Who doesn’t love saving money? We live in a time where pinching pennies isn’t just for frugal moms anymore. Not only do we want to save money, but most of us have to for one reason or another.
But what’s even better than saving money? What about making money from helping others save it? Sounds pretty great, right? Well, you can do that by building a coupon based site or by offering coupon deals on a WordPress site that is already seeing good traffic.
Can Coupon and Daily Deal Sites Be Successful?
Before just jumping in and starting an online business, many people stop and ask a serious question:
Is it even a good idea?
The answer to that question is obviously going to vary depending on what your idea is. But want about these coupon-based sites in particular? Are these worth trying to start? Are there other sites that have found success from simply offering coupons to viewers?
Well, yes, quite a few actually. There are sites like RetailMeNot, Coupon.com, Smartsource, Groupon and LivingSocial, just to name a few.
As far as coupons and deals go, the one mentioned above are kind of the big kids on the block, but there are others who have niched-down and focused on a smaller audience and become rather well known to those with that interest.
For example, there is MightyDeals and DuelFuel — sites that offer amazing deals on products for designers (web and graphic) and online marketers. There is even the KrazyCouponLady — a site that was started by two women who simply loved to coupon and grew their site into a rather large and popular one.
Now, this isn’t to say that if you start a coupon or daily deals site that you will find the same or similar success as the ones mentioned above, but these examples do show that coupon sites can be successful when done correctly.
Back in the day, building these types of sites was as about as difficult as they could get, but thanks to WordPress, it’s not as hard as it used to be.
WordPress Coupon and Daily Deal Themes
Couponer
Couponer is a WordPress theme built on Bootstrap, is responsive, retina ready, and it has about all you could want from a WordPress coupon theme.
The theme is nice and easy on the eyes and boasts being easy to work with. It is ready to take on the task of having coupons added and even has a daily deals option with a countdown timer to help prompt buys on certain deals you run on the site. If you’re looking to build a membership base on your site then you’ll be happy to know that the theme has a fully functioning membership system that you can customize in the backend.
It also includes the ever important Blog page so that you can create addition content outside of just offering coupons. Price for this theme is $48 and include free support.
Daily Deal
Feature your deals on the Hompage Slider with Daily Deals
Daily Deal is a little bit more unique as far as coupon themes go. As the name suggests, the theme is built more around the premise of offering deals or discounts instead of just plain coupon codes.
The theme is set up to allow your visitors to submit deals for their own business. After purchase is made for the deal, the money first goes to you and then you take your allotted commission (which you can make whatever you’d like) before sending off the rest to the member who added the deal. You also have the power of listing moderation so that you still remain in control of what is posted on your site.
Designing your homepage and customizing the theme is made easy thanks to the help of the drag and drop feature and ability to make color changes using the WP Customizer.
Price for this theme is only $29 so it’s great for someone on a tight budget.
Deals
Deals by ThemeJunkie has a similar overall look to Daily Deals but handles differently.
This theme was built to handle coupon codes (including affiliate one to help make you money), vouchers, printable coupons, and its responsive layout means your visitors can take advantage of deals no matter what size screen they are viewing it on.
The theme is optimized for SEO, Localization ready, has a nice Ad Management feature for helping you earn additional revenue from the site and includes free lifetime support. Price for the theme starts at $49 for 1 year of support and updates, but that price also includes all the themes available there in the shop.
Clipper
Many popular coupon sites have a certain “look” about them. If you’re going for that simpler type of interface, then the Clipper theme by AppThemes could be closer to what you’re picturing for your site.
As far as functionality goes, this theme seems to offer more than most. Not only can you input coupons in the WP Admin area, but you can also allow visitors to add coupons themselves. They even have an area on the site where they can go and manage all the coupons that they have placed on your site.
The theme has plenty more to offer including 5 color layouts and monetization options using plugins that help you make money by placing affiliate coupons on the site.
Price for the Clipper coupon theme is $99, but you can use on as many sites as you want and you get a lifetime license so it’s a pretty great deal. Clipper is a top notch theme that is sure to make quite a few happy.
Coupon Theme
What this theme lacks on the initial visual side of things it makes up for in features. The theme — aptly named, Coupon — is a responsive template that can be used for building an affiliate based and/or printable coupon site.
Classified as a Directory styled theme, the theme authors behind Coupon also offer more than 30 different child themes so that you can find a look to your site that is closer to what you may be searching for.
Outside of the free child themes (which I consider to be a huge plus), the theme offers membership options, visitor submissions, easy visual and color customizations, revenue options built right like banner placement and much more.
As far as features go, this theme is my favorite thus far and it’s priced at $99.
WordPress Coupon Plugins
Some of you, however, may not be looking to build an entire site for the coupons and deals you wish to offer, but would instead like to offer deals through your current site.
If you’re looking for this option, then using a WordPress coupon plugin is probably a better choice for you.
Coupon Code Plugin
Don’t you hate when you lose out on income from an affiliate link? Anyone who has done or who is doing affiliate marketing knows the pain that this can bring.
The Coupon Code Plugin helps to eliminate that pesky drawback by masking your affiliate link while still allowing your users to click the link that will automatically take them to the site and apply the code. This results in them getting the discount and you gaining the commission. (Yay!)
The plugin offers coupon management and reporting, and is easily customizable so that your coupon page fits your site’s design.
Price for the plugin is $37 for a single license with lifetime support and updates.
Get The Coupon Code Plugin Here
Coupon Creator
This plugin allows you to create coupons and then display them via a shortcode on a page or in a post or widget.
Add the content of the what you want the coupon to say, style it to your specifications, set a time and date when the coupon will expire, and upload an image to use for it. It’s a free plugin so even if you’re not sure if it is what you’re looking for, you can still give it a test run before you opt to purchase a premium plugin.
It’s a free plugin so even if you’re not sure if it is what you’re looking for, you can still give it a test run before you opt to purchase a premium plugin.
Get The Coupon Creator Plugin Here
If your site uses WooCommerce and you want a way to offer discounts to your products while boosting exposure and gaining traffic all at once, then you’ll probably do a little happy dance when you learn about this plugin.
The Social Coupon for WordPress is an extension for WooCommerce that offers customers the incentive to gain a discount on items in your shop if they share your page on one of their social media profiles. Since people are always up to getting a deal on things that they are already planning to buy, this is an excellent way to build traffic while keeping your current customers happy.
Price for this WooCommerce extension is only $22.
Get the Social Coupon Extension for WooCommerce Here
CoupineWP
This coupon plugin has yet to hit the WordPress market yet, but it is sure to be one that many people have been looking for but have been unable to find thus far.
The CoupineWP plugin creates a new section in your WP Admin Menu for coupons and will allow you to add content like a blog post, insert your coupon code, place links to where your affiliate link is meant for, and lets you place a nice featured image to capture attention.
You can get an idea of what the plugin will do on the link below, or you can go to the plugin’s landing page to sign up for the update of when the plugin is going to be launched.
View The Live Demo Here | Get On The List For CoupineWP Here
Magic WP Coupons Lite
Offer coupons on your WordPress site with Magic WP Coupon
Want a plugin that offers a similar layout to the themes mentioned above while still saving yourself some cash? Then this last plugin on the list is a winner!
Magic WP Coupons comes with quite a few options for creating, filtering, and displaying coupons on your site. For example, you can easily create the coupon and then use a shortcode to display that coupon at the bottom of a review post so that your viewers can quickly click over to the affiliate site you linked to and make the purchase.
It’s a free plugin so why not try it out?
Get The Lite Version of Magic WP Coupons Here
Have any themes or plugins for coupons that you like to use? Be sure to comment below.
ArticleThumnail by Sergey Paranchuk via Shutterstock
You can also try the plugin from couponpop.com, It’s free!
I have tried Comre coupon theme & Clipper theme for a coupon site.Clipper theme is user friendly where as comre has created lot of problems like site loading speed decreased,visual editor not worked properly and the post important,uploading coupons to comre theme was real head ache..so i opted for a simple routine magazine theme for my coupon site..it may not look professional but it is very good organic traffic
I am currently using clipper theme and found it great anyone who want to go for coupon or affiliate based website can go for the theme.
the one con I found with this is to you have to buy additional plugins for basic purposes like featured image and so on
I’ve been waiting forever for someone to finally make a WordPress plugin that allows me to make coupons like the big players like retailmenot but without it having to be a theme.
I have tried Magic WP Coupons Lite on multiple blogs and not working good with CSS but future are good , i would suggest you not to use this on your blog
I have tried Magic WP Coupons Lite on multiple blogs and not working good with CSS but future are good , i would suggest you not to use this on your blog
Thanks for the information, couponer looks best among them.
Pre made WordPress coupon themes could work as a starting point but i noticed as you grow you find yourself doing a lots of core customization and end maybe ditching WordPress for a complete custom made site.
Hi guys, nice post. I’m trying to use Magic WP Coupons Lite with the Chameleon theme and i’m having some incompatibilities. Once the plugin is installed, some widgets from the website are not working: shortcodes like the tabs slidertype or the send button from Bloom.
What can i do? Probably this is a .JS related error. But how can i fix it? thanks!
Wow!Nice Collection buddy. It is very helpful for people like me when they are looking for a work from home using affiliate marketing or coupon and deals themes.
Thanks
I really liked the collection of the themes and plugins you have shared here. I will start using the themes you have posted here and will let you know which one works best for me. Thank you for sharing.
This is a timely article. A clients of mine wants the ability to create her own coupons for her site and fire Groupon. Thanks for the leads that I can investigate and give recommendation(s) to her.
Awesome collection of themes, From here I have got information about clipper theme and started using that. Nice theme and framework. Thank you for sharing.
Hi,Thanks for the Good theme suggestions ,i will try out some the themes for the site and let you know about the reviews soon.
What about: http://themeforest.net/item/couponxl-coupons-deals-discounts-wp-theme/10721950 in my modest opinion this one is crazy good.
DO NOT click on link to demo page of coupineWP. It popped up a window to ask me to download safari plugin update and blocked me from doing anything else. I think it was a malware. I had to force Safari quit twice to get rid of it.
I would love to use Deals wordpress theme.According to me,suitable for any coupon site.looks better 🙂 other theme also works great for any coupon site.thanks for your great list.
Thanks for writing up about my plugin the Coupon Creator. I think the biggest difference between the Coupon Creator and the other plugins is it was not designed for affiliate marketing although Pro has custom links that could work for it.
It at first was designed for businesses that want to display coupons to be used in their store and with Pro I am looking to add more features make it even easier to create those coupon as well as manage eCommerce coupons or affiliate links including being able to mange and display WooCommerce coupons in the next version.
If anyone has any questions please either post here or contact me. Thanks again.
Thank you for sharing this information. I wonder if you had experience with WP Social Deals plugin. They are also using DIVI but I’m having difficulty with their plugin.
I’ve been debating spinning off the deals page on my website to allow a little more flexibility and now I have some interesting options to look into. Thanks.
I manage affiliate programs for brands. You have mentioned as a plus a plugin that “hides” the affiliate code. This is not a plus. A financial relationship to a link has to be disclosed, and that is being enforced more and more. So affiliate links need to be labeled as a link that you make a commission from. In some countries you also need a privacy policy that discloses not only that the links on your site make money, but that they also set a third party tracking cookie.
Some themes and plugins (CouponPress does this) also “hide” the coupon code by default to force the user to click and set the cookie before they see the code. This is against a lot of merchants terms of service and can get you declined and removed from affiliate programs.
A well made coupon and deals site can be a great site for traffic and to make money, but you need to do it right or you will fail miserably in a highly crowded field.
I am new to the world of “affiliate” links so my question my be misguided. I thought commission disclosure is only required when a link is “recommended” or “endorsed” via a review, or something along those lines. Just presenting coupons on a site where someone could view/click/print the coupon or code does not seem to represent a recommendation or endorsement. Am I mistaken?
Hey Rick – No Worries. You’re not mistaken. If you simply run a coupon site or voucher offer code site you are not required to display the Affiliate Disclosure. However, there are some fine lines to this. If your site does contain any editorial verbiage/editorial content that promotes the products or services or endorses the products or services. Then, Yes. You should be displaying the Affiliate Disclosure within close proximity of the clickable action. Please Note – I am not a lawyer and you should always consult with a lawyer to get any legal advice. 🙂
I’ve been using CouponPress.com for a long time. Would love your input on that one as well.
Thanks for all the others! More research to do, now.
If you’ve been using coupon press for a long time then who else can know it better than you. Why not giving us your verdict.
I want to know about coupon press.
Please give your opinion or a review about coupon press
So tempting to set up a coupon site after this. Great themes, my fave was the App Themes, just sucks they give 50% if you use their hosting partners. That’s not good as a host lol
interesting… going to spend my evening reading and testing all of these solutions.