Read this first. These are the terms of the affiliate programme and nothing else. They do not replace the site terms or the privacy policy, which continue to apply to your own use of the service. If the two ever conflict on a question about the affiliate programme, these terms govern.
This is a commercial agreement. If any part of it matters to you, have it reviewed before you accept it.
1. Who this is between
1.1 This agreement is between you (“you,” “the affiliate”) and the operator of this site (“we,” “us”).
1.2 You accept it by ticking the box on your account page and pressing the button that joins the programme. The date, the version number and the address you accepted from are recorded.
1.3 You are an independent contractor. You are not our employee, agent, partner, joint venturer or representative. Nothing here creates any of those relationships and you may not hold yourself out as having any of them.
2. Who may join
2.1 You must hold an account on this site, be at least 18, and be legally able to enter a contract.
2.2 One person, one affiliate account. Additional accounts created to route referrals to yourself, or to get around the payout minimum, may be closed and their balances forfeited.
2.3 We may decline an application, and we may close an affiliate account, under section 9 and under the termination policy.
3. What you are asked to do
3.1 Promote the service honestly to people who might genuinely want it, using your referral link or your referral code.
3.2 Follow the advertising and conduct rules, which form part of this agreement and are published separately.
3.3 Disclose the relationship. Where you recommend the service anywhere that a reader could take for independent opinion, say plainly that you may be paid if they subscribe. In the United States this is required by the Federal Trade Commission, not merely by us.
3.4 You have no quota, no minimum activity and no obligation to promote at all. An inactive affiliate account is not a breach of anything.
4. What we pay
4.1 The rate. Ten per cent of each payment a referred member makes, unless a different rate has been agreed with you in writing and is shown on your own account page.
4.2 Of the payment, not of the profit. The commission is a percentage of the amount actually received from the referred member for their subscription, before our costs and after any discount or coupon they used. Taxes collected on their payment are not part of the amount commission is calculated on.
4.3 For twelve months. Commission is earned on every qualifying payment for twelve months, counted from the referred member’s first payment. It is not limited to the first payment, and the twelve months do not start at their signup.
4.4 The rate is recorded when the commission is earned. If we change the programme rate, commissions already earned keep the rate they were earned at. A change applies only to commissions earned after it.
4.5 What does not earn. A free account earns nothing. Neither does a payment for a one-time purchase outside a subscription unless we say otherwise in writing, a payment refunded in full, a payment we never actually received, or a payment from an account you control.
5. How a referral is attributed to you
5.1 The window. When somebody follows your link, we record it. If they create an account within thirty days of that click, the account is attributed to you.
5.2 The code. Your referral code typed at signup does the same job as the link and is not limited by the click window.
5.3 One affiliate per account. A referred account is attributed to exactly one affiliate. Where more than one could claim it, the most recent qualifying click wins.
5.4 Already ours. An existing member, or somebody who has held an account with us before, is not a new referral, whatever route they arrive by.
5.5 What can break attribution. A visitor who blocks or clears cookies, changes device or browser between the click and the signup, or signs up more than thirty days later may not be attributed to you. We are not able to reconstruct attribution after the fact and will not do so on request.
6. When commission becomes yours
6.1 The hold. Every commission is held for thirty days from the day it is earned. During the hold it is visible on your account page and is not yet payable.
6.2 Clearing. If the payment behind it has not been refunded, disputed or reversed by the end of the hold, the commission becomes payable.
6.3 Reversal. If the payment is refunded, charged back, disputed or credited at any time, the commission is reversed. The payout and clawback policy sets out what happens if it had already been paid to you.
6.4 Commission that has cleared is a debt we owe you. It does not expire, and it is not forfeited for inactivity.
7. When and how we pay
7.1 Once a month. Payouts run on one day of each month, shown on your account page and in the email you are sent before each pay date.
7.2 The minimum. We pay an affiliate whose payable balance is fifty dollars or more. Below that the balance carries forward to the next month and every month after it until it clears the minimum. It is never lost.
7.3 How. By ACH to a United States bank account you give us, or as credit against your own subscription, whichever you choose. We do not send cheques or use third-party wallets.
7.4 Your details are your responsibility. We pay to the account you give us. A payment that fails or is returned because the details were wrong is returned to your balance and goes out on the next run; bank charges arising from wrong details may be deducted.
7.5 What holds a payout up. Payouts are held where you have given us no payout details, where a Form W-9 is required and has not been received, or where your affiliate account is paused pending a question under section 9. In each case you are told why by email two days before the pay date, the balance keeps building, and it goes out on the next run once the reason is gone.
7.6 Currency. All amounts are in United States dollars.
8. Tax
8.1 Commission is your income. You are responsible for reporting it and for any tax on it. We withhold nothing.
8.2 Before we pay you by bank, we may require a completed Form W-9 (or, for a non-US person, the applicable Form W-8). Where we are required to report payments, we issue a Form 1099-NEC for a calendar year in which you were paid six hundred dollars or more.
8.3 Credit against your own subscription is a discount on your own purchase, not a payment to you, and is not reported.
9. Questions, holds and audit
9.1 We may pause an affiliate account, and hold a payout, while we look into referrals that appear not to be genuine — signups from your own addresses, disposable email domains, unusual bursts of clicks, or any pattern suggesting the referrals were manufactured rather than earned.
9.2 A pause is not an accusation. We will tell you what we are asking about, and we will decide within a reasonable time. Commission continues to accrue while an account is paused.
9.3 Where referrals turn out not to be genuine, the commission on them is void and, if already paid, is recoverable.
9.4 We keep the records behind every commission: the click, the signup, the payment and the calculation. You can see your own on your account page at any time.
10. What we may change
10.1 We may change the rate, the earning window, the hold, the attribution window, the minimum and the payout day. A change takes effect for commission earned after it and never rewrites commission already earned.
10.2 We will give you at least thirty days’ notice by email of a change that reduces the rate or lengthens the hold. Other changes take effect when published.
10.3 If you do not accept a change, leave the programme. Whatever has already cleared will still be paid.
10.4 We may end the programme entirely. If we do, we will pay every cleared commission and every commission that clears its hold afterwards, on the ordinary schedule, and the minimum will be waived for the final run.
11. Our marks, and yours
11.1 While this agreement is in force you may use our name and the creative we publish on your affiliate page for the sole purpose of promoting the service. You may not alter it.
11.2 You get no other licence. You may not register a domain, a social account, an app listing or a business name containing our name or anything confusingly similar to it. You may not bid on our name in paid search. The conduct rules go into detail.
11.3 On termination this licence ends and you must take our material down.
12. No warranty, and the limit of what we owe
12.1 The programme is provided as it is. We do not promise it will earn you anything.
12.2 Tracking is technical and imperfect. We do not warrant that every click, signup or payment will be recorded, and we are not liable for a referral we did not record.
12.3 Our total liability to you under this agreement, on any basis, is limited to the commission properly earned and unpaid at the time the claim arises. We are not liable for lost profit, lost opportunity or any indirect or consequential loss.
12.4 Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.
13. Indemnity
13.1 You will indemnify us against any claim, loss or penalty arising from how you promoted the service — including a claim that your advertising was deceptive, that it infringed somebody’s rights, that it breached an anti-spam law, or that it broke the conduct rules.
14. Ending it
14.1 Either of us may end this agreement at any time. The termination policy sets out the notice, what happens to commission in flight, and the narrow circumstances in which a balance is forfeited.
15. General
15.1 Assignment. You may not assign this agreement. We may assign it as part of a transfer of the business.
15.2 Set-off. We may set off anything you owe us against commission we owe you.
15.3 Whole agreement. This agreement, the conduct rules, the payout and clawback policy, the termination policy and the affiliate privacy notice are the whole of it. Nothing said in an email or a call adds to it unless we confirm it in writing and say that it does.
15.4 Severance. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest stands.
15.5 No waiver. Not enforcing something once does not waive it.
15.6 Notices. To you, at the email address on your account. To us, at the support address on this site.
15.7 Governing law. The law and the courts named in the site terms govern this agreement too.