Affiliate Program Agreement

The short version

No gotchas — here's the whole deal in plain English. The full legal terms below say the same things with more precision, and they're what governs if the two ever seem to disagree.

You earn 30% of every payment each referred writer makes for 12 months from their signup (or until they cancel, whichever comes first).
Last click wins. Your link tags the visitor's browser; the referral locks to you when they sign up — create an account and confirm their email address.
Commissions confirm 30 days after each payment, then pay out monthly by PayPal, usually in the first week, once your confirmed balance passes $50. Smaller balances roll forward — nothing expires.
A full refund or chargeback reverses that payment's commission, whenever it happens. If we already paid it, the amount comes off your future commissions. Partial refunds don't reduce your commission.
Promote where your audience already listens. No paid ads of any kind without our written permission — they bid against our own marketing and just raise everyone's costs. If you have a paid campaign in mind, reach out; we're open to it.
Disclose the relationship on all promotional content ("I earn a commission if you subscribe through my link" does it) — it's an FTC requirement and a program condition.
No self-referrals, no coupon sites, no spam, no cookie stuffing, no pretending to be us.
Someone signed up but not through your link? Contact us and we'll do our best to help.
Either of us can end this with 30 days' notice. Writers you already referred keep earning you commission through their 12-month windows; only new referrals stop.

1. The program

This Agreement is between you (the "Affiliate") and writefolio, Inc., a Delaware corporation that operates writefol.io ("writefolio", "we", "us"). It governs your participation in the writefolio Affiliate Program. By submitting an application and checking the acceptance box, you agree to these terms; they take full effect when we notify you that your application is approved.

Application and approval. We review every application personally and may ask you for more information before deciding. Approval is at our discretion, and we may decline any application. If you haven't heard from us within 30 days of applying, treat the application as declined (and feel free to nudge us — it may just be a busy week).

Non-exclusivity. This isn't an exclusive arrangement in either direction. You may promote other products, including products that compete with ours, and we may work with other affiliates and channels.

Relationship of the parties. You are an independent contractor. Nothing in this Agreement creates an employment, agency, partnership, or joint-venture relationship, and you may not represent otherwise.

2. Commissions

Rate and duration. You earn a commission of 30% of each subscription payment made by a referred writer, for 12 months from the date that writer signs up (as defined in Section 3), or until they cancel or pause their subscription, whichever comes first. Any different rate or duration we agree with you in writing (for example, a special arrangement in your approval email) takes precedence for your account.

One commission per payment. Each subscription payment generates at most one commission, to at most one affiliate. Where more than one affiliate referred the same writer, the commission goes to the last affiliate whose link the writer used before signing up.

Confirmation. Each commission is provisional for 30 days after the payment it derives from. After 30 days the commission is confirmed and becomes payable.

Reversals. If the payment a commission derives from is fully refunded or charged back, at any time, the commission is reversed. A reversed commission that has not yet been paid is cancelled. A reversed commission that has already been paid is deducted from your confirmed balance and offset against your future commissions until it is recovered in full. A partial refund does not reduce the commission.

Disputed payments. While a payment dispute is open on a referred writer's account, we withhold commissions derived from that writer's payments. Withheld commissions are paid in a later monthly payout once the dispute closes. If the dispute ends in a chargeback, the commission on the disputed payment is reversed as described above.

Payouts. Confirmed commissions are paid monthly, by PayPal, in USD, usually in the first week of the month, whenever your confirmed balance, net of any reversed commissions, is $50 or more. Balances under $50 roll forward indefinitely. You must provide and maintain a valid PayPal email address; PayPal's own fees and any currency conversion on withdrawal are yours. Alternative payout rails (Wise, ACH, wire) may be available on request.

Unclaimed commissions. If we cannot pay you because your payout method is invalid and you do not respond to our attempts to reach you at your registered email for six months, the unpaid balance is forfeited.

Offset. We may offset amounts you owe us, including reversed commissions under "Reversals" above, against commissions we owe you.

Taxes. You are responsible for your own taxes on commission income. For US affiliates, we issue a Form 1099-NEC at year end when aggregate payments reach $600, and we may request a completed W-9 (or applicable equivalent) before continuing payouts once you approach that threshold.

3. Attribution and tracking

How it works. Your referral link stores an identifier in the visitor's browser. A writer "signs up" when they create a writefolio account and confirm its email address — by entering the code we send them, or by signing in with a provider that confirms the address. At that moment, the most recent affiliate identifier present in the browser they sign up with — from a click within the previous 60 days — is locked to that account permanently. Later clicks on other affiliates' links do not change a locked referral.

Tracking limits. Attribution depends on the visitor's browser storage. If, before signing up, a visitor clears their browser data, blocks storage, or signs up in a different browser or on a different device from the one that followed your link, the referral cannot be attributed and no commission is owed. If a visitor declines optional storage in our privacy choices, your identifier is kept only until the page is closed or reloaded, so the referral is attributed only if they sign up before then. We are not liable for commissions lost to tracking limitations.

Manual credit. If you believe a writer you referred signed up without your link being counted, contact us before their first payment and we'll do our best to help. Manual credit is a goodwill accommodation at our discretion, not an entitlement.

Self-referrals. You may not earn commission on your own subscriptions. Signups matching your own contact or payout details are automatically excluded from attribution, and routing your own purchase through your link (or a third party's details) to capture commission is a for-cause violation.

4. Promotion rules

You agree that you will:

Disclose the affiliate relationship clearly on all promotional content, as required by FTC guidelines (16 C.F.R. Part 255) and any equivalent rules in your jurisdiction. A plain statement like "I earn a commission if you subscribe through my link" satisfies this.
Promote writefolio only through channels where the audience has chosen to hear from you.

You agree that you will not:

Run paid advertising of any kind that promotes writefolio or carries your referral link without our prior written permission — including search ads (especially on our brand terms or domain), social ads (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or similar), and display ads. These compete with our own marketing and raise costs for everyone. If you'd like to run a paid campaign, reach out first — we're open to discussing it.
Post your referral link to coupon, deal, or voucher-aggregation websites.
Send unsolicited email, message purchased lists, or send promotional direct messages on social platforms to people who haven't consented to hear from you.
Use cookie stuffing, pop-unders, forced clicks, hidden frames, fake redirects, masked referrer information, bots, or any mechanism that manufactures clicks or signups that didn't come from a real, willing person.
Make misleading claims about writefolio, its pricing, or its features.
Represent yourself as an employee or agent of writefolio, or as anything more than an independent affiliate.
Offer unauthorized rebates, kickbacks, or other incentives for signing up through your link.

Commissions generated by mechanisms that violate these rules are not owed and will not be paid, whether discovered before or after payout; already-paid amounts for violating transactions are recoverable by offset or repayment.

5. Brand use

While this Agreement is active, you may use the writefolio name and the logo assets we provide in your promotional content, provided you: use only the assets we supply, unaltered; don't imply that we endorse, sponsor, or operate your content; and stop any particular use promptly if we ask. You grant us the right to reference your name, brand, and channel in program materials (for example, listing you as an affiliate); we'll stop if you ask. Neither side gains any ownership of the other's marks, and no other license — to our software or anything else — is granted by this Agreement.

6. Confidentiality

Non-public information either of us shares with the other under this program — including your commission details and anything we share about unreleased plans — stays confidential, protected with reasonable care, and used only for the program. This doesn't cover information that is public, already known to the receiver, or that must be disclosed by law. You never receive writefolio writer or reader data beyond your own aggregated commission figures.

7. Term and termination

Term. This Agreement runs from your approval until terminated.

Without cause. Either of us may terminate with 30 days' written notice (email suffices).

For cause. We may terminate or suspend your participation immediately if you breach this Agreement — including the promotion rules — or engage in fraud, a pattern of chargebacks (roughly 10% or more of your referred payments), disclosure violations, or conduct that we reasonably determine harms writefolio, our writers, or their readers.

Effect. On a clean termination (by either of us without cause, or by you for our breach), no new referrals attribute to you after the termination date, except that a writer who created their account through your link before that date still attributes to you under Section 3 if they sign up afterwards. Writers attributed to you keep earning you commission through the remainder of their individual 12-month windows, paid out on the normal monthly schedule — the "every payment for 12 months" promise survives a clean termination. Commissions still inside their 30-day confirmation window confirm normally. On a for-cause termination by us, unpaid commissions are forfeited and no further commissions accrue. On any termination, stop using our brand assets and remove program references from your properties within a reasonable time. Referred writers' own subscriptions are unaffected.

8. Disclaimers, liability, indemnity

As-is. The program, our tracking, and the writefolio service are provided "as is," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We don't promise any particular level of referrals, conversions, or earnings.

No indirect damages. To the extent permitted by law, neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, punitive, or special damages, including lost profits or opportunities.

Cap. To the extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of this Agreement is limited to the commissions you actually earned in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Indemnity. You will defend and hold us harmless from third-party claims arising out of your promotional content and conduct, your breach of this Agreement, or your violation of applicable law.

9. Changes to these terms

We may update this Agreement with 30 days' notice to your registered email. Changes to commercial terms apply prospectively only: referrals attributed before the change keep the rate and duration they were earned under. If you don't agree with a change, you may terminate before it takes effect and be paid out per the "clean termination" terms above.

10. General

Compliance with law. You'll comply with all laws applicable to your promotional activity, including consumer-protection, privacy, anti-spam, and export/sanctions rules, and you'll ensure anyone promoting on your behalf does the same.

Governing law and venue. This Agreement is governed by the same law, and disputes are resolved in the same venue, as our Terms of Service.

Notices. We'll send notices to your registered email; you can send notices to affiliates@writefol.io. Notices count as delivered on actual receipt.

Assignment. You may not assign this Agreement without our written consent; we may assign it in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

Severability; waiver. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest stands, and the unenforceable provision is replaced with an enforceable one that comes closest to its intent. Not enforcing a provision once isn't a waiver of it later.

Entire agreement. This Agreement (together with your approval email, including any special terms in it) is the entire agreement about the Affiliate Program and supersedes prior discussions. Nothing in it grants rights to anyone other than you and us.

Survival. Sections 2 (for amounts accrued), 5, 6, 7 ("Effect"), 8, and 10 survive termination.

Questions about any of this? Email affiliates@writefol.io — a human reads it.