Track member referrals
Referrals from friends or contacts of your members are one of the most effective ways to grow your membership business. With Memberful, your members can spread the word about your site and receive discounts when new members sign up through their link.
In this help doc:
- Learn how Memberful referrals work.
- Enable referrals program.
- Choose where referral links will redirect to.
- Pick which Plans award referral credits.
- Set up referral milestones.
- Disabling vs. deleting a milestone.
- Track referral coupon usage.
- Where can a member find their referral link?
- How does a member track their referrals and rewards?
- How do members apply their reward discount?
- What happens to a reward if a referred member cancels?
- Can members apply a coupon and a referral reward discount to the same subscription?
Learn how Memberful referrals work
Memberful allows you to offer rewards to members who refer others to join your membership program. These rewards come in the form of a discount that will be applied to a member’s active subscription. This discount operates almost exactly like a coupon, except that it’ll be applied automatically, so no coupon code is needed.
You have full freedom to choose the discount amount and how many people must have been referred by a member before they’ll receive the discount.
- Purchasing a paid plan.
- Signing up for a paid trial.
- Making the first payment after a free trial.
- Free registration
- A free trial
- Signing up using a 100% discount coupon.
Enable referrals program
Navigate to Discounts → Referrals from your Memberful dashboard.
Click Enable referrals program.
Choose where referral links will redirect to
After opening a referral link, members can be redirected to your Landing Page, Website URL, or a Custom URL. You might not see all these options if you haven’t set them up.
Select an option from the list and enter a custom URL if applicable.
Pick which Plans award referral credits
Members earn credit for referring purchases of all Plans and Downloads, or only for some of them. If you choose Selected Plans and Downloads, you’ll be able to select the eligible Plans and Downloads.
Set up referral milestones
Milestones define when a member has accumulated enough referral credits to earn a reward, and they also define what that reward will be.
To create a milestone, click Add Milestone.
- Enter the referral count that will unlock this reward.
- Pick between a percentage-based discount and a currency amount-based discount.
- Enter the discount amount.
- Select a coupon type
- Click Create milestone.
When editing an existing milestone, you’ll also be able to Delete or Disable it.
Disabling vs. Deleting a milestone
Disabling a milestone stops any members from reaching it in the future. This action is reversible and members that have already reached it won’t lose their reward.
Deleting a milestone, on the other hand, is not reversible, and will result in all members losing their reward if they had already earned it.
Track referral coupon usage
The statistics button for each milestone displays a counter of how many members have reached that particular milestone.
You can click the button to see a report of all the members who have had your milestone’s reward applied to their subscription.
Where can a member find their referral link?
Members can find their unique referral link, and share it via multiple apps, by visiting the Referrals section of their member account.
The link will also appear on Payment receipts and Posts.
- For Posts, the link will appear on the email but not the Memberful-hosted website.
- For receipts, the link will appear in the email and web version ("View invoice" button) but not the PDF download.
- You can include members' unique referral links in the emails sent from our email newsletter integration: Campaign Monitor, ConvertKit, Drip, Mailchimp, Mailerlite, Sailthru.
How does a member track their referrals and rewards?
Members can keep track of their referral credits and rewards from the Referrals section of their member account.
How do members apply their reward discount?
Once a member has earned a referral reward, it will be applied automatically to their most recent subscription.
Please note: If a member upgrades or downgrades their plan, their referral reward discount will not apply towards the new plan.
If the referrer has canceled their subscription, their referral link continues to work but any progress is halted while they don't have an active subscription.
What happens to a reward if a referred member cancels?
If Member A refers Member B, once Member B makes a purchase and a referral credit is awarded to Member A, that credit will never be deducted. So, if Member B later cancels their subscription, Member A's credit toward the milestone won't be taken away.
Can members apply a coupon and a referral reward discount to the same subscription?
Yes! Members can have both a coupon and a referral reward discount applied to their subscription. Since referral rewards are applied automatically to the member’s most recent subscription, members who had already applied a coupon to their subscription will maintain the coupon, and the referral reward discount will be automatically applied. Both discounts will be calculated based on the plan purchase price.
Related help docs: