Referral Discount: How Your First-Order Savings Work

You Were Referred — Here's Your First-Order Discount

If a publisher invited you to Serpverse, or someone who recommends us gave you their link or code, you may have a referral discount waiting: a one-time saving on the service fee. This guide explains the two kinds of discount, how to claim each, how much you save, and the cases where it doesn't apply.

The short version: a publisher's invite discounts your first order with that publisher, and an affiliate's link or code discounts your first order with any publisher. Either way, the service fee is reduced automatically at checkout.

The Two Kinds of Referral Discount

A referral discount is a one-time reduction of the service fee. Which one you get, and which order it comes off, depends on who referred you:

The service fee has two parts: $5 per placement, and a percentage part that grows with the listing price. Both discounts come off the percentage part only, so the $5 isn't discounted, and neither touches the publisher's listing price. An account gets one or the other, never both, and the exact amount is always shown before you confirm.

How to Claim a Publisher's Invite

The discount attaches to your account when you create it through the invite link, so the order of steps matters:

1. Open the invite link the publisher shared with you. You'll land on an invitation page for their listing.
2. Create your account from that page — use the Create an account to order button on it. The discount links to you when you finish setting up your account, right after your first sign-in.
3. Add funds to your balance, since Serpverse uses a prepaid model.
4. Place your first order on that publisher's listing — the reduced service fee is applied automatically.

How to Get an Affiliate's Offer or Code

There are three ways, and one is enough:

1. From their link. Opening it applies their offer straight away and shows it in a bar at the bottom of the page. Sign up in the same browser within 30 days to use it.
2. When you sign up. Enter their code in the Referral code (optional) field while you set up your account. Capitals, spaces and hyphens don't matter.
3. At your first order. On the order form, click Have a referral code? under the price breakdown, enter the code and click Apply. This works for an account that hasn't placed an order yet.

Then add funds and place your first order, with any publisher. The reduced service fee is applied automatically.

When you sign up, you're also asked how you heard about Serpverse. Naming someone there can credit them, but it doesn't bring you a discount. Enter their code for that.

How Much You Save

Both discounts leave the $5 whole. Here's an $80 guest post, whose $19.40 service fee is the $5 plus a $14.40 percentage part:

You save on the fee only: $7.20 with a publisher's invite (half of the $14.40), or $3.60 with an affiliate's link or code (a quarter of it). The publisher receives the full $80 either way. A publisher's invite saves at most $25 per order and an affiliate's link or code at most $10 per order, however large the order — see platform fees explained for how the full fee is calculated.

Where You'll See It

• At checkout: When the discount applies to your order, the Service fee line shows the reduced amount, with the original struck through.
• On your dashboard: If you have an unused discount, your buyer dashboard shows a reminder. It links to the publisher's listing for an invite, or to the marketplace for an affiliate's link or code.
• Before you sign up: A publisher's invitation page shows the offer up front, and an affiliate's link shows it in a bar at the bottom of the page.

Only One Referral Is Remembered at a Time

Your browser remembers one referral, not a collection. Opening any referral link replaces the one it was holding — whether that's a publisher's invite link or an affiliate's link, and in either direction.

That matters because the two discounts aren't worth the same:

Two things end the swapping:

• Signing up fixes it. Once your account finishes setting up, your referral is settled and opening more links changes nothing.
• A code you type beats the cookie. Entering a referral code when you sign up takes priority over whatever link your browser remembers.

When the Discount Applies — and When It Doesn't

The discount applies when all of these are true:

• You were referred: you created your account through a publisher's invite link, or you opened an affiliate's link or entered their code before placing any order.
• The order is the first one the discount can be used on. With a publisher's invite, that's your first order that includes a listing owned by the publisher who invited you, even if you've ordered from other publishers before. With an affiliate's link or code, it's your first order, with any publisher.

It won't apply if:

• You already had an account before clicking a publisher's invite link.
• You're adding an affiliate's code after your first order. A code can only be entered before you've placed any order.
• The listing belongs to a different publisher than the one who invited you — a publisher's invite is tied to that publisher, not the whole marketplace.
• You've already used it — it's one-time.
• Your account already has a referral. An account can be referred once, so a second invite or code doesn't add another discount.
• Your card was already used for a referral discount on another account. To keep the offer fair, a payment card can back only one first-order discount across all accounts. If yours was already used, the order form says "Referral discount isn't available on your current payment method" in place of the discount.

What Happens If Your Order Is Cancelled

Because the discount is one-time, what happens to it depends on why an order ends:

• The publisher rejects it, or it's cancelled through no fault of yours → your discount is returned, ready to use on the next order it applies to.
• You cancel it yourself, or the order completes → the discount is used up.

An affiliate's discount covers every listing in the order, so it's returned only if no placement in that order goes ahead.

See the refund policy for how cancellations and refunds work in general.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the discount reduce what the publisher earns? No. It comes entirely out of Serpverse's service fee. The publisher receives their full listing price on every order, referred or not.

Can I use it on more than one order? No — it's one-time. A publisher's invite applies to your first order with that publisher, and an affiliate's link or code to your first order.

Can I combine a publisher's invite with an affiliate's code? No. An account can be referred once, so it gets one discount or the other.

I have a code but didn't enter it when I signed up. Is it too late? Not if you haven't placed an order yet. On the order form, click Have a referral code? and enter it before you place your first order.

I was referred but don't see a discount. Why? The most common reasons are that you already had an account before clicking a publisher's link, you're viewing a different publisher's listing, you tried to add a code after your first order, or the card funding your balance was already used for a discount on another account. The section above on when the discount applies covers each case.

The order form says my referral discount has changed. What now? Refresh the page. An order is only placed at the fee you were shown, so if your discount changes while the form is open, the order isn't placed, and the refreshed page shows the current price.