Before LeverSolo bought its domain, we asked an AI to estimate how many affiliate programs the niche had. The estimate was wrong. Several of the best-known AI products had no program at all, including the ones every beginner pays for first: Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini.
So we checked each one on the company’s own pages: nine model vendors and twelve AI tools that show up in “best AI affiliate programs” lists. This page records what we found on November 9, 2026, with a source link for every row. Programs change without notice, so treat any row older than a few months as a lead, not a fact.
The short answer
- Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, Mistral, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Meta and Microsoft Copilot pay content sites no cash commission for consumer plans or API spend. What they have instead are referral rewards in trials and usage credit, plus partner programs for consulting firms.
- Directory listings that give a model vendor like Claude a commission rate are wrong. No vendor page supports them.
- Eight AI tools do pay cash: Magai, Monica, Merlin, Abacus.AI ChatLLM, Rytr, Writesonic, Relevance AI and Novita AI. Terms range from a flat $3.50 per sale to 30% of payments for a year.
- Four programs that still appear in lists are closed to publishers: TypingMind (paused), Copy.ai (terminated), Jasper (no independent affiliates) and Poe (pays bot creators only).
- Duration and payout minimum matter more than the headline rate. A 30% program that pays once can earn less than a 20% program that keeps paying.
The model vendors pay in trials and credits
Each of the nine vendors has something called a referral or partner program. None of them pays a blog or affiliate site cash for sending a subscriber. Here is what exists, checked on each vendor’s own pages on November 9, 2026.
| Vendor | What exists | Cash for a content site? |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Claude) | Guest Passes: a 7-day Claude Pro trial for the guest; the referrer gets promotional usage credit that “has no cash value” and expires after 90 days. A business referral agreement pays a fee on a referred organization’s first order form. A partner network for firms | No |
| OpenAI (ChatGPT) | The OpenAI Partner Network, for companies that “build, sell, and deliver” AI solutions | No |
| Google (Gemini, Google AI plans) | No affiliate program found for Gemini or Google AI plans. Google Cloud’s partner network is for software vendors and integrators | No |
| xAI (Grok) | Subscriber referrals: the friend gets a 2-week Premium trial, the referrer gets a usage reset. “Referral rewards have no cash value” | No |
| Mistral | Ambassadors receive “free API credits on Studio”; partners are companies | No |
| Perplexity | Its Comet Referral Program paid cash but concluded on November 6, 2025. “Give a month, Get a month” ended October 6, 2025 | Not anymore |
| DeepSeek | No program found on DeepSeek’s own site | No |
| Meta AI | No program found | No |
| Microsoft Copilot | No Microsoft page we found lists Copilot Pro as commissionable. Directory figures for Microsoft programs disagree with each other | Not confirmed |
Anthropic’s business referral agreement is the closest thing to a commission on this list. It pays on contracts signed through an order form, which is how companies buy Claude through sales, and it doesn’t mention Claude Pro or Max. The fee table isn’t public. Anthropic’s partner network sets its entry tier at about 10 certified people, two production customers and one public customer story. A solo site doesn’t fit either one.
Why you see “Claude affiliate: 20% recurring”
Affiliate directories and outreach templates still attach rates to Claude. One page we checked on November 9 shows “20% recurring commission” inside a template for claude.ai and labels 20% a “recommended” rate based on market standards. Anthropic publishes nothing like it. When a list gives a rate for a model vendor, look for the same number on the vendor’s own domain. If it isn’t there, the rate isn’t real.
Don’t post a guest pass link either
If you subscribe to Claude Pro or Max, you may have Guest Passes to share. Anthropic’s Guest Pass Terms (effective November 5, 2026) forbid posting passes or referral links “on coupon, deal, or referral-exchange sites,” selling them, or distributing them in bulk or by automated means. Public sharing is allowed only if you “make clear that you may receive a reward if someone subscribes,” and the reward is usage credit, not money. An affiliate site full of tool links sits close to that banned category, so LeverSolo doesn’t publish guest pass links anywhere, and we’d suggest you don’t either.
The AI tools that do pay cash
The cash sits one layer down, with apps built on top of the big models: multi-model chat apps, writing tools, an agent platform and one API host. Every row below was read on the program’s own page or the terms page it links to, on November 9, 2026.
| Program | Rate | How long it pays | Cookie | Payout minimum | Network | Ad rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magai (multi-model chat) | 20% of each payment | As long as the customer pays | 30 days | None, paid monthly | Rewardful (from the sign-up link) | None stated |
| Monica (AI assistant) | 25%, headlined “up to $49.75” per referral | First year | 45 days | $100, PayPal, on the 20th | Tapfiliate | All paid ads banned since May 1, 2025 |
| Merlin (AI assistant) | 30% | Monthly plans up to 12 months; annual plans once | 90 days | $100, by invoice | Tapfiliate | Google and Meta ads allowed with the assigned coupon code |
| Abacus.AI ChatLLM (multi-model chat) | $3.50 per paid referral; $5 after $25 earned in 90 days; $7.50 at 100+ and $10 at 500+ paid referrals in 90 days; +$5 per Basic-to-Pro upgrade | Per referral (no recurring payout mentioned) | Not stated | None, PayPal or Stripe | In-house | Tier can drop for refunds or low-quality referrals |
| Rytr (AI writer) | 30% | 12 months | 60 days | Over $100 and more than one customer, PayPal | Own program | No bidding on the Rytr brand |
| Writesonic (AI writer and SEO) | 20% | Up to 12 months | 60 days, last click | Not stated; paid monthly after a 30-day hold | FirstPromoter | No coupon or deal sites, no brand bidding |
| Relevance AI (AI agents) | 15%, excluding setup and services fees | 12 consecutive months | 60 days | $50, weekly via Wise | Rewardful | All paid advertising prohibited |
| Novita AI (model API host) | 10% of referred usage, not top-ups | Up to 180 days | 60 days | Payouts start after referrals generate $50 | In-house dashboard | Disclosure required |
Smaller details that change the math:
- Monica pays on 70% of the price for purchases made through Google Play or the App Store, and only brand-new users count.
- Merlin only pays on orders of at least $14 (monthly) or $100 (annual).
- Writesonic requires a W-9 or W-8BEN before the first payout and an FTC disclosure on your page.
- Relevance AI’s terms are version 1.1, last updated January 16, 2026, and say there’s “No grace period or warnings” for paid-ad violations.
- Magai is the only program here with no end date. Every other percentage program stops at 12 months or 180 days.
Closed, paused or not for publishers
| Program | Status on November 9, 2026 |
|---|---|
| TypingMind | “Temporarily paused” since January 1, 2025; tracking codes stopped working |
| Copy.ai | Its affiliate page, reached from affiliates.copy.ai, announces the “Termination of the Copy.ai Affiliate Program”; copy.ai/affiliates returns a 404 |
| Jasper | “Independent affiliates and individual promoters are not eligible.” Its partner program is for agencies, consultancies and integrators |
| Poe | Pays bot creators per message. No publisher affiliate program in its terms |
If a “best AI affiliate programs” list still recommends these four, check when it was last updated before trusting anything else on it.
What a $20 customer is worth under each program
Headline rates hide how different these programs are. Take one hypothetical customer who pays $20 a month and cancels after six months. The $20 is an assumption to compare terms on equal footing; real plan prices differ by tool.
| Program | Terms | You earn from that customer |
|---|---|---|
| Merlin (monthly plan) | 30% for up to 12 months | $36 |
| Rytr | 30% for 12 months | $36 |
| Monica (web purchase) | 25% for the first year | $30 |
| Magai | 20% for as long as they pay | $24 |
| Writesonic | 20% for up to 12 months | $24 |
| Relevance AI | 15% for 12 months | $18 |
| Abacus.AI ChatLLM | Flat per paid referral | $3.50 to $10, plus $5 if they upgrade to Pro |
Now let the same customer stay three years. Magai keeps paying $4 a month and reaches $144. Merlin and Rytr stop at 12 months, at $72. If that customer had bought Merlin’s annual plan instead, the 30% would be paid once on the first payment.
Then add payout minimums. At $5 a month per customer, Monica’s $100 threshold takes 20 customer-months of referrals before you see any money. A new site with three customers waits more than six months. Magai and Abacus pay any balance, which matters more in year one than an extra 5 points of commission.
How to read affiliate terms before you write a word
Most of the mistakes in AI affiliate lists come from copying a rate without the conditions around it. Copy this checklist and fill it in from the program’s own terms page, never from a directory:
Program: Terms URL: Date checked:
[ ] Rate, and what it's a % of (payments, usage, first order only?)
[ ] How long it pays: once / N months / as long as the customer pays
[ ] Annual plans: recurring, or paid once?
[ ] Cookie length, and first- or last-click
[ ] Payout minimum, method, and hold period
[ ] Who counts: new users only? app-store purchases discounted?
[ ] Banned: paid ads? brand bidding? coupon or deal sites?
[ ] Disclosure wording required?
[ ] Can they cut your tier or claw back commissions? When?
[ ] Does the vendor's own site link to this program? (If not, stop.)The last line catches most fake listings. Every program in our table above is linked from, or hosted on, the company’s own domain or the network page it sends you to. None of the nine model vendors has such a page for content sites.
Paid-ad bans don’t touch a site that grows on free search traffic, which is the model LeverSolo follows. If you plan to run ads, Monica and Relevance AI rule out all of them, and Rytr and Writesonic rule out bidding on their brand names. Merlin explicitly allows Google and Meta ads, including branded campaigns, as long as you use its assigned coupon code.
Why we still recommend tools that pay nothing
Our guide to picking one AI subscription recommends ChatGPT, Claude or Google AI plans, and none of them pays us. We recommend them because, for a beginner, one vendor plan includes things a multi-model app doesn’t, such as Claude Code inside Claude Pro or video credits inside Google AI Pro. A recommendation that ignores that to collect 20% would be worse advice.
The programs above earn their place when they fit a real need. A builder who already knows they want several models in one app has a reason to look at Magai or Abacus.AI. A builder automating client or site work may outgrow chat-based tasks and want an agent platform like Relevance AI. In both cases the article should say who doesn’t need the tool, and the commission shouldn’t change the answer.
Where LeverSolo stands
We haven’t joined any program on this page. We may apply to Magai, Relevance AI and Abacus.AI, and possibly others after the site has traffic. Until a program approves us, the links in the “Tools mentioned” box go straight to the vendor’s page and earn nothing. If we join, those links will carry an affiliate label, our disclosure will cover them, and this page will say so. We’ll re-check every row on the program’s own page before applying and update the date at the top.
Who this is for, and who it isn’t
For you if you run or plan a content site about AI tools and want to know which recommendations can earn, or you’ve seen a commission rate for an AI vendor and want to check it.
Not for you if you’re looking for coupon codes or referral links. We don’t publish them, and the Claude Guest Pass terms forbid posting them on deal sites.
Quick answers
Does Claude have an affiliate program? No. Anthropic’s consumer referral is Guest Passes, which pay the referrer usage credit with “no cash value.” Its business referral agreement pays on company contracts signed through an order form, not on Claude Pro subscriptions.
Does ChatGPT have an affiliate program? No. OpenAI’s Partner Network is for companies that build, sell and deliver AI solutions, and it doesn’t pay content sites for ChatGPT subscribers.
Which AI affiliate program pays the longest? Magai, at 20% of every payment “for as long as it lasts.” Every other percentage program we checked stops at 12 months or 180 days.
More research workflows live in the AI Research Workflow pillar. If you’re still choosing your own tools, start with one AI subscription and how to pick it, then see how Make and n8n compare on cost once you need automation.