Affiliate programme terms

1. Who these terms are with, and who can join

The programme is operated by the company that operates Crate, whose registered name and address are being finalised and will be named on the terms page before Crate leaves free trial. Applying to the programme, and accepting a referral link, is acceptance of these terms.

You may join if you are 18 or over and can enter a contract where you live. You run one affiliate account. A person or business operating several accounts to look like several referrers is operating one account that will be closed.

You are an independent participant. Nothing here creates employment, a partnership, an agency or a joint venture, and you may not present yourself as an employee or a representative of Crate, or as speaking on Crate's behalf.

2. What counts as a referral

A referral is a business that reaches Crate through your link and then subscribes to a paid plan. The link sets a cookie that lasts 30 days. If more than one affiliate link is involved, the most recent click inside that window takes the referral.

New businesses only. An existing Crate merchant, or anybody who already holds a Crate account, is not a referral, whichever link they arrive through.

You may not refer yourself, your own business, an account you control, or an account created on someone's behalf so that it can be referred. Buying a subscription through your own link is not a referral, it is a discount you did not agree with anybody.

Crate makes the decision on whether a sign-up qualifies, and where a decision goes against you it comes with the reason. If you think a qualifying referral was missed, write to us and we will look at the tracking record rather than at the argument.

3. Commission

You earn 25 percent of each subscription payment a qualifying referral makes to Crate, for as long as that subscription continues. There is no cap on the number of referrals and no cap on total earnings.

The percentage applies to the subscription amount Crate actually receives, after any discount the merchant used and excluding tax, delivery, transaction fees and anything Crate collects on someone else's behalf.

Commission is on subscription payments. Payments a merchant's own customers make to that merchant are not part of this programme and earn nothing.

If a payment is refunded, reversed, charged back or later found to be fraudulent, the commission on it is reversed. Where it has already been paid out, the amount is deducted from your next payout.

4. Payment

A commission is confirmed when Crate has been paid for the subscription payment it relates to. It is then held for 30 days, which is the window in which a refund or a chargeback normally appears, and released into your payable balance.

Released balances are paid by bank transfer in the next payout cycle once the balance is at or above $50. Below that, the balance carries into the following cycle. It is not forfeited and it does not expire while your account is open.

You are responsible for giving us bank details that work and for keeping them current. A transfer that fails because the details are wrong is re-attempted once the details are corrected, and the fee of a failed transfer may be deducted.

You are responsible for your own tax. Commission is paid gross. Nothing is withheld, and declaring this income where you live is yours to do. Where the law requires Crate to withhold or to report, Crate will, and will tell you.

5. How you may promote Crate

Promote Crate on surfaces you control or have permission to use: your own site, your newsletter, your social accounts, a video, a course, a talk, or a direct recommendation to somebody who asked.

Say that you earn a commission. Where you are recommending Crate in public, disclose the relationship clearly and near the link rather than in a footer. This is a legal requirement in most of the markets this programme operates in, and it is also the reason your recommendation is worth anything.

Describe Crate accurately. Do not promise a feature Crate does not have, invent a price, invent a result, or claim a partnership, certification or endorsement that does not exist. If you are unsure whether something is true, ask before you publish it.

Use Crate's name and mark according to the brand guidelines, which are published rather than sent on request.

6. What ends an account

Bidding on Crate brand terms in paid search, or on close variants and misspellings of them, and running ads that send traffic straight to a Crate page. You are competing with us for a visitor who was already looking for us, at our expense.

Unsolicited bulk email, unsolicited direct messages, comment spam, and posting your link where the venue does not allow it.

Registering domains, social handles or app names that contain the Crate name or a close variant, or building anything that could be mistaken for an official Crate site.

Cookie stuffing, forced clicks, hidden iframes, automated traffic, incentivised sign-ups from people who do not want the product, and any other technique that manufactures a referral rather than earning one.

Posting Crate discount codes on coupon aggregators, or advertising a discount that does not exist to capture the click.

Anything illegal, and anything on the prohibited use list that applies to Crate merchants.

Where any of these happen, Crate may withhold unpaid commission connected to the activity, reverse commission already paid on it, and close the account. Where the breach was clearly a mistake and it stops, we will say so and carry on.

7. Ending the arrangement

You may leave at any time, for any reason, by telling us. Crate may end your participation at any time as well, with notice, and will give the reason.

If the arrangement ends and your account was in good standing, commission already confirmed is paid on the normal schedule, including the balance below the minimum, in the cycle after the account closes. Commission stops accruing on the day participation ends, including on subscriptions your earlier referrals continue to pay.

If the arrangement ends because of section 6, unpaid commission connected to the breach is not paid.

Crate may also suspend, change or close the programme itself. Where that happens, confirmed commission is paid and affiliates get notice rather than a page that stops answering.

8. Tracking, cookies and your data

The referral link records the click and, where the visitor consents to it, sets the cookie described in section 2. What is stored and for how long is set out on the cookies page, and how Crate handles personal data is set out in the privacy policy. Neither is restated here in different words, because two versions of one fact is two facts to keep correct.

Your affiliate dashboard shows your clicks, your sign-ups and your commission. It does not show you a referred merchant's business: not their revenue, not their customers and not their orders. A referral fee does not buy visibility into somebody else's shop.

9. Changes, liability and law

Crate may change these terms. Material changes, including a change to the commission rate, the cookie window or the payout terms, are announced to active affiliates before they take effect, and the new rate applies to referrals made after that date rather than retroactively to referrals you have already earned.

The programme is provided as it is. Crate does not guarantee a level of earnings, a conversion rate, uptime of the tracking, or that any particular referral will subscribe or stay subscribed.

To the extent the law allows, Crate's total liability to you under these terms is limited to the commission owed to you at the time the claim arises.

These terms are governed by the laws of Delaware, United States, and the courts there have jurisdiction, except where the law where you live gives you a right to bring a claim closer to home, which these terms do not take away.