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The affiliate programme

Applying to refer Social Studio, what your referral link actually tracks, how commission is held and cleared, and why payouts are made by hand.

Updated

The affiliate programme gives you a referral link. Clicks on it are recorded, and a sign-up that follows one is attributed to you.

Commission is a ledger. Entries are held for a period, then become available, then are paid. Nothing is rounded, nothing is estimated, and a reversal is a real negative entry rather than a quiet edit.

Payouts are manual. Nothing in this product moves money to an affiliate. You request a payout, somebody reviews it, and the transfer is made outside the product and recorded here with its reference.

BEFORE YOU START

  • A Social Studio account. The programme is tied to you as a person, not to an organisation, and needs no particular role.
  • An open programme. If it is closed the page says so and there is nothing to apply for.
  • Approval. Your referral link is created when your application is approved, not when you apply.

STEPS

  1. Open Affiliate, or go to /app/affiliate.
  2. Read what the programme pays: either a percentage of referred subscriptions or a fixed amount per referred customer.
  3. Choose "Apply to join".
  4. Wait for the decision. While it is pending the page says your application is under review.
  5. Once approved, copy your referral link and share it.
  6. Watch clicks, sign-ups and conversions, and the three commission figures: pending while in holding, available, and paid.
  7. Choose "Request payout" once your available balance reaches the minimum.

WHAT YOU SHOULD SEE

Your referral link, three engagement counts, three commission figures, and a payout history. After requesting a payout: "Payout requested. Our team will process it manually."

WHAT THIS WILL NOT DO

  • It will not pay you automatically. There is no automated disbursement in this release and no self-service bank onboarding.
  • It will not record a conversion by itself. A click and a sign-up are automatic; turning a sign-up into commission is a manual step somebody performs.
  • It will not let you have two open payout requests at once.
  • It will not tell an unknown link apart from a retired one. Both simply send the visitor to the home page, on purpose.

WORTH KNOWING

The link sets a first-party cookie that lasts for the programme's attribution window, and only a hash of it is stored. You cannot refer yourself; a sign-up from your own account is refused.

IF IT DOES NOT WORK

  • "The affiliate programme is not open." means it is closed to applications.
  • "You are not an approved affiliate." means your application has not been approved.
  • "You already have a payout request awaiting review."
  • "You have no available balance to pay out." and "Your available balance is below the payout minimum." are the two balance refusals. The page also tells you exactly how much more has to clear.
  • "The available balance has fallen below the requested amount since this payout was requested." means a reversal landed while the request was waiting.
  • "The commission ledger has moved since this payout was requested; reject it and ask for a fresh request." is the safety check that stops a stale payout being settled.
  • "Your affiliate programme could not be loaded" means the request failed, not that you have nothing.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Why is my commission "pending"?

Because it is inside the holding period. It becomes available when that period ends, which is what gives room for a refund to be reversed before anything is paid.

Does the link work if I sign up a customer myself?

It records the click, but a self-referral is refused at sign-up.

  • Understanding credits

    What credits are spent on, what they are never spent on, how a reservation is settled or released, and exactly what happens when the balance runs out.

  • Choosing a plan

    What each plan includes, which of those entitlements are actually enforced today, where you can and cannot start a checkout, and what "bring your own AI" currently amounts to.

  • Inviting your team

    Creating an invitation link, choosing from the fourteen roles and what each one can do, how seats are counted, and what the team page cannot do.