Linktree is everywhere. It's the default answer to "I need one link in my bio." And for a lot of creators, it works fine — a handful of links to their main channels, maybe a Patreon or Etsy shop.
But for makers and gear-focused creators, Linktree has a ceiling. And that ceiling shows up in your affiliate income.
What Linktree Is Good At
Navigation. Linktree is a clean, simple way to send people to your most important destinations. YouTube, Instagram, newsletter, store. It's a lobby, not a room.
If your goal is "help my audience find my main platforms," Linktree does the job. It's fast to set up, looks clean, and you can update it without touching a website.
Where It Falls Short for Makers
The moment you try to use Linktree as a gear or product recommendation page, you hit the walls:
- No categories. Your 30 recommended tools become a scrolling list with no organization.
- No product images. Everything looks the same — just a row of buttons.
- No per-link analytics. You know how many clicks the page got, not which products people cared about.
- No affiliate tag management. You're manually tagging every link and hoping you got it right.
- No SEO. Linktree pages don't rank in search engines for product queries.
What a Dedicated Gear Page Does Differently
A gear page built on a platform like MakerManifest is designed around product discovery. Items have titles, descriptions, and images. Lists are organized by category. Every link carries your affiliate tag automatically. And the page is indexable by Google — so it can surface in search for the kinds of queries your audience is already making.
Which Earns More?
A dedicated gear page almost always earns more than a Linktree-style product list, for a few reasons:
- Browsability drives more clicks. When someone can see your full tool collection organized by category, they explore. Exploration leads to more clicks than a scrolling list of buttons.
- Images convert. Seeing the actual product — not just a link label — creates the "I want that" moment.
- SEO brings outside traffic. Linktree doesn't rank. A gear page can.
You don't have to choose one or the other — keep Linktree for navigation, and add your MakerManifest gear page as one of the links. Set up your gear page here.