Getting started for partners

1. Join a program

1. Find a program in the directory, or follow a recruit link someone sent you.
2. Read the program page: the commission, cookie window, payment schedule and minimum payout are all shown. The full agreement is at /programs/<program>/terms.
3. Apply with your name, email and how you will promote (your profile fills this in). Tick the box to accept that program's terms (the version number is recorded).
4. Open programs approve you at once. Gated programs approve you by hand. Either way you get an email.

You have one account across every program, with one public handle. Sign in to the partner portal with a one-time link sent to your email. There is no password.

2. Your two links

Add your own labels to a customer link with ?sub= (or sub1) and sub2 to sub5, up to 80 characters each. They are kept with the click and the sale, and the portal reports clicks, sales and earnings by each one.

3. Follow the rules

• Say that you may be paid, before the reader clicks.
• Only use the traffic sources the program allows. Paid search on the brand's name is banned by default.
• Never buy through your own link. Sales where the buyer looks like you are flagged.
• A minor breach gets a warning and 7 days to fix it. A serious breach removes you from the program. Fraud anywhere removes you from every program.

4. Get paid

1. When you are first owed money, the portal asks you to connect a payout account through Whop. Whop, not ViralPayouts, checks your identity and holds your bank details. See Whop payouts.
2. Sign in with an emailed link before connecting. Money is only sent to a payout account whose owner has confirmed their email address.
3. A commission becomes payable when the brand has approved it and its hold (15 to 30 days, set by the program) has passed. Brands are invoiced on the 1st and 16th; partners are paid as soon as the brand pays, at the latest on the 13th or 28th.
4. A balance under the program's minimum payout carries forward to the next payout. It is never lost.

5. Tax forms

File your tax form in the portal: a W-9 if you are a US person, a W-8BEN if you are an individual outside the US, or a W-8BEN-E for a company outside the US. Once your earnings in a calendar year reach the threshold shown in your portal, payouts wait until a form is on file. Your tax number is encrypted. It is never shown in the portal or the console. If you file a W-9 and a brand pays you at least the IRS reporting threshold in a year, that brand's owners can download it in the 1099-NEC file they must file.

6. Your data

Download everything ViralPayouts holds about you, or delete your account, from the privacy card in the portal. Deletion waits until nothing is owed to you. See the privacy policy.

7. Your profile, and verifying where you promote

Fill in your profile once in the portal and every application uses it: your main way of promoting and any others (from a list of 17, such as content and reviews, social posts, email to your subscribers, paid search on non-brand keywords, coupon sites), how you will promote in your own words (at least 40 characters), whether you buy search ads, and a promise to label every post with your link as an ad (#ad, or "Paid link" next to the link), as the US FTC and the UK ASA require.

Each method is matched to a program's traffic rules before you apply. If a program bans one of your methods you see it in red and the brand sees it too. Paid search on a brand's name blocks the application outright where the program bans it.

Verify a website or blog

Add the site under "Where you promote", choose Verify, and use any one of these. The code is shown in the portal and is different for each site.

Verify a social account

• Add the account (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Twitch, Pinterest or a Facebook page), choose Verify, and put the short code shown (it looks like VP-7K3QX9) anywhere in your bio or channel description. Then choose Check now. You can take the code out once it says verified.
• Where ViralPayouts can read that platform's public profiles, the check is instant and also reads your follower count. Where it cannot yet, the portal says so and a person at ViralPayouts checks your bio instead, usually within one to three working days.
• Or sign in with the platform, where it is switched on: Google for YouTube, TikTok, and X. Instagram sign-in waits for Meta's app review.

Rules

• One ViralPayouts account can verify each website or social account. If another account tries, it is refused, and brands it applies to see that it tried.
• Verified places are checked again: daily for the first 4 days, then weekly. After 3 failed checks in a row a place is no longer shown as verified. One failure never removes it.
• A follower count is only shown when it was read from the platform or a profile reader, with the date it was read. Nothing you type is shown as a count.
• Brands can require verified places, a minimum audience or certain methods. If you do not meet them you can still apply: your application waits for the brand.