework here is worth working through carefully.

Step 2: Passive Promotional Strategies

This is my favorite module in the course. Eight lessons cover how to go back through your existing content archive and add affiliate links, how to set up a dedicated resources or tools page (your most profitable single page, according to Pat), home page conversion strategies, and an underused page type that most affiliate sites don't have.

The email autoresponder section is particularly well done. Pat walks through how to build an automated email sequence that introduces subscribers to your focus product over time, in a way that feels helpful rather than pushy.

He does note that you should have an email list of at least 500 people before this section becomes useful — if you're not there yet, file this one away for later.

Step 3: Active Promotional Strategies

Eleven lessons covering the campaigns you run intentionally, on top of the passive structures you've already built.

Pat's playbook here includes creating a demo video of the product in action, writing a step-by-step process guide, interviewing the product creator, building a before-and-after case study, running a structured email broadcast campaign, and using affiliate bonuses to differentiate yourself from other affiliates promoting the same product.

I think this is where the course delivers the most distinct value. Pat doesn't just tell you to "promote products" — he gives you a repeatable campaign framework with multiple touchpoints. If you've been leaving money on the table by dropping links into content without a real strategy, this module will change how you approach affiliate promotions.

The Affiliate Marketing Recipe Book

The final section is a collection of PDF checklists and step-by-step workflows for promoting three product types: books, software, and online courses and training programs. Each recipe walks you through a complete promotional sequence using everything taught in the earlier modules.

I think this section is underrated. Having a ready-made sequence to follow — rather than building one from scratch every time — is a real time saver once you're running campaigns regularly. It's also a good way to see how all the passive and active strategies connect in practice.

Who Is 123 Affiliate Marketing For?

This course is built for people who already have some kind of online presence and want a structured approach to monetizing it through affiliate marketing. That could be a blog with traffic, an email list of a few hundred subscribers, a YouTube channel, a podcast audience, or an engaged following on social media.

You don't need a massive audience. Pat is clear that even a small but engaged list is enough to start applying these strategies. What you do need is an existing relationship with some audience, because the entire course is built around leveraging trust — not building it from zero.

If you're also open to engaging with the SPI Community beyond just the course — the workshops, the accelerators, the peer accountability, the office hours with Pat — then the membership model makes a lot of sense. You're paying for an ongoing support structure, not just a single course.

Who Is 123 Affiliate Marketing NOT For?

If you're starting from scratch with no audience, no email list, and no traffic, this course will not help you. That's not a flaw in the course — it's simply what it is. There's no SEO training, no content strategy, and no guidance on how to grow an audience of any kind. Those are prerequisites for everything Pat teaches here, not outcomes.

I also think it's worth doing the math on the subscription model carefully. At $99/month, you need to actually use what the SPI Community offers to get your money's worth.

The old $699 one-time purchase was a better deal for someone who just wanted to watch the course and move on — and that option no longer exists. If the subscription model doesn't suit you, there are courses built specifically for affiliate marketers starting from zero that may be a better fit right now.

How Much Does 123 Affiliate Marketing Cost?

The only way to access 123 Affiliate Marketing is through the paid SPI Community tier. That costs $99 per month, or $990 per year — the annual option works out to about $83 per month and saves you 16%.

The free Explore tier does not include 123 Affiliate Marketing or any premium courses. You need the paid membership.

The refund policy gives you 30 days from your initial sign-up date for a full refund. It's a one-time policy — if you cancel, rejoin later, and want another refund, that won't be available.

What Are the Pros?

Pat Flynn has over $3.5 million in documented affiliate commissions, so the strategies in this course come from someone with a real track record, not a theoretical one. The ethical foundation — audience trust over short-term commissions — is a genuinely good framework and one that holds up long-term.

The Passive Promotional Strategies module and the Recipe Book are both practically useful, not just conceptually interesting. And the SPI Community membership adds live support, office hours, and peer accountability that the old standalone course never included.

What Are the Cons?

The biggest gap is the absence of any traffic or audience-building training. Pat's own income is built primarily on organic search, yet SEO is completely absent from the course. I find that a bit puzzling.

The course content also hasn't been substantially updated in years, even as the delivery model has changed. At $99/month, someone who just wants to watch the videos and move on is paying for a lot of community infrastructure they may never use. And documented student success stories are hard to find publicly, which makes it difficult to gauge how well the strategies translate for people outside Pat's own context.

Is 123 Affiliate Marketing Worth It?

It depends entirely on where you are right now.

If you already have an audience — even a small one — and you want a clear, repeatable framework for running affiliate promotions, the course delivers that. The Recipe Book alone is worth working through if you've never structured a full campaign before. And if you're genuinely going to engage with the SPI Community beyond just the course content, $99/month is reasonable for what's included.

If you're starting from scratch, need to build traffic, or just want to watch one course without an ongoing subscription, this isn't the right move yet. I'd point you toward options built for that earlier stage first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is 123 Affiliate Marketing still available?

Yes, 123 Affiliate Marketing is still available as of 2026, but it's no longer sold as a standalone course. The only way to access it is through the SPI Community membership at $99/month or $990/year.

How much does 123 Affiliate Marketing cost?

Accessing 123 Affiliate Marketing requires an SPI Community membership, which costs $99 per month or $990 per year. There is no longer a one-time standalone purchase option.

Is 123 Affiliate Marketing good for beginners?

No, 123 Affiliate Marketing is not designed for beginners starting from scratch. The course assumes you already have an online audience — a blog, email list, YouTube channel, or social media following — and focuses on monetizing that audience through affiliate marketing. There is no training on building traffic or growing an audience from zero.

Does Pat Flynn have an affiliate program for 123 Affiliate Marketing?

There is no public affiliate program for the SPI Community or the 123 Affiliate Marketing course. Pat Flynn's team also explicitly prohibits members from promoting affiliate programs inside the community itself.

What is the refund policy for the SPI Community?

The SPI Community offers a one-time 30-day refund from your initial sign-up date. If you cancel and rejoin later, the refund policy does not apply a second time.

What is included in the SPI Community membership?

The paid SPI Community tier includes access to over 17 courses including 123 Affiliate Marketing, Pat Flynn's office hours twice per month, monthly live workshops, cohort-based course accelerators, community forums, and downloadable templates and cheat sheets.

What Are the Best Alternatives to 123 Affiliate Marketing?

If 123 Affiliate Marketing isn't the right fit — whether because you're starting from scratch or the subscription model doesn't work for you — check out my full breakdown of the best affiliate marketing courses.

I've reviewed and ranked the top options available right now, including courses that cover SEO, content strategy, and audience building from the ground up.