Affiliate WP Review: A Speed Score That Holds Up

My Benchmark Methodology

Every speed score on MakeWPFast is based on real performance measurements, not estimates. I install each plugin on a clean WordPress 6.9 setup (PHP 8.3, MariaDB, GeneratePress theme) and measure two key metrics:

PHP Memory Usage — how much additional memory the plugin consumes per request. Each doubling of memory overhead costs 10 points. High memory usage can cause crashes on shared hosting and limits how many plugins you can safely run together.

Database Queries — how many extra SQL queries the plugin runs per page load. Each 10x increase in query overhead costs 25 points. More queries mean more database work, slower pages, and harder scaling.

The score uses a logarithmic scale — the first few extra queries or megabytes matter more than going from 100 to 110 queries. This reflects real-world impact: the jump from 4 to 14 queries is far more noticeable than 100 to 110.

Grade	Score	What it means
A	90–100	Negligible impact. Safe to install on any hosting.
A-	80–89	Very light impact. Minimal overhead on any setup.
B+ / B / B-	65–79	Light impact. Adds some overhead but manageable on most setups.
C+ / C / C-	50–64	Moderate impact. May noticeably slow down budget hosting.
D+ / D	35–49	Heavy impact. Will affect page load times. Consider alternatives.
F	0–34	Severe impact. Significant resource usage that hurts performance.

Plugins marked "Not Yet Tested" have not been benchmarked yet. I do not estimate or guess scores — if there is no measured data, there is no grade.

Note: Benchmarks measure a plugin in isolation on a clean install. Real-world impact varies based on your hosting, other plugins, and how the plugin is configured.