How affiliate links work on this site (transparency)
A plain-English explanation of how AgentExample handles affiliate links, why some vendors have them and others do not, and what we never do.
AgentExample TeamWe get a lot of questions about the small "Refer" badges on some vendor pages. Here's the deal.
How affiliate programs work (general)
Most AI API vendors run a "referral" or "affiliate" program. The idea:
- Vendor gives you a unique URL with a code in it (e.g.
?ref=ABC123) - You share the URL
- When someone signs up via your URL, the vendor knows you referred them
- When that person spends money, the vendor pays you a commission (usually 5-20% of their spend, sometimes a fixed bonus)
It's the same model as Amazon's affiliate program, but for AI APIs.
How we use them
We only show a vendor's affiliate link if the user (the site owner) has a real account with that vendor and has generated their own referral URL through the vendor's official affiliate console.
This means:
- ✅ If you see a red "Refer" badge on a vendor's page, the link is the site owner's personal invite — clicking it helps the site earn commission if you sign up
- ❌ If you don't see a "Refer" badge, the vendor either doesn't have a public affiliate program, or the site owner hasn't joined it yet
- ❌ We never scrape affiliate URLs from public directories
(e.g.
coding-plan.xyz) — those URLs are those sites' affiliate IDs, not ours, and using them would be misleading - ❌ We never invent or guess affiliate URLs
What you'll see on each vendor page
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Red "Refer" badge | This vendor has a real affiliate program and the site owner has joined it. The badge is a small button that takes you to the affiliate sign-up link directly. |
| Green "Try free" badge | This vendor has a free tier. The badge takes you to the free sign-up / sign-in page. |
| No badge | This vendor has no public affiliate program, or the site owner hasn't joined it. Clicking the vendor name takes you to the official site as a normal visitor. |
Affiliate disclosure
On every page where an affiliate link appears, you'll see a small disclosure line near it that says something like "This page contains affiliate links — we may earn a commission if you sign up through them." This is required by FTC and equivalent regulations in most countries.
The disclosure is small and unobtrusive but present on every relevant page. We never hide it.
What we don't do
- ❌ No link hijacking — we don't replace vendor URLs with our affiliate IDs via JavaScript or redirects. The link you click is the link that's in the page source.
- ❌ No auto-click popups — we don't try to trick you into clicking an affiliate link.
- ❌ No fake "limited time" banners based on affiliate status.
- ❌ No scraping third-party affiliate directories. Ever.
- ❌ No positive-bias in our reviews because of affiliate status. A vendor with an affiliate link is not ranked higher than a vendor without one. Our "why recommended" highlights are based on the vendor's product, not their affiliate program.
How to flag an issue
If you ever see an affiliate link that looks wrong, or a vendor page that you think misrepresents the product, open a ticket. We treat affiliate integrity as content integrity.