How I Earned $30K with Stay22 – Affiliate Product Earnings Breakdown

Nova

Nova is a product within Stay22's script, and is our highest earner on our sites. Once installed, the Nova AI toolset will analyze readers who may be likely to make a travel booking and open a tab for a targeted brand in the browser.

At first, I was hesitant about what readers may think about these tabs. But between not getting any complaints (likely because Nova, enabled by the Stay22 script, is designed to space out offers- typically once every 40 days per user) and increasing my earnings significantly, I was hooked. Now, Nova accounts for the vast majority of my income on Stay22, and has really been a game-changer for me when it comes to revenue. Not bad for a few seconds' worth of work installing a simple script and letting it work in the background!

From January 2023 to present (June 2025), I've grossed $22,074 on bookings through the Nova product (approximately $17,650 paid out after cancelations). This accounts for 58% of my lifetime income earned on Stay22, and averages out to about $758/month on all of my sites since the Nova product launched. Currently, I estimate this to be about 50% of my monthly earnings with all products enabled.

Direct Links

My second-highest income earner on Stay22 is inserting direct links to hotels in posts. Yep, the traditional affiliate model.

In a way, this one reflects historical affiliate performance on our sites. We were pretty well optimized with direct links before joining Stay22, and our earnings were fairly consistent when we swapped the links over to Stay22 links.

This is an important note, because when we say that direct links account for 34% of our lifetime earnings with Stay22, what really makes us excited about that figure is that their other products account for the remaining 66%- a 200% increase in overall earnings.

Still, roughly a third of our lifetime earnings come from direct links, so do not overlook adding affiliate links directly into your posts. Their link generator is incredibly easy to use, and affiliate links with custom campaign IDs can be created in just a few quick clicks. It really is one of the best deep link generators on the market right now.

But it gets better! Stay22 also has some great features as part of the products available in their script. For example, if you have existing affiliate links on your blog, the script can automatically convert them over to smart, optimized Stay22 links. So you can have most, if not all, of your direct links swapped over to Stay22 in a few clicks- reducing the need to manually switch links one by one like I did when I first joined.

From November 2022 to present (June 2025), I've grossed $12,665 on bookings through direct links (approximately $10,000 paid out after cancelations). This accounts for 33% of my lifetime income earned on Stay22, and averages out to be about $408/month on all of my sites since I joined Stay22. Currently, I estimate this to be about 27% of my monthly earnings with all products enabled.

Stay22's suite of products is really increasing my revenue outside of direct links!

Retail (Beta)

I've been fortunate enough to beta-test new products for Stay22, and in 2025, I helped test a new Retail component as part of the Nova product set.

While I can't share the details of this one just yet, I can say that the tool utilizes the same intelligent technology behind Nova to promote products from one of the world's largest online retailers, which is a great way to monetize less travel-oriented content on our sites (and is great if you're not in the travel niche at all, too!).

Retail affiliate marketing was always something I struggled with, because recommending products and dealing with more spur-of-the-moment sales is something I am less practiced at than long-term travel planning. So when this one increased my monthly revenue by about 10%, I was pretty happy- even if retail commissions are lower per sale than travel.

• Stay22 is looking for new partners to Early Access Retail. Click here to learn more and to apply for early access!

From March 2025 to present (June 2025), I've earned $360 on product sales via the Retail beta test. This accounts for about 1% of my lifetime income earned on Stay22, and averages out to be about $180/month on all of my sites. Currently, I estimate this to be about 12% of my monthly earnings with all products enabled.

Spark

The next product in Stay22's script that makes us significant affiliate revenue is Spark- Stay22's automatic link inserter.

If adding direct links requires you to find the hotel/travel provider, grab a link, make an affiliate link, and insert it into a post, Spark simplifies that by doing all of this automatically upon page load.

The tool uses advanced detection software to find phrases related to hotel bookings (such as city names or travel-oriented copy like “book your hotel”) and automatically add optimized Stay22 smart links based on the context of the article and the user.

So if you have an article about Greece, use the phrase “book a hotel,” but forgot to add a direct link, Spark may add one for you to a targeted landing page selected for the user!

Admittedly, my Spark earnings are not as high as I would have otherwise expected, but it likely indicates that I've historically done a good job at adding direct links (and, judging from my income from above, this seems accurate). Still, this one fills in the gaps and accounts for about 6% of my monthly earnings all the same.

Never leave money on the table!

From October 2024 to present (June 2025), I've earned $630 from bookings through the Spark product (approximately $500 paid out after cancelations). This accounts for about 2% of my lifetime income earned on Stay22, and averages out to be about $90/month on all of my sites since the Spark product launched. Currently, I estimate this to be about 6% of my monthly earnings with all products enabled.

Maps

Finally, we come to the embeddable maps on Stay22- the first product the company introduced, and the product that brought me to Stay22 at the start.

I will be the first to admit that I often go back and forth on using maps on my sites. This isn't a Stay22 issue, per se, but just maps in general. I love Stay22's maps because they incorporate live API pricing when a date is inserted, giving more flexibility for users (and is a feature I have always wanted). But after extensive testing, I am often torn on whether to give it prime real estate or not.

Case in point, Maps only account for about 5% of my monthly earnings. But I also recognize that I am not utilizing them to the fullest potential- I tend to only do global embeds on my city blog (and not my general travel blog) simply because one map is easier to create and move around with A/B testing than hundreds.

Still, my lifetime earnings using Maps have paid for a mortgage payment, and that's nothing to scoff at when you consider a map can be created for any given city or region in just a few clicks. I'm just still trying to figure out the best setup to maximize my earnings, however. Suffice it to say, my earnings here could be significantly higher, and that is all on me.

From November 2022 to present (June 2025), I have grossed $2,194 on bookings through the Maps product (approximately $2,000 paid out after cancelations). This accounts for about 6% of my lifetime income earned on Stay22, and averages out to be about $70/month on all of my sites since I first integrated Maps on my site. Currently, I estimate this to be about 5% of my monthly earnings with all products enabled.

• Note: I want to re-iterate here that my Maps income is highly variable. Some months I've removed Maps entirely, and I generally only test this product on one of my three sites that are currently participating in Stay22. I am absolutely leaving money on the table, and my overall earnings percentages are likely lower than they should be as a result.

Overall, we love that Stay22 has been creating new products for bloggers both in and out of the travel space. My breakout of income streams by product above certainly illustrates just how much Stay22 has helped me in my blogging journey. To think, when I started with them I was only using deep links and Maps, and now our affiliate income has skyrocketed roughly 200% thanks to all of the new products that have come out in recent years.

We can't wait to see what comes next, as it will likely continue to increase our affiliate income even more!

What Stay22 products earn you the most money? Comment below to share!

To join Stay22, click here. For those interested in learning more about Early Access Retail, click here. This article was sponsored by Stay22. As always, all opinions are my own.