Affiliate terms

1. What this is

These terms govern your participation in the Pendraic affiliate program. They sit alongside Pendraic’s main Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which still apply. If anything in these affiliate terms conflicts with the main Terms of Use, these terms control for your role as an affiliate.

2. Eligibility

You have to be an enrolled Pendraic account holder. You need a Stripe Connect Express account in a country Stripe supports for Connect (we don’t choose the list; Stripe does). If you’re an employee of Pendraic or Anthropic, or a contractor working on the product, you cannot participate.

3. Commission structure

You earn a percentage of each qualifying payment made by a writer who signed up through your referral link. The rate is tier-based:

• Standard: 3.5% (default)
• Influencer: 5.0% at 50 active referrals
• Partner: 7.5% at 150 active referrals
• Elite: 7.5% at 1,000 active referrals
• Elite + Premium: 10.0% if you are personally on a Premium Pendraic plan while at Elite tier

An “active referral” means a referred account that has paid at least one invoice past the 60-day maturity window (section 6) and is currently on a paid plan. Free accounts do not count. If a paid account switches back to free, it is removed from your active-referral count.

The tier rate is recorded on each commission at the time it is accrued. Subsequent tier changes do not retroactively revalue older commissions.

4. Attribution

We set a 90-day last-click cookie when a visitor clicks your /r/ link. If they sign up for Pendraic while that cookie is active, the attribution is recorded to you. If the visitor later clicks a different affiliate’s link before signing up, the newer link wins. Self-referrals are blocked, including cases where the referrer and the referred share a Stripe customer record (the usual sign of the same person operating multiple accounts).

5. Maturity of the first payment

The first payment a new referred account makes does not generate a commission. We record it as a maturity entry with a zero amount. From the second payment on, commissions accrue at your current tier rate. This is a standard practice in recurring-commission programs: it keeps refund fraud from free-riding on the window between a charge clearing and the money actually being ours to share.

6. 60-day arrears window and reversals

Every commission sits in “pending” for 60 days from the payment date. This covers Stripe’s standard refund window. On the 61st day, the commission flips to “available” and is eligible for payout.

If a referred account is refunded inside the 60-day window, we reverse the corresponding commission automatically. If a refund arrives after a commission has paid out, the reversal still applies, and the amount is deducted from your next available balance. If the deduction exceeds your balance, it carries a negative forward until earned back.

Chargebacks are treated the same as refunds for this purpose. If we are charged a chargeback fee by our payment processor, we may deduct that fee from the reversal amount.

7. Payouts

On the 1st of each month (09:00 UTC), we transfer your available balance to your Stripe Connect account if it is $25.00 (USD) or more. Balances below $25 roll forward to the next month. Payout currency is USD for now; multi-currency support is on the roadmap.

Transfers depend on Stripe being able to process them. If your Connect account has outstanding requirements (for example, Stripe needs an updated tax form), the payout is paused until those are resolved. The dashboard shows the exact requirement Stripe is asking for.

8. Taxes

You are responsible for your own taxes. Pendraic pays you gross; we do not withhold. Stripe may issue you tax forms (1099-NEC in the US, local equivalents elsewhere) based on the amounts we pay through Connect. Talk to a tax professional in your jurisdiction.

9. Disclosure and promotional conduct

Where the law requires it (US FTC endorsement rules and comparable regimes elsewhere), you must disclose your affiliate relationship when you promote Pendraic. “As a Pendraic affiliate I earn on paid sign-ups” or similar clear language is fine.

You may not spam. Do not send unsolicited messages to people who haven’t opted in to hear from you. Do not purchase paid traffic that mimics Pendraic’s own brand keywords, or that funnels through typosquat domains. Do not make claims about Pendraic that are inaccurate (“generates books for you” is inaccurate; “helps you write faster” is fine).

Violating this section is grounds for suspension or termination under section 11.

10. Stripe Connect relationship

Pendraic uses Stripe Connect Express to pay you. By joining the program, you agree to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement and the Stripe Services Agreement. Stripe performs KYC, handles bank details, and is the regulated money transmitter. We are not your banker; Stripe is.

11. Suspension and termination

We may suspend your account or hold pending commissions if our fraud detectors flag unusual activity. We review flagged accounts manually before deciding what to do. If the review finds no wrongdoing, the hold is lifted and you are paid what you earned. If the review finds fraud, terms-violating promotion, or impersonation, we may terminate your participation and forfeit pending commissions.

You can leave the program at any time from the affiliate dashboard. Leaving does not forfeit commissions you have already earned; they pay out as scheduled. If you close your Pendraic account entirely, any pending (not-yet-available) commissions are forfeited; commissions already in the available state pay out on the next cycle.

12. Data and privacy

We record clicks on your /r/ links. For each click, we store the code, the time, the referring page, and hashed versions of the IP address and user agent. We do not store raw IP or raw user-agent strings. Hashed versions let us detect velocity fraud without making the data useful to anyone who might obtain a copy of our database.

We never share your referred accounts’ personal information with you. The dashboard shows you counts and earnings, not names or emails.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. Material changes will be posted to the affiliate dashboard and announced by email to enrolled affiliates at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued participation after the effective date constitutes acceptance. Existing commissions accrue under the terms that were in force at the time of the underlying payment.

14. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes arising from the program will be resolved in the state and federal courts located in Laramie County, Wyoming, unless a different method (arbitration, small claims exception) is agreed in writing.

15. Contact

Questions about these terms: help@pendraic.com. Payout issues or Stripe-side problems: include your referrer user id (visible on the dashboard) so we can look up the account quickly.