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The Affiliate Rich List 2026: Who Owns the Networks, and What It's Worth

Independent and reader-supported. Some links here are affiliate links: if you sign up through them, we may earn a commission at no cost to you. It never changes our scores or verdicts. Affiliate disclosure

Illustrated desk on a violet background: a small wooden winners' podium whose top step holds only an empty red velvet cushion, a toy gold crown tipped over beside it and short stacks of gold coins on the lower steps; one hand holds a magnifying glass over a long register sheet with highlighted rows, the other places a coin on a brass scale, with a paper chart of a falling red line, a calculator, a ledger, a stopwatch, sticky notes with a question mark and a dollar sign, and the aliencpa logo on a closed laptop lid.
Contents 12

The companies in this top

Editorial order · places are not for sale
  1. PropellerAds

    Traffic source

    • Push, In-Page Push, Popunder +1
    Not rated yet
    Visit site Official site
  2. Adsterra

    Traffic source

    • Popunder, In-Page Push, Interstitial +2
    Not rated yet
    Visit site Official site
  3. HilltopAds

    Traffic source

    • Popunder, In-Page Push, Video +1
    Not rated yet
  4. RollerAds

    Traffic source

    • Push, In-Page Push, Popunder
    • GEO: WW
    Not rated yet
    Visit site Official site

Search "richest affiliate marketers" and you get Pat Flynn, John Chow, net-worth farms and a course that promises to make you an affiliate billionaire. Open Forbes and the gambling money belongs to operators: Denise Coates of bet365 at $7.5 billion, Ed Craven of Stake.com at $2.2 billion. Neither list answers the question I care about every time I send traffic to a network: who owns the pipes, and what is that worth?

So we built the list ourselves, from filings rather than gossip: annual reports, SEC proxies and Form 4s, a Japanese securities report, Nasdaq Stockholm releases, the Czech and UK company registers. The short version: no owner of an affiliate network is a confirmed billionaire. The richest network founder we can price holds $67.5 million in stock. The top of the whole list is a finance comparison site. And the 2 founders right below it lost 32% of their stake value in a week, because Brazil banned betting.

Everything below is a snapshot at the close of Friday, October 2, 2026, converted at that day's ECB reference rates. These are stakes, not net worth: what each person's shares fetch on the market, nothing more. Where nobody can price a stake honestly, we say so and show what is on record instead.

How we priced the affiliate rich list

Forbes counts everything a person owns, minus debt, and spends months on it. We can't, so we count less and show our work.

A person makes the list if 3 things hold:

  1. The business is paid on the affiliate model: an affiliate network or platform, a traffic source sold mainly to media buyers, or a publisher paid per action, click, lead or revenue share.
  2. The owner is public: named in an annual report, an SEC filing, a stock exchange notice or a company register, not just in a podcast.
  3. The stake can be priced: shares from the latest filing times the closing price on October 2, 2026.

Every number carries a grade:

  • A — Shares in a filing × listed price. Ranked
  • B — Deal price or funding valuation, personal stake unknown. Shown as the company's price, never split per person
  • C — Founder's own words, interviews. Context only
  • D — Rich lists (Forbes, Bloomberg). Quoted with date, never mixed into our numbers

We leave out stock options and unvested awards, debt, cash, real estate, private holdings and dividends taken years ago. That's why these are stake values, not fortunes. It cuts both ways: a founder who sold early and banked the money looks poorer here than in life. FX: EUR/USD 1.1225, EUR/SEK 11.29 and EUR/JPY 176.99 (ECB, October 2, 2026), so USD/SEK 10.058 and USD/JPY 157.67.

In the frame but not ranked: operators (bet365, Stake), groups that own a network as a side line (Rakuten, Axel Springer), lead generation marketplaces (QuinStreet, MediaAlpha) and general ad tech (AppLovin). They appear where they explain where the money goes. If you're on this list and hold a newer filing, send it and we'll update the table.

Why not just copy the press numbers? Because of a Polish founder whose 2017 magazine valuation was more than 5 times the price his products fetched in 2020. That story gets its own section.

The 2026 list: 9 stakes we can price from filings

  • 1. Owner: Tim Chen. Company, type: NerdWallet, finance publisher, US. Stake, source and date: 31.7M Class B via trusts + 0.49M Class A, proxy, Mar 24, 2026. Value, Oct 2, 2026: $192M-$278M.
  • 2. Owner: Jesper Søgaard. Company, type: Better Collective, sports betting publisher, Denmark. Stake, source and date: About 10.4M shares, about 18%: annual report, Dec 31, 2025, less 2026 buyback sales. Value, Oct 2, 2026: About $75M.
  • 2. Owner: Christian Kirk Rasmussen. Company, type: Better Collective. Stake, source and date: About 10.4M shares, about 18%, same basis. Value, Oct 2, 2026: About $75M.
  • 4. Owner: Yasuyoshi Yanagisawa. Company, type: FAN Communications (A8.net), affiliate network, Japan. Stake, source and date: 27,783,600 shares, 41.90%, securities report, Dec 31, 2025. Value, Oct 2, 2026: $67.5M.
  • 5. Owner: Adam Singolda. Company, type: Taboola, native traffic source, Israel/US. Stake, source and date: 13,508,001 shares, Form 4, Aug 16, 2026. Value, Oct 2, 2026: $43.5M.
  • 6. Owner: Charles Gillespie. Company, type: Grandstand (ex Gambling.com Group), iGaming publisher. Stake, source and date: 3,897,281 shares, about 11%, 20-F, Mar 13, 2026. Value, Oct 2, 2026: $5.9M.
  • 7. Owner: Kevin McCrystle. Company, type: Grandstand. Stake, source and date: 981,903 shares, 20-F, Mar 13, 2026. Value, Oct 2, 2026: $1.5M.
  • 8. Owner: Erik Skarp. Company, type: Raketech, iGaming publisher, Sweden. Stake, source and date: 3,353,265 shares, 7.41%, Dec 31, 2025. Value, Oct 2, 2026: $0.43M.
  • 8. Owner: Johan Svensson. Company, type: Raketech. Stake, source and date: 3,333,500 shares, 7.37%, Dec 31, 2024. Value, Oct 2, 2026: $0.43M.

Closing prices: NRDS $8.63, BETCO SEK 72.20, FAN JPY 383, TBLA $3.22, GRSD $1.51, RAKE SEK 1.285 (last trade October 1). All grade A. What each number hides:

1. Tim Chen, NerdWallet: the affiliate model with a finance badge

NerdWallet doesn't call itself an affiliate. Its annual report for 2025 does it for them: "We generate substantially all of our revenue through fees paid by our financial services partners in the form of either revenue per action, revenue per click, revenue per lead, and revenue per funded loan arrangements." That's CPA, CPC and CPL at $836.6 million of revenue in 2025.

Chen is co-founder, chairman and CEO. The 2026 proxy credits him with all 31,685,652 Class B shares, at 10 votes each, which gives him 90.72% of the vote:

NerdWallet 2026 proxy statement, beneficial ownership table: Tim Chen holds 1,535,096 shares of Class A common stock, 4.50%, and 31,685,652 shares of Class B common stock, 100% of the class, for 90.72% of total voting power.

The 1,535,096 Class A shares include 1,048,819 options, which we drop. Of the Class B, 21.7 million sit in his revocable trust and the rest in irrevocable trusts the proxy also attributes to him. Hence a range: $192 million for the revocable trust plus the Class A he owns, $278 million for everything the proxy counts. The company's insider policy bans pledging shares. Even the low end is 2.5 times the next name.

2-3. The Better Collective founders: 18% each, sold down a little every week

Jesper Søgaard and Christian Kirk Rasmussen co-founded Better Collective and have run it as co-CEOs since May 2025. At the end of 2025 each held 10,671,179 shares through a holding company:

Better Collective annual report 2025, largest shareholders holding over 5% as of December 31, 2025: Jesper Søgaard 10,671,179 shares, 17.22%; Christian Kirk Rasmussen 10,671,179 shares, 17.22%; BLS Capital Fondsmæglerselskab A/S 9,172,586 shares, 14.80%; Better Collective A/S 3,267,020 shares, 5.27%; total 61,958,870 shares.

In March 2026 both holding companies agreed to sell into the company's EUR 40 million buyback pro rata, up to about EUR 10.9 million between them. The release quotes them: "Our participation is solely for personal liquidity purposes and should not be interpreted as any change in our confidence." By the time the buyback was suspended, it had accumulated 1,671,755 shares, so at their 36.3% each founder holds roughly 10.4 million, about 18% of the reduced share capital. No filing we found gives the exact count after these sales, so we round: about $75 million each.

4. Yasuyoshi Yanagisawa, A8.net: the richest network founder we found

FAN Communications runs A8.net, which its securities report calls an "affiliate service provider": it recruits partner sites, matches them with advertisers, counts conversions, collects the fees and pays the commissions. That's an affiliate network in the plainest sense. Yanagisawa founded the company in 1999, stepped down as president in March 2024 and left the board in March 2025. He still owns 41.90%:

FAN Communications annual securities report for 2025, major shareholders as of December 31, 2025: Yasuyoshi Yanagisawa 27,783,600 shares, 41.90% of shares outstanding excluding treasury stock; UH Partners 2 investment partnership 4,975,500 shares, 7.50%. The address column was removed by aliencpa.

At JPY 383 that's JPY 10.6 billion, or $67.5 million, the richest affiliate network stake we could document anywhere. The same report has 2 details worth remembering. FAN's 2025 revenue was JPY 7.10 billion ($45 million) and net profit JPY 1.31 billion ($8.3 million). And its revenue line fell from JPY 26.7 billion in 2021 to JPY 7.7 billion in 2022, the year it applied a new revenue recognition standard, which records a network's fee rather than everything it collects from advertisers and passes on. Strip out the pass-through and a big network turns out to be a modest company. Remember that the next time a network brags about turnover.

5. Adam Singolda, Taboola: a traffic source at $43.5 million

Taboola is where a lot of native arbitrage gets bought. Its founder and CEO owned 13,508,001 ordinary shares after an August 16 tax withholding, per his Form 4. Another 3,950,111 restricted share units vest through 2030 only if he stays, so we leave them out. At $3.22 that's $43.5 million, in a company the market values at $870 million.

6-9. Grandstand and Raketech: iGaming publishers after the fall

Gambling.com Group renamed itself Grandstand in July 2026 and trades as GRSD. Its 20-F, filed in March, gives co-founder Charles Gillespie, now executive chairman, 3.94 million shares including 43,676 units we drop, and co-founder Kevin McCrystle, now CEO, 1.02 million including 34,025. The stock closed at $1.51 against a 52-week high of $8.49, so Gillespie's stake is worth $5.9 million and McCrystle's $1.5 million. Raketech's co-founders, CEO Johan Svensson and board member Erik Skarp, hold about 7.4% each: $0.43 million apiece, in a company the market values at SEK 58 million.

The largest holders of 2 listed iGaming affiliates aren't founders at all. Investor Mark Blandford owns 20.5% of Grandstand ($10.9 million). In Gentoo Media, the Polish ZJ Foundation linked to STS founder Zbigniew Juroszek holds 10.03% ($7.1 million) and, on October 1, agreed to lend the company EUR 50 million, while foundations from the same circle backstop a EUR 50 million share issue. Gentoo's whole market value was about SEK 711 million.

Not on the list: Catena Media's founders. Erik Bergman and Emil Thidell sold out of the company in 2019 and 2020, according to Realtid, and Catena is now worth SEK 230 million ($22.9 million). XLMedia's co-founder Ory Weihs sold his last shares in May 2025 at 6 pence as the company left AIM. In this sector, the founders who cashed out early look like the smart ones.

Where the money sits: publishers, not networks

Sort the list by type and a pattern appears. Networks and traffic sources top out at $67.5 million (A8.net) and $43.5 million (Taboola). Publishers, the people who own an audience, reach $278 million. The operators who pay everyone sit in the billions.

So is there an affiliate billionaire anywhere? We checked every candidate we could find:

  • Ric Elias. Link to affiliate: Red Ventures: affiliate publisher (Bankrate, The Points Guy). Rich-list status: $1 billion, filed under "Media". Source: Forbes, Oct 2, 2026.
  • Ken Lin. Link to affiliate: Credit Karma: free credit scores, paid for by product recommendations; sold to Intuit for about $7.1 billion. Rich-list status: "Billion-dollar windfall" estimate, no Forbes profile. Source: Bloomberg, Feb 25, 2020.
  • Hiroshi Mikitani. Link to affiliate: Founder and CEO of Rakuten, which owns Rakuten Advertising (ex LinkShare). Rich-list status: $3.2 billion, from online retail. Source: Forbes, Oct 2, 2026.
  • Adam Foroughi. Link to affiliate: AppLovin, app-install ad tech. Rich-list status: $9.9 billion, "advertising technology". Source: Forbes, Oct 2, 2026.
  • Denise Coates. Link to affiliate: bet365, operator. Rich-list status: $7.5 billion. Source: Forbes, Oct 2, 2026.
  • Ed Craven. Link to affiliate: Stake.com, operator. Rich-list status: $2.2 billion. Source: Forbes, Mar 10, 2026.

The only Forbes billionaire whose fortune rests on affiliate commissions is Ric Elias, at exactly $1 billion, and he is a publisher. OMR described Red Ventures in 2021 as an affiliate publisher with about $2 billion of revenue and an $11 billion valuation, with Silver Lake and General Atlantic holding 20% each. Where a billionaire or a big group does own an affiliate network, the network is a line item: Rakuten Advertising inside Mikitani's retailer, Awin inside Axel Springer (80%) and United Internet (20%), CJ inside Publicis.

My reading: in affiliate, the money collects at the ends of the chain, with whoever owns the audience and whoever owns the product. The middle earns a fee on someone else's conversion. That makes a good business and a modest fortune. And search arbitrage, the purest form of buying traffic and reselling the clicks? System1, the listed company best known for it, announced its SPAC merger in 2021 at a $1.4 billion post-money enterprise value. On October 2, 2026 its whole market value was $25.6 million.

Brazil's betting ban: how the founders lost 32% in a week

On Friday, September 25, 2026, Brazil banned fixed-odds betting, a market that had been federally regulated only since January 2025. Better Collective's release 2 days later summed it up:

Better Collective regulatory release of September 27, 2026: on Friday, September 25, 2026, the Brazilian government introduced a Provisional Measure imposing a nationwide prohibition on the operation, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting, covering both sports betting and online gaming, with licensed platforms shut down after a 10-day transition; the measure must be considered by Congress to become permanent law, its initial 60-day validity runs until November 23, 2026 and may be extended once for 60 days.

Note the words "intermediation and advertising": the ban reaches affiliates, not just operators. Brazil was trending toward EUR 45 million of Better Collective's 2026 revenue, about 12% of consensus, and "a significant majority" of it came from revenue share with licensed operators. Revenue share is the classic iGaming affiliate deal, and it evaporates the day the operators switch off. The company cut its guidance, suspended its 2027-2028 targets and stopped the buyback:

Better Collective release, continued: the Brazilian business was trending toward about 45 mEUR in 2026 revenue, about 12% of analyst consensus, mostly from revenue share agreements with licensed operators; revised 2026 guidance is organic revenue growth of 3-8%, previously 7-12%, and EBITDA before special items growth of -7% to +3%, previously 8-18%, with net debt to EBITDA below 3x unchanged.

The market did the rest. The stock closed at SEK 106.20 on September 25, SEK 71.00 on Monday, September 28, and SEK 72.20 on October 2: down 32%. On our share count, each founder's stake went from about $110 million to about $75 million in a week. From the 52-week high of SEK 148.70 the fall is 51%. A detail from the paperwork: the founders' last pro rata buyback leg, 11,977 shares each, was booked on September 29 at SEK 108.14, the average price of the company's purchases the week before, while the market closed at SEK 68.50 that day. That's the March agreement working as written: their legs match the company's own purchases. The buyback was suspended after it.

And the story isn't finished. Congress can approve the measure, amend it, reject it or let it lapse, and the release notes the process runs "against the backdrop" of the presidential election on October 4. This table could look different in a month.

Robert Gryn and Codewise: a magazine estimate vs a deal price

In February 2017, Forbes Poland put Robert Gryn, 30, at number 57 on its list of the 100 richest Poles, with PLN 710 million, about $174 million at the time. He was the first startup founder on that list. His company, Codewise, built Voluum, a tracker many of our readers have used, and Zeropark, a popunder, push and domain-redirect traffic source.

The company's filed accounts, compiled by Strefa Inwestorów in 2018, tell a smaller story:

Codewise financial results from the Polish court register (KRS), in PLN million: revenue 9.4 in 2013, 46.8 in 2014, 132.3 in 2015, 190.8 in 2016 and 171.6 in 2017; net profit -1.1, 8.6, 29.7, 22.6 and 1.6; cash 0.0, 0.0, 9.5, 14.5 and 11.0.

The best year, 2015, brought PLN 29.7 million of net profit. The 2017 Forbes figure was about 24 times that, and by 2017 profit was PLN 1.6 million. The 2018 list still had Gryn at PLN 612 million, number 73, and Strefa Inwestorów wrote that the valuation might be far too high.

In September 2020, CentralNic, now Team Internet, agreed to buy Zeropark and Voluum for $36 million in cash: 0.6 times the $60.3 million of revenue in the year to June 2020 and 4.9 times adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 million.

Domain Name Wire, September 10, 2020: domain name rollup CentralNic announced it is acquiring Codewise, a collection of advertising and domain monetization companies, for $36 million; Codewise operates ZeroPark and Voluum, ZeroPark offers domain redirects, push notifications and popups, Voluum is an ad campaign management system, and both are geared to affiliate marketers.

That's about PLN 135 million at the day's rate, 19% of the 2017 estimate.

What we don't conclude: that Gryn "lost" PLN 575 million, or that anyone misled anybody. The deal was an asset purchase, conditional on a restructuring; the sellers weren't named; dividends paid earlier, cash and other holdings don't show up in it. What we do conclude: a magazine estimate is a bet on the future, and a deal is a price someone actually paid. That's why press figures here are grade D and never mixed with grade A.

Owners we can't price: platforms, programs and traffic sources

The names media buyers deal with every day are mostly private, so the honest answer for most of them is a deal price or nothing:

  • impact.com. Owner on record: Founders from the Commission Junction team incl. Per Pettersen, Todd Crawford, Roger Kjensrud; investors QIA, Providence, W Capital. What's public: $150M round at $1.5B valuation (Jul 2021); about $100M secondary (Apr 2022). Personal stake: Not public.
  • ClickBank. Owner on record: Private; founded 1998 by Tim and Eileen Barber (Keynetics). What's public: Claims $7.3B in commissions paid; spinoff Kount sold to Equifax for $640M (2021). Personal stake: Not public.
  • PartnerStack. Owner on record: AppDirect, since Apr 14, 2026. What's public: Terms undisclosed; BetaKit's sources: $150M-$250M, mostly stock. Personal stake: Not public.
  • Partnerize. Owner on record: Accel-KKR-led investors. What's public: $50M round (Jan 2020); DN Capital cited $240M valuation, $31M revenue. Personal stake: Not public.
  • Income Access. Owner on record: Paysafe, since 2016. What's public: C$40M, incl. C$12M deferred; founded by Nicky Senyard. Personal stake: Not public.
  • Awin. Owner on record: Axel Springer 80%, United Internet 20%. What's public: Sale explored in 2025 at about EUR 400M (press); no sale completed. Personal stake: Corporate.
  • CJ. Owner on record: Publicis, via Epsilon (about $4.4B, 2019). What's public: No separate figures. Personal stake: Corporate.
  • Rakuten Advertising. Owner on record: Rakuten. What's public: LinkShare bought for about $425M (2005). Personal stake: Corporate.
  • MaxBounty. Owner on record: mrge, backed by Waterland. What's public: Bought Aug 2024, price undisclosed. Personal stake: Not public.
  • Digistore24. Owner on record: Founders Sven Platte, Christian Neise, Anthony Kossatz. What's public: 2019: EUR 300M external, about EUR 30M own revenue; Platte's own EUR 250M-500M valuation range. Personal stake: Grade C only.
  • Hotmart. Owner on record: Founders João Pedro Resende, Mateus Bicalho; GIC, General Atlantic, TCV. What's public: 30% sold in 2019; R$735M round (2021); unicorn; 2021 IPO plan not pursued. Personal stake: Not public.
  • Admitad (Mitgo). Owner on record: Alexander Bachmann, described as sole owner in a 2023 release. What's public: German register names the holding; shareholder data behind a paywall. Personal stake: Not public.
  • Red Ventures. Owner on record: Ric Elias, Dan Feldstein; Silver Lake, General Atlantic. What's public: $11B valuation (2021, press). Personal stake: Forbes: Elias $1B.
  • Honey. Owner on record: PayPal. What's public: About $4B (2020). Personal stake: Founders' proceeds not public.
  • Voluum, Zeropark. Owner on record: Team Internet. What's public: $36M (2020). Personal stake: See above.

ClickBank's line has a twist: the biggest visible deal in its corporate family came from Kount, a fraud-prevention company Keynetics once owned outright and later spun out, which Equifax bought for $640 million in 2021. Not from the affiliate marketplace. How that money split among owners isn't public.

The ad networks are harder still. Most run through Cyprus companies whose registered directors may be service-firm nominees, so we name owners only where a register or serious press does:

  • PropellerAds, Monetag, Zeydoo. Operator: Propeller Ads group. Owner on record: Czech arm 100% owned by Adtech Holding Ltd, Cyprus; its shareholders not public. Numbers on file: None free.
  • Adsterra. Operator: Ad Market Ltd, Cyprus; ADMEDIA LLC FZ, UAE. Owner on record: Not public; Cyprus Mail calls the founders "a group of friends". Numbers on file: 300+ staff (2023).
  • MGID. Operator: MGID Inc., US. Owner on record: Not established; long-time CEO Sergii Denysenko became chairman in Oct 2025. Numbers on file: Aggregator estimates only.
  • TrafficStars. Operator: TrafficStars Ltd, Cyprus. Owner on record: "A large part" owned by Wisebits, 90% held by Oleg Netepenko, per SPIEGEL, STRG_F and netzpolitik (2021). Numbers on file: None free.
  • Clickadu. Operator: Clickadu s.r.o., Czech Republic. Owner on record: 100% Fasolasi Ltd, Cyprus, since Feb 2025. Numbers on file: Audited 2025 accounts, below.
  • HilltopAds. Operator: Hilltop Ads Ltd, UK. Owner on record: Roman Grinin, person with significant control since 2016 (Companies House). Numbers on file: Unaudited, no P&L.
  • ExoClick. Operator: ExoClick S.L., Spain. Owner on record: Single-shareholder company; founders Benjamin and Adrien Fonzé (interviews). Numbers on file: 2024 net profit EUR 4.3M.
  • Revcontent. Operator: Revcontent LLC, US. Owner on record: Majority sold to Star Mountain Capital and Capital Dynamics (Jun 2021), price undisclosed. Numbers on file: Claimed $500M+ paid out to publishers by 2020.
  • Traffic Factory. Operator: Traffic F, s.r.o., Czech Republic. Owner on record: Stéphane Pacaud, 100% (register); per Wikipedia he owns the WGCZ group behind XVideos. Numbers on file: 2020: CZK 2.46B revenue, CZK 232.5M net profit.
  • TrafficJunky. Operator: Aylo. Owner on record: Ethical Capital Partners, since Mar 2023. Numbers on file: Price not disclosed.
  • RollerAds, RichAds, Galaksion, EvaDav, Kadam. Operator: Kavanga Inc.; Cyprus and Latvian companies. Owner on record: Not established, or a private individual in a register. Numbers on file: Galaksion 2025: EUR 13.64M turnover, EUR 105k net profit.

The audited numbers worth a screenshot are Clickadu's, because they show what a network keeps:

Clickadu s.r.o. profit and loss statement for 2025, in thousands of CZK, filed in the Czech commercial register: revenue from sales of services 1,801,594 (2024: 1,645,432); purchased consumables and services 1,711,668, of which services 1,711,200; further down, other financial expenses 96,294, financial result -75,129, profit before tax 722, income tax 157, profit for the period 565 (2024: 730). Rows in between are omitted.

CZK 1.80 billion in, about $83 million; CZK 1.71 billion straight back out as purchased services; CZK 75 million of net financial costs; CZK 565,000 of net profit, about $26,000. Whatever the reasons for the financial line, the registered company that sells you popunders turned 95% of its revenue into payments to others. Traffic Factory's 2020 filing shows the opposite case, with a 9.5% net margin, but by 2021 the same Czech company reported only CZK 92.6 million of revenue, so it no longer shows the whole business.

CIS-rooted networks: who signs, and what's on file

The CIS gave the affiliate world a lot of networks and very few public cap tables. Here is who has put a name on the door, by their own account or in a register:

  • Admitad (Mitgo). Alexander Bachmann is managing director of the German holding, Mitgo Group GmbH, and a 2023 company release called him "CEO, founder and sole owner." In 2017 he told OMR of EUR 50 million in revenue for 2016; OMR noted that the 2015 filings showed only about EUR 1 million in assets. No audited group figures in open sources.
  • CityAds. Founder and CEO Alexander Savchenkov; VentureBeat reported a $5 million minority investment in 2014 and a claimed $50 million turnover for 2013.
  • Leads.su. Irek Rakhmanov calls himself owner and founder in a 2026 Partnerkin interview, without figures.
  • Everad. Co-founder Ruslan Timofeev told Partnerkin he became sole owner in 2016 and sold the company to unnamed investors in 2019. The current owner isn't established.
  • KMA, Alfaleads, LeadBit, M1-Shop, Shakes and others. We found staff names, not owners.

None of these stakes can be priced. The best-known CIS-rooted affiliate programs, meanwhile, belong to operators with heavier paperwork, which is the next section.

Skeletons: what courts, regulators and serious press have on file

We list only documents and serious reporting, with the stage of each case. "None found" means none in the sources we reviewed, not that none exist: we did not search every national court register.

  • Pin-Up casino brand, Ukrainian operator — Ukrainian court upheld revoking the operator's licence as "under actual control of RF citizens" (Mar 2024); a Pin-Up director detained on suspicion of laundering (Feb 2025); OCCRP reports investigators name Dmitriy Punin as the real owner, and Ukraine sanctioned him (Jun 2025). Final ruling on the licence; suspicions and sanctions otherwise
  • 1xBet, affiliate program 1xPartners — Founders named as suspects and put on the wanted list in Russia (2020); Ukraine's 50-year sanctions (Mar 2023). Suspects, sanctions; no verdict against the founders
  • Aylo, owns TrafficJunky — Visa and Mastercard suspended TrafficJunky payments after a July 2022 court ruling; agreement with US federal prosecutors over GirlsDoPorn: USD 1.8M plus victim compensation and 3 years of independent moderation review (Dec 2023). Agreement with prosecutors
  • Honey (PayPal) — Class actions over affiliate link re-attribution, first suit dismissed with leave to amend (Nov 2025); Rakuten Advertising removed Honey and PayPal acknowledged the code (Jan 2026). Civil allegations
  • Red Ventures — USD 2.75M to resolve False Claims Act allegations over USPS change-of-address revenue (May 2023, DOJ). Settlement
  • PropellerAds — MPA asked the US trade office to list it as a piracy "notorious market" (2021, 2023); PropellerAds called the claims defamation. Allegation; no listing found
  • MGID — Ukrainian cyberpolice searched its office in Feb 2020 over ads on pirate sites, per an interview with its CEO, who called the search unlawful. Allegation; no charges found
  • Better Collective, Grandstand, Raketech, FAN, Taboola, NerdWallet founders — None found. —

The heaviest files, licence revocations, sanctions and criminal cases, sit with operators that run big affiliate programs, not with the networks. If you promote an operator's program, its owner's paperwork is your counterparty risk.

What the list means for affiliates and media buyers

Rich lists are gossip with spreadsheets. This one has 4 practical uses.

Know your counterparty. Every network's terms name the legal entity you contract with. Look it up: Companies House for the UK, the Czech register for s.r.o. companies, North Data for Germany, the Cyprus registrar for directors. A public owner leaves a paper trail; a Cyprus company with nominee directors leaves you the terms of service and nothing else.

Read listed affiliates' reports for free market research. Better Collective, Grandstand, Raketech and Gentoo publish quarterly numbers by region. When Better Collective says a country was 12% of its revenue and is now zero, you know where competition for traffic is about to move.

Price regulation into GEO concentration. A single decree wiped out a 12% revenue line over a weekend and 32% of the founders' stake value in a week. If more than 33% of your iGaming income sits in a single country, that's the same bet with less capital.

Don't confuse an owner's wealth with your safety. A founder worth $75 million on paper doesn't guarantee your payout; payment terms, hold periods and withdrawal habits do. Clickadu's accounts show how little a network may keep from what passes through it. Thin margins leave little room for a bad month, so withdraw often.

And the people who buy the traffic, the media buyers with the cars, the payouts and the occasional court date? Different list, different article. It's coming.

Checklist: what to do

Questions and answers

Who is the richest affiliate network owner?

Among owners we can price from filings, Yasuyoshi Yanagisawa, founder of Japan's A8.net network: 41.90% of FAN Communications, worth $67.5 million at the October 2, 2026 close. Bigger names such as impact.com or ClickBank are private, and their owners' stakes aren't public.

Is there an affiliate marketing billionaire?

Not among network owners. The only Forbes billionaire whose fortune rests on affiliate commissions is Red Ventures' Ric Elias, at $1 billion, a publisher filed under "Media." Billionaires who own networks, such as Rakuten's Hiroshi Mikitani, made their money elsewhere.

What are the Better Collective founders worth?

Their stakes, not their net worth: about 10.4 million shares each, worth about $75 million each at SEK 72.20 on October 2, 2026. A week earlier, before Brazil's betting ban hit the stock, each stake was worth about $110 million.

Who owns Voluum and Zeropark?

Team Internet, formerly CentralNic, which bought both from Robert Gryn's Codewise for $36 million in cash in 2020. The sellers' individual proceeds weren't disclosed.

Who owns ClickBank?

ClickBank is private. It was founded in 1998 by Tim and Eileen Barber under Keynetics, and no current cap table or revenue figure is public.

How do I check who owns an affiliate network?

Take the legal entity from its terms, then search the register of that country: Companies House (UK), the Czech commercial register, North Data (Germany), the Cyprus registrar, GLEIF for parent companies. For listed companies, read the annual report's shareholder table or SEC proxy.

Author’s conclusion

I started this list expecting to find a network founder who made a billion on our traffic. I found the opposite. The networks we can price top out at $67.5 million, the biggest stake belongs to a finance publisher, the only Forbes billionaire on affiliate money owns an audience, and the operators who pay everyone sit an order of magnitude higher. The middle of the chain, where networks and traffic sources live, earns a fee on someone else's conversion, and Clickadu's accounts show how thin that fee can get.

My take: don't measure a network by its owner's fortune or its turnover. Measure it by its paper trail and its payment terms. And when someone sells you a course on becoming an affiliate billionaire, ask them to name a network owner who did it. We couldn't.

Lu Discover, Editor-in-chief

The same list, in short

Editorial order · places are not for sale
  1. PropellerAds

    Traffic source

    • Push, In-Page Push, Popunder +1
    Not rated yet
    Visit site Official site
  2. Adsterra

    Traffic source

    • Popunder, In-Page Push, Interstitial +2
    Not rated yet
    Visit site Official site
  3. HilltopAds

    Traffic source

    • Popunder, In-Page Push, Video +1
    Not rated yet
  4. RollerAds

    Traffic source

    • Push, In-Page Push, Popunder
    • GEO: WW
    Not rated yet
    Visit site Official site

Sources for this article

  1. sec.gov — NerdWallet 2026 proxy statement, beneficial ownership as of March 24, 2026 (Tim Chen, trusts, options, voting power)
  2. sec.gov — NerdWallet Form 10-K for 2025: revenue per action, click, lead and funded loan; revenue $836.6 million
  3. storage.mfn.se — Better Collective annual report 2025, corporate governance: largest shareholders as of December 31, 2025
  4. mfn.se — Better Collective: amendment of share buyback program, founders' pro rata participation "solely for personal liquidity purposes" (release 21/2026, March 24, 2026)
  5. mfn.se — Better Collective updates following regulatory developments in Brazil (release 85/2026, September 27, 2026)
  6. storage.mfn.se — Better Collective share buyback program, September 23-29, 2026: founders' legs at SEK 108.1391, buyback suspended (release 86/2026)
  7. mattosfilho.com.br — Mattos Filho: Provisional Measure issued to ban fixed-odds betting in Brazil (MP 1,394, September 2026)
  8. aktiespararna.se — Aktiespararna: the stocks falling on Brazil's betting ban (September 28, 2026)
  9. stockanalysis.com — Better Collective daily closing prices, September 18 to October 2, 2026, and 52-week range
  10. disclosure2dl.edinet-fsa.go.jp — FAN Communications annual securities report for 2025 (filed March 25, 2026): major shareholders, key financials, board attendance
  11. www2.jpx.co.jp — FAN Communications: change of representative director (February 22, 2024)
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  34. socaltech.com — Impact Radius launches, founders from Commission Junction (January 2010)
  35. clickbank.com — ClickBank homepage: commissions paid claim
  36. investor.equifax.com — Equifax to acquire Kount for $640 million (January 2021)
  37. betakit.com — AppDirect acquires PartnerStack (April 2026)
  38. accel-kkr.com — Partnerize raises $50 million led by Accel-KKR (January 2020)
  39. pokernews.com — Paysafe Group to acquire Income Access for CAD 40 million (September 2016)
  40. united-internet.de — United Internet and Axel Springer merge affilinet and Awin (2017)
  41. betakit.com — MaxBounty acquired by mrge (August 2024)
  42. omr.com — Sven Platte on Digistore24 (OMR podcast, November 2019)
  43. braziljournal.com — GIC and General Atlantic buy 30% of Hotmart (July 2019)
  44. northdata.com — Mitgo Group GmbH register data
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  53. okredo.com — Galaksion Group SIA financial data from filed accounts
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  55. en.wikipedia.org — Aylo: TrafficJunky, Visa and Mastercard suspension, Ethical Capital Partners, December 2023 settlement
  56. en.wikipedia.org — PayPal Honey: acquisition, class actions, dismissal, Rakuten removal
  57. justice.gov — Red Ventures and MYMOVE agree to pay $2.75 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations (May 2023)
  58. occrp.org — OCCRP: Ukraine cracks down on online casino Pin-Up (June 20, 2025)
  59. zn.ua — Court upholds SBU findings on Russian control of the Pin-Up operator (March 2024)
  60. meduza.io — Meduza: Betting on Bryansk, the 1xBet criminal case (October 21, 2021)
  61. en.ain.ua — Ukraine sanctions Russian bookmakers including 1xBet founders (March 13, 2023)
  62. torrentfreak.com — PropellerAds labels MPA piracy claims harassment and defamation (November 5, 2023)
  63. venturebeat.com — CityAds raises $5M to go global (March 6, 2014)
  64. partnerkin.com — Interview with the owner of Everad
  65. partnerkin.com — Interview: the Leads ecosystem
  66. omr.com — Alexander Bachmann and Admitad (2017)
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