Applications and Approval

The Two Application Pages

Every company with Partners has two public application pages: Become a Partner (for agencies and freelancers who resell or white label your services) and Become an Affiliate (for people who refer clients for a commission). You open each one in Partners Settings; while one is closed, its page says so and keeps nothing. The pages are listed on the Partners page under Application Pages so you can link to them from your website.

The pages are drawn as the same cards as client sign-in. On your website they come in place on the website's own page, each step a card that fades in where the last one was, with the bar-only loader while it saves. Every form still works without script: each step is then a plain page.

The Steps

The questions come from your program's forms (Partners Settings, Partner Program, Application forms), which you can change like any form: add, remove, or reword a question, mark it required, and group questions into steps. Partners start with five short steps (Your Company, Your Details, Your Business, Working Together, A Little More) and affiliates with three (About You, Your Audience, How You Will Share). Each form asks where the applicant is based, from a list of countries, with an optional city or region.

Where the program is open (Partners Settings, Partner Program, action partners.program.save with countries): leave it empty to welcome every country, or name the countries the program is open to, such as the United States. The application then says so beside the location question ("The program is open to businesses based in the United States that can be paid to a United States bank account for now"), offers only those countries, and tells anyone based elsewhere plainly that the program is not open there yet.

• A progress bar shows the step, its name, and how far along the applicant is.
• Every step is saved as the applicant moves on. Back keeps what was typed.
• Friendly checks sit beside each question when an answer needs a look (an email address that does not look right, a website that is not one, a required answer left empty). Every other answer on the step is kept.
• Save and Continue Later emails a link back to the saved application (in your email template, at once, because the applicant asked). The link works for 30 days.
• Review shows every answer, with Edit beside each step.
• The agreement step comes last, as its own card (below). Choosing I Agree sends the application.
• The confirmation card says what happens next, and an email with the same words and a link to the status page goes out at once. The status page shows Received, Under Review, Approved, or Not Approved.
• The people who review applications are told at once, and no one else: each person with Review partner applications (owners until it is turned off for them in Settings, Permissions) gets a notice in Needs You Today and an email (New Partner Application or New Affiliate Application) with the applicant's name, the kind of application, and a link to Applications in Partners. Email to your own team goes at any hour. Both need the From address in Partners Settings; until it is set, the Partners Settings card says so.

The Agreement Step

Applicants read the Partner Agreement or the Affiliate Program Agreement in the application itself. The text is your program's own data (Partners Settings, Partner Program, Agreements: the title, its public page, its version, its full text, and the sentence above the signature).

• The text is in a box to scroll. I Agree turns on once the applicant reaches the end (without script it is always on).
• While you mark an agreement Still a draft pending attorney review, the step says Draft pending attorney review above the text. Applicants accept the draft; when you publish the final text with a new version, everyone accepts it again at their next sign-in.
• The applicant types their full name to sign, then chooses I Agree.
• Kept with the acceptance: the exact text, its version, whether it was a draft, the typed name, the time, the IP address, and the device (the browser's own description of itself). Each acceptance is kept for good and is never changed.

The Automatic Checks

Each application is checked on its own within about a minute of arriving. Nothing is sent to the applicant. The result is a score from 0 to 100, a recommendation (Approve, Review, or Decline), a one-line summary, and flags, shown on the review list:

• A business email address, not a free mailbox.
• The age of the website's domain (from the public domain registry, for domains in any country).
• Whether the domain receives email.
• Whether the website loads, and whether it describes the services the applicant says they offer.
• Whether the portfolio links work, and whether those client sites run WordPress.
• The website's authority and search visibility, when your Ahrefs connection is set up (Settings, Connections).
• Whether the domain is on public spam block lists.
• Whether the applicant is itself a hosting provider.
• Whether the applicant already applied or is already a partner.
• For affiliates: whether the site is a coupon or deal site, an empty account, or says it plans to buy ads on your brand name.

A person with Review partner applications can run the checks again with action partners.application.check (Check Again on the partner's page).

One-Click Approval

Only people with Review partner applications can approve or turn down an application. The owner has it from the start; the owner can give it to anyone else on their Access page, under Given One by One (Permissions).

Approving is one click, with action partners.partner.approve. It:

1. Gives the partner a link code.
2. Places them in their tier at once (the tier everyone starts in on approval).
3. Queues the welcome email for your business hours: your program's approved template, in your email template, with the single-use link to their partner page, which is their sign-in. AI agents never send it, and nothing is emailed before a person clicks Approve.

Their partner area then asks them to accept the agreement before anything else opens (unless they accepted the same version in the application). Turning down an application marks it Declined; its status page says Not Approved; no email is sent.

The Agreement at Sign-In, and the Agreements Page

When you publish a new version of an agreement (a new version in Partners Settings), each partner is asked to read and accept it at their next sign-in, the same way: the text to scroll, their typed full name, and I Agree. Until they do, their page shows only the agreement. The version it replaces is kept in the program's agreement history (with its text and the day it was replaced), and each acceptance keeps the exact text the person accepted, so you can always show who accepted what.

Every agreement a partner accepted is on their page under Agreements, newest first, each with Download PDF (Preparing shows until the file is ready). The PDF is the exact text they accepted, with their typed name and the time. On the partner's record your team sees each acceptance with its IP address and device.

Companies the Program Already Has

A partner or affiliate can't register a company you already have: see Links, Signups, and Referrals.

Applications in the Menu

Applications is the second item of Partners' menu, with a count beside it while any wait (action partners.applications.waiting), and the first card on the Partners page: every application waiting, best score first, with its answers, its automatic checks, and Approve and Turn Down for people with Review partner applications. With none waiting, it says so.