The software industry now dominates the global economy with a valuation of nearly US$500 billion, surpassing the $100 billion film industry. This vast market size offers numerous opportunities for affiliate marketers to promote software programs and earn a significant income.
However, selecting the best software affiliate program can be challenging.
To help, we’ve consulted top-earning members of The Affiliate Lab and joined several programs ourselves.
In this guide, we’ll share a list of highly recommended software affiliate programs, providing essential insights for both beginners and experienced marketers venturing into the software niche.
Table Of Contents
SEO Software Programs
1. Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO is an on-page optimization and content research tool currently used by more than 5,000 SEOs and digital marketers.
It shows you the exact words and phrases to include in a piece of content to enhance its ability to rank in Google and other search engines.
I love Surfer because they’re constantly adding new features to it, like the recent integration with the Jarvis AI content creation tool.
It also has a rudimentary topic clustering feature that shows a lot of promise.
Note: Affiliate payments are currently only made via PayPal.
It is one of several content optimization tools on the market but it’s also the most innovative and delivers better results faster than anything else. In our opinion, it is among the top software affiliate programs.
- Commission: 25% (recurring)
- Cookie Duration: 60 days
- Payment Methods: PayPal
- Products: SEO content optimization
2. SEO PowerSuite
SEO PowerSuite is – as the name suggests- a suite of software tools aimed squarely at the SEO, affiliate, and digital marketing audiences.
An affiliate marketer could use this software affiliate program to monitor or optimize their own website, or an SEO could deploy it for client sites. It is one of the better software affiliate programs in our opinion.
It includes the following tools:
- Rank monitoring
- Backlink analysis
- Keyword research
- Site audit
- Content optimization
- Competitor analysis
We were amazed that we got access to this comprehensive set of SEO tools for an annual price of $299.
Or $24.90 per month.
It’s also client software, which means you need to download it to your PC or Mac, unlike SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions.
With this affiliate network, you get an all-in-one platform of powerful and versatile tools to handle the vast majority of SEO, affiliate marketing, or digital marketing campaigns.
Note: These aren’t the only SEO software offers you can promote, but they are some of the best SEO software affiliate programs out there.
- Commission: 33%
- Cookie Duration: 90 days
- Payment Methods: PayPal, Direct deposit
- Products: SEO software
Marketing Affiliate Programs
3. Aweber
Aweber is an email marketing tool that’s been around since the earliest days of the Internet.
This marketing platform provides you with the tools and insights you need to communicate with your email list via newsletters or email broadcasts.
Or, it can help you to build a list for your software niche if you don’t already have one.
You can also use Aweber to build landing pages for your marketing campaigns, plus it has tons of neat integrations, further extending its capabilities.
So it offers marketing automation functionality as well as a leading email marketing platform.
And that makes it one of the top software affiliate programs for potential online entrepreneurs interested in affiliate marketing.
We have tested the affordable and flexible SaaS platform for both beginner and experienced email marketers.
Plus, you can earn up to $300 per referral, 30% recurring commission each month, get to work with a dedicated support team, and have a large creative inventory to use in your efforts.
- Commission: Up to $300
- Cookie Duration: 45 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Email marketing
4. Voluum
Voluum markets itself as “all-in-one affiliate software”, but what does that actually mean?
This is an affiliate tracking solution aimed squarely at people who use paid ads to drive traffic to their landing pages.
But the difference between Voluum and other affiliate software is that there’s almost no lag in the reporting.
This means you can make smart decisions for your digital affiliate marketing campaigns while they’re live instead of waiting hours for a report to arrive.
The net result of this should be more sales and lower conversion-based costs.
Voluum also provides you with the tools you need to then optimize your future online advertising campaigns based on this live data, and then use its ‘Automizer’ functionality to make the entire process of using paid advertising far less work for you.
This affiliate program helped us do something others couldn’t – monitor our online advertising campaigns in almost real-time and across multiple traffic sources.
- Commission: 20%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Direct deposit, PayPal
- Products: Affiliate tracking software
5. Post Affiliate Pro
Post Affiliate Pro is an affiliate program and affiliate management platform used by 30,000 companies, including many eCommerce sites.
Simply put, it allows you to run your own affiliate programs without having to rely on an affiliate network to track referrals for your business.
But it also allows affiliates to log in to check their stats and commissions, so it offers more features than typical affiliate tracking software.
We loved that all of this is done through an intuitive interface with comprehensive reporting as standard.
Post Affiliate Pro also integrates with more than 170 popular CMS and payment gateways, as well as Google Analytics.
Their affiliate tracking software offers an affordable and flexible alternative to using affiliate networks, leaving you in more control of your sales and affiliate marketing as a whole.
- Commission: $5 per signup
- Cookie Duration: Permanent
- Payment Methods: Bank transfer
- Products: Affiliate marketing software
Web Design Affiliate Programs
6. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a caching plugin specifically for WordPress sites that need to improve their page loading times.
It helps users improve page and site performance by providing them with an easy-to-use interface for performing complex tasks like minifying CSS and aggregating JavaScript files.
So your visitors don’t need to be coders or web development experts to use it.
But they do need to be willing to pay for a faster site – this isn’t a free plugin.
WP Rocket also offers its own CDN (Content Delivery Network) but can integrate with other popular CDNs.
There are other caching plugins on the market, but none of them come close to WP Rocket in terms of performance or ongoing innovation from our experience. Affiliates receive 20% commission on all referred sales, with an average order value of $59.
- Commission: 20%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, Payoneer
- Products: WordPress plugins
7. Monotype
This affiliate program will appeal to web designers, graphic artists, and pretty much anyone who will ever need a typeface.
Monotype offers what is allegedly the largest collection of fonts available anywhere in the world right now.
Your website visitors can choose from almost 500,000 fonts suitable for use in both desktop applications and web publishing.
So they should find at least one typeface they want to buy, and you can earn a commission as a result.
They offer a huge range of preset typefaces, but they can also design a custom font for your business. Affiliates earn up to 15% of all referred sales made through their program on CJ Affiliate by Conversant (Commission Junction). This is one of the better affiliate networks to work with in terms of functionality and creative assets.
- Commission: Up to 15%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Fonts
8. Elementor
WordPress is the CMS of choice for tens of millions of websites.
And Elementor is one of the more popular page builder plugins for WordPress.
Now, instead of having to rely on the layouts offered by a given theme, you can create the exact layout you want for a page or post using this plugin’s drag-and-drop interface.
So you can use it to design everything from basic affiliate marketing websites to online stores.
Elementor makes web design accessible to almost anyone who can use a drag-and-drop interface.
Their affiliate program offers a regularly updated page builder that’s popular with multiple audiences and pays 50% on each sale referred through your affiliate link.
- Commission: 50%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: PayPal (minimum $200 payout)
- Products: WordPress page builder
9. LiveChat
Interacting with customers directly via a chat function on your website has several benefits.
These include resolving customer issues in almost real-time while also gathering important feedback about your product or service.
Live Chat is chat software that performs the above functions, but more besides – it also includes a ticketing system, chatbot, and even a way to showcase your products during a chat session.
Over 20,000 businesses currently use their chat product in 150+ different countries.
A 14-day free trial is available, so you can use that to pre-sell this chat solution.
It is a feature-rich service that costs as little as $16 per agent per month. As an affiliate marketer, you’ll earn an average payout of 20% on all affiliate sales. This is also one of the top-performing programs on the ShareASale performance marketing platform, plus you’ll get all the tools you need, including promotional banners.
- Commission: 20%
- Cookie Duration: 120 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, Payoneer
- Products: Live chat software
Office Software Affiliate Programs
10. QuickBooks
QuickBooks started out providing accounting software for small to medium-sized business owners with no accounting experience, all the way back in 1983.
Since then, they’ve expanded their product range and grown to become a leading cloud accounting solution.
But their focus is still on helping small to medium businesses manage their business accounts.
This is why they have somewhere between a 56% and 72% market share, depending on your data source.
Their referral program offers up to $55 per sale, plus the company’s brand name is synonymous with accounting and payroll software. So as long as you’re targeting the right audience, there should be minimal effort involved in pre-selling this software.
- Commission: Up to $55 per sale
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Bookkeeping software
11. Microsoft
We’re not going to bore you with an explanation of who Microsoft is[1].
What’s important to you is that they have an affiliate marketing program, so you can make money by promoting their products to the people visiting your blog.
But you can’t earn commission on all Microsoft products.
You can, however, promote their Office 365 range of products, and these also just happen to pay up to $10 per lead.
Just make sure to check in with your affiliate manager before putting together your affiliate marketing campaign.
They are the largest creator of computer software products in the world – it’s actually kinda surprising that they still operate an affiliate program.
- Commission: Up to 7% or $10 per sale
- Cookie Duration: 14 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, PayPal
- Products: Office productivity software
12. My Choice Software
My Choice Software is something of a niche offer in the already-niche software market.
They provide you with better pricing on what is referred to as volume or “site” licenses for products like Microsoft Office, Exchange, or Windows Server.
So your target audience is a business looking for multiple licenses for Microsoft Project, for example.
But while their service is aimed at a predominantly B2B audience, they also sell individual software licenses.
These aren’t cheap OEM licenses, though – they’re full-price products, so again that will impact the type of traffic you should send to this offer.
This is an ideal affiliate marketing offer if you have a mostly B2B audience that’s looking to save money on its annual software license renewals.
- Commission: Up to 8%
- Cookie Duration: 90 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, Payoneer
- Products: Computer software
13. Beautiful AI
Most people suck at creating engaging presentations.
That’s why you’ve had to sit through a deck of 50+ barely legible or intelligible slides at least once in your lifetime.
Beautiful.ai makes sure that your presentations look great while also reducing the number of hours to create them.
It does this by using AI to ensure that your presentation follows the basic principles of engaging and accessible design.
Combined with their smart templates, you get a system that allows you to focus on the information you’re presenting instead of sweating over design details.
This is really clever stuff.
There are lots of open-source and freeware presentation software solutions available online. But Beautiful.ai is the only one we’re aware of that automates the functional design elements of creating a deck.
- Commission: 15%
- Cookie Duration: 45 days
- Payment Methods: PayPal, Direct deposit
- Products: Presentation software
14. AutoDesk
AutoDesk is the company behind an entire range of 3D design, rendering and animation products.
Architects and engineers will be familiar with AutoCAD, while anyone who has ever animated a 3D model will most likely have used 3DS Max.
Their software allows you to create and model everything from a bicycle wheel to a skyscraper in the digital world long before it ever becomes a reality.
And the great news for the affiliate marketers reading this is they also have a high-performing affiliate program.
Their products carry a huge amount of brand recognition and are dominant solutions in several verticals, i.e., they have no serious competition.
- Commission: 9%
- Cookie Duration: 60 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: 3D design, rendering, and animation software
Security Affiliate Programs
15. Norton
Cyber attacks are big news right now, and with good reason – there’s an attempted attack on a computer system every 39 seconds.
So an unprotected computer system is pretty much asking to be infected.
That’s why your website visitors should consider protecting their computers and personal information from hackers and cybercriminals by using Norton security products.
They have a plan or product to suit almost every budget, in addition to decades of experience in helping people keep their computers safe from viruses and other dangers.
They offer a broad range of antivirus, malware, and identify theft protection services and are a household name in home computer security. You can also earn up to $200 per referred customer, making it one of the best affiliate programs in this roundup based on payout.
- Commission: Up to $200 per sale
- Cookie Duration: 60 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Computer security
16. McAfee
McAfee was one of the first suppliers of computer antivirus software, originally distributed via a pre-Internet BBS (Bulletin Board System) back in 1984.
So they have almost four decades of experience in this industry and 5 million customers worldwide.
Today, the company supplies an expanded range of computer security products, including a ‘Total Protection’ software suite and their own VPN product.
What differentiates McAfee from the competition is that they offer protection without the price premium i.e., they’re cheaper than anyone else.
They’re a recognized brand name in antivirus products that are both affordable and get the job done.
- Commission: $10 per sale
- Cookie Duration: 45 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Antivirus software
17. Webroot
Webroot creates antivirus and computer security products for both home and business users.
They made a name for themselves in this industry by leveraging AI to identify brand-new security exploits and “wild” viruses before most other companies became aware of them.
So you can rely on their online platform to protect your personal laptop or offer real-time security protection for enterprise-level organizations.
Their home-user software is very affordable, so this is worth mentioning in your affiliate marketing efforts.
They offer advanced detection of viruses and malware at very little actual cost. Affiliates also enjoy an above-average commission rate on their products and services.
- Commission: Up to 12%
- Cookie Duration: 10 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, PayPal
- Products: Antivirus and computer security products
18. LastPass
LastPass is a password manager which comes in the form of a browser extension.
It makes it easy for your visitors to generate a secure password for every single login they use.
Another nice feature of LastPass is that it can autofill your logins – you don’t have to remember each username, password, or even the login URL.
Users can also safely share logins with other people without ever having to expose their actual passwords.
LastPass is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices, but you will need a premium account to use it on more than one device.
Their browser extension provides a simple and secure way to store password data in the cloud and is ranked as the #1 preferred password manager available today.
- Commission: 25%
- Cookie Duration: 14 days
- Payment Methods: PayPal, check, direct deposit, wire transfer
- Products: Password manager
19. Web Watcher
Parental control software is hardly a new idea.
But Web Watcher takes that to the next level by allowing you to not only monitor what your kids are doing on their laptops but also their smartphones.
It takes just a few minutes to install on a PC, Mac, or smartphone. Your visitors can then remotely check texts, phone calls, photos, messages, social media posts, and incoming messages on the most popular messaging platforms.
This can help prevent cases of cyberbullying as well as keeping children safe from online predators.
50% of teenagers have experienced cyberbullying, and 20% of children[2] have been exposed to messages from an online predator. So this could prove to be a lucrative affiliate marketing offer to promote based on the audience size.
- Commission: 35%
- Cookie Duration: 10 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, PayPal
- Products: Computer monitoring software
Productivity Affiliate Programs
20. Grammarly
Grammarly is a writing assistant that prevents users from making embarrassing grammatical and spelling mistakes in their writing.
But the neat thing about Grammarly is you don’t have to copy and paste your message or text into a separate tool to check it.
Instead, Grammarly provides in-line suggestions while you’re writing an email in Gmail or Outlook, creating an essay in Word, or dropping a notification in Asana to your team.
So you can improve your writing on the fly, learning little grammatical lessons every time you send a message.
There are other competing products on the market, but Grammarly is simply more versatile. Oh, and they also pay you 20c for every single person who registers for a free account through your affiliate link.
- Commission: 20c per registration and up to $20 per sale
- Cookie Duration: 90 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Writing assistant
21. Smile On My Mac
Smile is not the teeth whitening or alignment service that it sounds like.
Instead, they’re the company behind a product called ‘TextExpander’.
Its power comes from the ability to store a vast library of content snippets that can then be recalled and inserted into any document with a few keystrokes or a shortcut.
But unlike templates, you can create a Text Expander snippet on the fly and use it with dozens of different applications.
This software is a favorite of people in customer support jobs because it allows them to process customer replies in seconds instead of minutes.
Their ‘TextExpander’ product is the best of its type on the market and can appeal to a number of different audiences. This includes every business with a customer base that requires regular and ongoing support.
- Commission: 20%
- Cookie Duration: 45 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, Payoneer
- Products: Productivity
22. AYOA
AYOA is a solution for companies or individuals who struggle to capture their best ideas as they appear.
It does this by combining mind mapping, whiteboard, and task management functionality into a single tool.
But multiple people can collaborate on these simultaneously, and the end results are available both online and offline, including on mobile devices.
Now you can capture every single brainstorming session in its entirety and share it with everyone in the organization.
It offers an innovative way to capture all the data generated during a typical brainstorming session and your affiliate marketing efforts will earn you a 10% commission on renewals. This offer is available through Awin, one of the lesser-known affiliate networks but still one worth checking out
- Commission: Up to 30% on initial sales and 10% on renewals, upgrades, etc.
- Cookie Duration: 60 days
- Payment Methods: Direct deposit, wire transfer
- Products: Productivity
23. Nuance
Humans max out at 60 words per minute when typing.
But we speak at an average speed of 150 words per minute
Dragon by Nuance capitalizes on this difference by accurately transcribing what you say into almost any application capable of accepting text entry.
So you can automatically 3x your productivity by simply speaking into a microphone instead of bashing away at a keyboard.
And for the skeptics reading this, voice recognition and dictation software have come a long way in just the last decade.
Nuance voice recognition software is the best of its kind on the market, used by everyone from keyboard-jaded authors to medical professionals.
- Commission: 8%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Voice recognition software
Wondershare is the software developer behind a wide range of applications including video editing, graphic design, and file recovery and repair software.
But there’s an entire category dedicated to productivity featuring:
- PDF creation
- Diagramming
- Prototype design
- Mind mapping
- Document management
- Infographics
The neat thing about the Wondershare software library is that your visitors will likely find at least one product they would find useful.
Just make sure to send warm traffic to specific offers – shotgunning their offers with traffic won’t work.
They offer a wide range of software products with something to appeal to almost any audience, plus their top affiliates earn $3k per week.
- Commission: Up to 50%
- Cookie Duration: 90 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, PayPal
- Products: Various software applications
25. Magix
Magix might just be the perfect affiliate program for anyone with a creative audience.
That’s because they sell video, music, and photo design & editing software as well as add-ons and plugins for these applications.
Some of these are designed purely for professionals, like Sound Forge Pro and Vegas Video.
But they also have more beginner-oriented products like Photostory Deluxe for people who just want to create an animated slideshow of their holiday photographs.
You just need to make sure that you’re pitching the right product to the right audience based on their level of experience and spending power.
They’ve got a great range of products suitable for multiple audiences ranging from musicians to videographers.
- Commission: Up to 30%
- Cookie Duration: 32 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Music, photo, and video editing
Privacy Affiliate Programs
26. Express VPN
Increasing concerns around data privacy, online anonymity, and government oversight have resulted in huge growth in the popularity of VPNs.
That explains why this is an industry that’s projected to grow by around 20% each year until almost 2030.
Express VPN is one of the more popular virtual private networks available today, with over 7,000 positive reviews online.
It is one of the more expensive products available in this market, but can you put a price on privacy?
But do bear their pricing in mind when you’re pitching their products to your audience.
This is a company whose products are as popular with security-conscious computer users as they are with affiliate marketers. Your audience gets a high-quality VPN, and you get paid up to $36 per sale.
- Commission: $13 – $36 per sale
- Cookie Duration: 90 days
- Payment Methods: PayPal
- Products: VPN
27. NordVPN
Nord VPN occupies the “more affordable” tier of VPN services that your visitors can sign up for.
But that doesn’t mean it lacks in features.
Users get a secure VPN service with over 5,300 servers in 60 different countries, with servers available in specific cities in many cases.
Nord is fast enough to support popular media streaming services and allows up to 6 devices to connect to an account at once.
In terms of helping you remain anonymous, they operate a strict “No logs” policy, obfuscated servers (your data doesn’t look like it’s on a VPN), and a promise of no DNS leaks.
You get to promote a popular VPN with a strong feature set which is also very affordable if your visitors sign up for a 1-year plan.
- Commission: 40%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, PayPal
- Products: VPN
Lifestyle Affiliate Programs
28. DxO
DxO supply advanced software for photographers who need high-end photo editing online[3] and image manipulation capabilities.
Their software uses AI to help photographers correct the most common issues that impact RAW[4] digital images.
So the final images look great before you ever load them into Adobe Photoshop, as well as saving a photographer or designer hours of grinding work retouching images before publication or printing.
This company also sells a range of Photoshop plugins, allowing you to take your image manipulation and enhancement to new levels.
They are providers of some of the most advanced image correction software on the planet, with a referral program that converts 6% of site visitors into affiliate sales.
- Commission: 15%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Direct deposit, wire transfer
- Products: Digital photo editor
29. Skillz
Skillz is an eSports platform where gamers can find worthy opponents to compete against, with skill-matching ensuring that each game is a fair fight.
But it also gives indie developers a way to monetize their games in such a way that they can pay their bills and keep coding games for their fans.
And for gamers, it gives them a way to earn real money from their hobby in the form of cash prizes.
All Skillz games are free-to-play and aimed at a mobile gaming audience.
Note: This affiliate network offer appears to only be available via the FlexOffers affiliate network. But they do have a quick and relatively easy approval process.
- Commission: 32%
- Cookie Duration: 90 days
- Payment Methods: Check, PayPal, direct deposit, wire transfer
- Products: eSports
30. Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone has been teaching people how to speak a foreign language from the comfort of their homes since 1992.
Their unique approach teaches you a foreign language by immersion in the language itself instead of forcing you to remember words and phrases.
As of right now, their products cover 30 different languages ranging from English to Swahili for a single monthly payment.
But you can also choose to pay $11.99 for a monthly subscription or $299 for lifetime access to all of their language packs.
Rosetta Stone comes with a 3-day free trial, so you should try to leverage that in your pre-sell content as much as you can.
They provide a fun and engaging way to learn a foreign language either from your laptop or via their mobile app.
- Commission: 7%
- Cookie Duration: 30 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, or Payoneer
- Products: Language tuition
31. Splice
Splice is the type of offer that will appeal to musicians all over the world.
It is a library of over 2 million different audio samples that you can download and use directly in your digital audio workstation (DAW).
But they also provide musicians and composers with a way to rent plugins, paying for them monthly until they own them.
So you should be able to find plenty of musicians who want to sign up and save themselves money on otherwise expensive software tools and samples.
They offer a unique and ever-expanding library of millions of royalty-free audio samples for less than it costs for a monthly subscription to Spotify.
- Commission: $5 per lead
- Cookie Duration: 60 days
- Payment Methods: Check, direct deposit, PayPal
- Products: Audio samples
32. Jotform
Jotform team are also great affiliate partners. Jotform is an online form builder that boasts a wide variety of features, integrations, and use cases. It’s way more than an online form builder that allows its users to improve their whole data collection and management process.
Jotform integrates with hundreds of other applications, offers tens of thousands of templates, strong privacy features, HIPAA compliance, payment forms, team collaboration, and even document generation features on top of its powerful form builder.
As it’s such a flexible tool, it’s used in almost every industry possible. This alongside the quality of the product makes it the ideal affiliate program for anyone who wants to increase their portfolio or for people who are getting started with affiliate marketing.
Another advantage Jotform has is that their affiliate partnership team provides solid support and onboarding to their partners. On top of that, it’s really easy to get accepted to the program. All you need is to have an audience you can reach and the rest is entirely up to you.
It offers a powerful data collection platform that can be used by small businesses, big corporations, and even solo entrepreneurs that solves the problems of dozens of different industry-specific cases.
- Commission model: Pay per paid plan purchase
- Average compensation: 30% commission for every paid user
- Cookie lifetime: 60 days
- Available on: Own platform
Start Earning With the Best Software Affiliate Programs
As you can see, the software niche is actually pretty diverse.
It covers everything from affiliate marketing software to audio samples and web development tools.
The neat part is that this roundup really only scratches the surface of what’s available.
But there are some real gems in the list above, with something to suit almost any niche.
You’re not sure what niche to choose for your affiliate business?
Well…why didn’t you say so?
My Affiliate Lab course teaches you everything you need to know about niche selection, keyword research, and all that other good stuff that makes for a profitable affiliate site.
All this from a guy who flips 6-figure websites for fun…and profit. Join me and grow your affiliate income!
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