Set Up Your Referral Program

PaperLink's referral program lets you earn 50% of every payment made by customers you refer - for up to 12 months per customer. Create unique referral links, share them anywhere, and track your earnings in real time.

Who Can Access

Team members with Owner, Admin, or Manager roles can create and manage referral links. The Member role can see the Referral Program tab in navigation but cannot access the page.

Create a Referral Link

Open Settings in the sidebar.
Click Referral Program under the Team section.
In the Create New Link form, fill in:
- Link name - a friendly label like "Twitter bio" or "Newsletter March"
- Custom slug - the unique part of your URL (lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, 3-50 characters). For example, my-blog creates paperlink.online/?ref=my-blog
(Optional) Expand Advanced (UTM Parameters) to add campaign tracking:
- Source - where the traffic comes from (twitter, youtube, newsletter)
- Medium - channel type (social, video, email)
- Campaign - campaign name (spring-2026, product-launch)
- Content - differentiate links in the same campaign (header-link, bio-link)
- Term - keyword for paid search campaigns
Check the Preview to see the full generated URL with all parameters.
Click Create Link.

Your new link appears immediately in the Team Links table below. Click the link URL to copy it to your clipboard - a green "Copied!" confirmation appears.

Each UTM field has an info icon with examples. UTM parameters are optional but useful when you promote through multiple channels and want to compare performance.

Track Your Performance

The Referral Program page shows two levels of statistics:

Summary cards at the top show totals across all your team's links:

Clicks - how many times your links were visited
Sign-ups - visitors who created a PaperLink account through your links
Paid - sign-ups who became paying customers
Earned - total commission earned (50% of each payment)
Paid Out - amount already paid to your team
Pending - earned minus paid out

Team Links table shows per-link breakdown: name, full URL (with UTM parameters), who created it, clicks, sign-ups, paid conversions, and earned amount.

Summary stats reflect your team's all-time totals and are not affected by pagination or filters. The table data refreshes automatically when you change pages, apply filters, or create a new link.

Filter and Paginate

If multiple team members create referral links, use the Created by filter to view links from a specific person. On desktop, the filter appears in a sidebar to the left of the table. On mobile, tap the filter icon above the table.

The table shows 10 links per page by default. Change the page size to 25 or 50 using the dropdown in the table footer. Page and filter state are stored in the URL, so you can bookmark or share a filtered view.

Commission, Tracking & Payouts

For full details on commission rates, cookie window, tracking attribution, payout methods, and minimum payout amounts, see the Affiliate Program terms.

Slugs and Reserved Words

Your custom slug must be:

3 to 50 characters long
Lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only
Globally unique (no two teams can use the same slug)

The following slugs are reserved: admin, app, api, help, blog, pricing, affiliate, ref, null, undefined, settings, dashboard, login, signup, auth, view, docs, mcp.

PaperLink Affiliate Program - blog post with program overview and commission examples
Affiliate Program - marketing page with program details, FAQ, and terms
Invite a Team Member - add team members who can create referral links