Affiliate program

Earn 50% of everything your referrals pay. For as long as they pay it.

No 12-month cliff, no taper — on the whole invoice, plan and overage, for the life of the account. No tiers to climb, no approval queue, no minimum audience. Every term is on this page, including the ones that don't pay.

Get your affiliate link See what it pays

Your link looks like mailkite.dev/?ref=k7m2q9xd

Shipping a kit or plugin that creates accounts for its users? Attribute in the API call instead — no link, no cookie.

Terms

The whole deal, in six numbers

50%
of everything they pay

Plan fees and metered overage — the whole invoice.

Lifetime
per referred account

No 12-month cliff. It runs as long as they keep paying.

60 days
last-click cookie

A newer link overwrites an older one.

60 days
holding period

Covers refunds and chargebacks before we pay.

$100
payout minimum

Balances roll forward until you clear it.

Stripe or credit
how you get paid

Cash to your Stripe account, or MailKite credit.

What it pays

What one referral is actually worth

Our published plan prices, times 50%. No "up to," no bands, and no expiry date.

Plan they land on They pay You earn / month Per year, every year
Pro 50,000 emails / mo $20/mo $10.00 $120.00
Scale 250,000 emails / mo $99/mo $49.50 $594.00
Business 1,000,000 emails / mo $399/mo $199.50 $2,394.00

Metered overage pays too, at the same rate, on top of these numbers — so a busy account is worth more than the table shows. Ten Scale accounts is $5,940.00 a year.

And those yearly figures repeat. A referral that stays three years pays you three times — the right-hand column is an annuity, not a total.

One honest caveat: commission is 50% of what the customer actually pays. While our beta discount is running, that's 50% of the discounted invoice. It goes up when they roll onto standard pricing.

How it works

Three steps, no application

1

Grab your link

Open the affiliate page in your dashboard. Your code is already there — nothing to apply for, nobody to wait on.

2

Share it where you already write

Blog posts, docs, videos, newsletters, a template repo. Anyone who lands on mailkite.dev through it is yours for 60 days.

3

Get paid monthly

When they pay, you earn. Commission clears the 60-day hold, then pays out to Stripe or as account credit once you're over $100.

Referring from code

Building on MailKite? Attribute in the API call.

If your product creates MailKite accounts for its users — a starter kit, a CMS plugin, a platform that sends on their behalf — nobody ever clicks your link, so there is no cookie to read. Put the attribution in the register call instead. Same rate, same lifetime terms.

create an attributed account 
await fetch("https://api.mailkite.dev/api/v1/provision", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    email:    "them@theirapp.com",   // required — the account being created
    ref:      "k7m2q9xd",            // your affiliate code — the WHO
    channel:  "acme-starter-kit",    // your own slug      — the WHERE
    referrer: "https://acme.dev",    // optional, first-touch landing URL
  }),
})
// → 201 { api_key: "mk_live_…", user_id: "usr_…", email_verified: false }
ref

Your affiliate code, exactly as it appears on your dashboard affiliate page. An unknown or misspelled code is ignored rather than failing the signup — a typo costs you the commission, never your user's onboarding.

channel

A slug of your own (lowercase letters, digits, - and _, up to 32 chars) that splits your referrals by source. Ship a plugin, a CLI, and a hosted app and each reports separately instead of blurring into one number.

referrer

The first-touch landing URL, when you know it. http(s) only. Country, city, and device are derived server-side from the request — you can't set those, and neither can anyone else.

These are body fields, not URL parameters

mailkite.dev/?ref=<code> is a different mechanism: it drops a 60-day last-click cookie in a visitor's browser, for people you send to the site who then sign up themselves. An API call carries no cookies, so the link has no effect on register(). Use the link for readers; use the body fields when your code creates the account. Both feed the same balance.

Automated onboarding guide POST /api/v1/provision Get your code & per-channel stats
The fine print, unfolded

What earns, and what doesn't

Most programs bury this. Here it is before you write a word about us.

Earns commission

  • Plan fees, every month they pay them, for as long as they stay a customer.
  • Metered overage on top of the plan — the full invoice, not just the subscription line.
  • Upgrades. If they move Pro → Scale in month 3, your commission moves with them.
  • Accounts that sign up through your link and pay later, as long as it's inside the 60-day window.

Doesn't

  • Months they don't pay. Commission pauses when an account cancels and picks back up if they return on the same account.
  • Refunded, charged-back, or credited invoices — the commission reverses with the payment.
  • Your own account, or accounts you control. Self-referral voids the balance.
  • Signups that never pay. We pay on money collected, never on registrations.
  • Tax. Commission is calculated on the pre-tax invoice total.
Who does well

This pays best if you build with email

We're a developer tool. The people who convert are the ones whose audience has already hit the problem we solve.

Agencies and dev shops

You ship client apps that all need email. One link across a portfolio compounds, and because there's no cap, a client you wired up in year one is still paying you in year four.

Course and content creators

If you teach people to build SaaS or agents, email is a chapter you already write. Show the webhook landing instead of describing it.

Automation builders

n8n, Make, Zapier, Pipedream. Inbound email is the primitive your audience keeps hitting a wall on, and it's the one we lead with.

Newsletter and video authors

You already review dev tools. This one has a free tier deep enough that your audience can follow along without a card.

Asset kit

Everything you need to post today

All SVG, so they stay sharp anywhere. Use them as they are — please don't recolour the mark, stretch the lockup, or set the wordmark in a different typeface.

Logos

MailKite mark
Mark
64×64 · transparent
Download SVG
MailKite wordmark
Wordmark
For light backgrounds
Download SVG
MailKite wordmark, dark
Wordmark, dark
For dark backgrounds
Download SVG

Banners

MailKite 728 × 90 banner
Leaderboard 728 × 90 Download SVG
MailKite 600 × 160 banner
Inline / newsletter 600 × 160 Download SVG
MailKite 300 × 250 banner
Medium rectangle 300 × 250 Download SVG

Description copy

Approved descriptions at three lengths. Every claim in them is one we can stand behind, which is the point — paste them rather than paraphrasing.

One line 
MailKite — receive email with a webhook, send with one API, across unlimited domains. Free tier, no mail server.
Short 
MailKite is an email platform for developers. Point a domain at it and inbound mail arrives at your endpoint as clean JSON; send with a single POST. Unlimited domains on every plan, including free, and overage meters gracefully instead of cutting you off.
Long 
MailKite is an email platform for developers, marketers, and AI agents. Email is routed to the optimal provider — SES, Cloudflare, or Postmark — based on AI routing intelligence to maximize deliverability and minimize cost. Built developer and AI-first with full API and MCP server integration. Bring your own domain to receive and send custom email, or use a free MailKite subdomain. Start with 3K emails/month free and scale as you grow. Unlimited domains on every plan.
Rules

Four rules, and we mean all four

Break one and we'll email you about it before we do anything else. Repeated or deliberate abuse voids the balance and closes the account — that's the whole enforcement policy.

Say you're an affiliate

Disclose the relationship wherever you post the link. It's the law in most places and it's how you keep your audience's trust.

Don't bid on our brand

No paid search on "mailkite" or close variants. You'd be buying traffic that was already coming to us, and we'd both pay for it.

No coupon, cashback, or incentive spam

Don't offer rebates for signing up, and don't post the link to sites whose whole model is intercepting intent. We want readers, not redirects.

Be accurate about what we do

Don't promise deliverability numbers, compliance certifications, or features we don't have. If you're unsure, ask and we'll tell you straight.

The program runs under our Terms of Service. We may change the rate or the terms for new referrals with 30 days' notice; commission already earned on existing referrals keeps its rate for the life of the account.

FAQ

Questions

Do I need to be a MailKite customer?

No. Every account gets an affiliate link, and creating an account is free with no card. But the best-performing affiliates are people who actually use the product — it shows in the writing.

How is a referral attributed?

Two ways. Your link sets a first-party cookie on mailkite.dev for 60 days; when someone signs up with that cookie present, the account is permanently stamped with your code. It's last-click — a newer link overwrites an older one. If your own code creates the account over the API instead, there is no browser and no cookie, so you pass ref (and optionally channel) in the register request body. Same terms either way.

When do I get paid?

Commission is calculated monthly on invoices we actually collected, held for 60 days to cover refunds and chargebacks, then paid out once your balance clears $100. Balances under the minimum roll forward.

What happens if the account I referred upgrades or downgrades?

Your commission tracks whatever they pay. Upgrades increase it, downgrades reduce it, and a cancellation ends it. You are never paid for revenue we didn't receive, and never penalised for one either.

What does "lifetime" actually mean?

Commission runs for as long as the account you referred keeps paying us. There is no 12-month cliff and no taper — year three pays the same rate as month one. If they cancel it stops, and if they come back on the same account it resumes.

Does the beta discount change my commission?

It's calculated on what the customer actually pays, so while the 50%-off beta pricing is running, commission is 50% of the discounted invoice. When they roll onto standard pricing, your commission goes up with it.

Can you cut the rate on me later?

Not on referrals you've already made. We can change the terms for new referrals with 30 days' notice, but every account already attributed to you keeps 50% for its life. That's the point of publishing the rate rather than negotiating it.

Can I run ads to my link?

Yes, except on our brand terms. Content, newsletters, video, social, and non-brand keywords are all fine.

Where do I see how I'm doing?

The affiliate page in your dashboard shows your link and a live funnel: signups, activated accounts, and paid accounts.

Your link is already waiting

It's on the affiliate page in your dashboard. No form, no approval — if you have an account, you have a link.

Get your affiliate link Ask us something