Running Your Own Program

Programs

Any company with Partners can run referral programs for the companies that use its product: Partners, Programs, then New Program. Each program is an ordinary program with every term as its own setting. Nothing is filled in for you: you enter every number, and a change applies from that day on, never back-dated.

Two common setups:

• A program anyone using your product can join, in one click, with no application (How People Join: Anyone). The companies you serve see your Powered By line and Join on their own Brand page (Powered By and Earn). Only you need the Partners app; your affiliates need nothing.
• A program by application, for agencies, consultants, and resellers, using Partners' applications, tiers, badge, and partner area.

To offer the open program to a company you serve, make it an offer with the key earn and share it, the same way as any offer you make to other accounts (Settings, Apps, Your Offers; actions core.entitlements.offers.save and core.entitlements.offers.share). The company's account then knows you are its provider, and its Brand page shows your name and Join.

Program Settings

• Program Name and How People Join (anyone, or by application). Open to New Members turns joining on or off; a program an AI agent saves is saved closed, and only a person opens it.
• Rate: a percent of subscription fees. Only app and plan subscription fees earn commission. Usage, add-on usage, costs passed through at cost, taxes, and one-time charges never do, and a new kind of invoice line never earns unless it is a subscription fee.
• How Long Commission Is Earned: a number of monthly subscription payments per referred company, or while the company stays subscribed and the affiliate stays eligible.
• Active Partner Bonus: a bonus percent added to the base rate while the affiliate has a qualifying client within the renewal window (in months, checked every day). A qualifying client pays a set number of full months and counts from its sign-up day. The renewal reminder goes out a set number of days before the window ends, by email and on the affiliate's Earn page. A longer window can apply from a set number of paying clients. Affiliates always read it as a base plus a bonus with a renewal date.
• Network Commission: the network rate every affiliate up the chain earns on subscription fees of companies referred further down, and the required network ceiling: the most the direct commission and every level together can earn from one payment. Nearer levels are paid first. A chain never repeats an affiliate, an affiliate never earns on its own company, and resold or white-label companies earn no network commission. Nothing is paid for signing up or recruiting.
• Attribution Window: days a first click is credited (empty uses Partners Settings).
• Payout Day: the day of the month what is left after each affiliate's own invoices is sent to their bank.
• Payout Minimum: below it, the amount waits as credit. Empty means none.
• Who Pays the Processing Fees: you, so the affiliate receives the full amount, or the affiliate, with the percent and flat fee you set taken off each payout.

Tiers in a Program

A tier can set its own commission percent and Active Partner Bonus percent, or, for white-label partners, a discount percent off app and plan fees and an Active Partner Bonus discount percent. White-label partners bill their companies themselves at any price, are billed the discounted list price for app and plan fees (usage at full price), and never also earn commission on those companies. The discount in force (base plus bonus while active) is used on the partner's next monthly invoice.

Who Referred Whom

Each program's settings page has a Members card. Add Partner places an approved partner (one in no program yet) in the program, and Referred By sets which affiliate in the program referred a member there, for Network Commission (action partners.programs.member). An affiliate that joins your open program from its own workspace is placed automatically, with the affiliate whose referral it was. A loop, where an affiliate would be above itself, is refused.

Paying Affiliates

Connect your own Stripe account in Settings, Connections. Each affiliate who wants payouts sets up Stripe Connect under your Stripe through Stripe's own hosted setup; you never see their bank or tax details. On the 1st, right before Invoices charges an affiliate's own invoice, its cleared commission pays that invoice (and any older unpaid one) first. On your payout day, the rest goes out through your Stripe, once the affiliate's setup is finished. Your Stripe and your affiliates' accounts belong to your account only.

For Connected Apps and AI Agents

• partners.programs.list (MCP tool partners_programs_list): your programs, their terms, and members.
• partners.programs.save (MCP tool partners_programs_save): add or change a program.
• partners.programs.member (MCP tool partners_programs_member): put a partner in a program and set who referred it.