Referrals
Invite someone new to Clusters — by email from a cluster's Share panel, with a link to one of your clusters or your workspace's invite link, or with the referral link in Settings → Invite and earn — and you both get bonus cards and storage. They get 25 extra cards and 0.5GB of storage when they sign up. You get 25 bonus cards and 0.5GB as soon as they have opened the app and placed their first card. A signup that never makes anything earns you nothing.
Invite from Share on any cluster, or from Settings → Invite and earn.
How it works
Invite someone who does not have a Clusters account yet: by email from a cluster's Share panel, with one of your links to a cluster (a view link they join, or an edit link), with your workspace's invite link, or with your referral link. When they sign up they get 25 extra cards and 0.5GB of storage straight away. You get 25 bonus cards and 0.5GB as soon as they actually get started — they have opened the app and placed their first card.
When that happens a note lands in your bell, and if you are not in the app at the time, one email says so too. You can switch the email off in Settings → Notifications → Invite rewards, or with the link at the bottom of it.
The activation gate is the important detail. The reward is not for a signup, it is for someone who used the product — which means the number in your stats reflects people who are actually there.
Limits
- 4 rewards in any 30 days. Friends past that still count as got started; their rewards wait their turn, oldest first, and land as the 30-day window frees.
- Only people new to Clusters count. Inviting someone who already has an account shares the cluster with them, but earns no reward.
- Nothing is paid to, or for, a banned account.
- Anything held back is checked again every hour, so it lands within the hour of coming due.
Bonus cards and storage
Bonus cards add to your free card allowance (25 for a new account, more for older ones). Bonus storage adds to your drive on any plan: 0.5GB for joining through an invitation, and 0.5GB for each friend of yours who gets started. Both stack across referrals and neither expires.
They go to each person's own account, on top of their own allowance, so a free account with referrals genuinely has more room rather than a temporary boost. Work inside someone else's cluster still counts against that cluster's owner, as it always does. See Cards and Plans.
Earn by working together
Work in the same cluster at the same time as someone else and you both earn bonus cards while you do: a card every 2 minutes for each other person working with you, up to 3 every 2 minutes in a bigger group.
- Both of you, right now. You count while you are in the cluster and have done something there in the last 2 minutes: an edit, a move of your cursor, a selection, a scroll, a key. Someone who can only view the cluster counts too. A tab left open in the background does not.
- Up to 25 cards a calendar month from working together, on top of anything referrals pay. The count starts again on the 1st (UTC).
- People, not tabs. Two tabs or two devices of your own are one person, and working in two clusters at once earns once, not twice. Each person needs a confirmed email, and nothing is paid to, or for, a banned account.
- The same bonus cards. They add to your free card allowance, whatever it started at, and never expire. On Creator and Team they are kept for you. They never change how many people can edit a workspace or how many workspaces you can own.
On the free plan a small Together chip shows beside the faces at the top while it is happening, with a ring that fills toward the next card. Tap it to see who you are working with and how many of this month's cards you have.
Stats
The tab tracks:
| Stat | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Friends joined | Signed up through your link or your invitation |
| Got started | Of those, how many actually used it |
| Cards earned | Bonus cards credited to you |
| Storage earned | Bonus storage credited to you |
| Free months | Any subscription time earned |
The gap between the first two is the honest one. It is shown rather than hidden. Rewards still on their way — past the 30-day limit — are listed under the stats until they land. Below them, a line says how many cards working together has earned you this month.
Sharing the link
Share targets are provided for the usual places. On mobile the system share sheet is used; on desktop, where browsers have no equivalent, pre-filled links are offered instead.
Referrals versus collaboration
Two different things:
- Inviting a collaborator to a cluster is free and needs no referral link. That is how you work with someone.
- A referral is inviting someone to have their own account and workspace.
They overlap in one place: someone who signs up because you invited them to a cluster by email counts as your referral, and so does someone who joins through one of your links to a cluster (view or edit), or your workspace's invite link, within 7 days of signing up. The same rules apply, and each person counts once. The Share panel's Details, under its invite box, says so too.
Frequently asked questions
When does the reward land?
Your friend's bonus lands when they sign up. Yours lands as soon as they have opened the app and placed their first card. Anything held back is checked again every hour.
Is there a limit?
You can earn at most 4 rewards in any 30 days. Friends past that still count; their rewards wait their turn and land as the window frees.
What do the bonuses do?
Bonus cards raise your card limit, whatever it started at (25 for a new account). Bonus storage adds to your drive on any plan. Both stack, and neither expires.
Does inviting someone who already has an account count?
No. It shares the cluster with them as usual, but only people new to Clusters earn a reward.
Do I earn anything for working with someone?
Yes. While you and someone else are both active in the same cluster, you each earn a bonus card every 2 minutes for each other person working with you, up to 3 every 2 minutes, and at most 25 cards a calendar month.
Where do I see how it is going?
Settings, under Invite and earn — friends joined, how many got started, cards and storage earned, free months, and any rewards still on their way. Under its invite box, the Share panel's Details shows how many joined through you, what you have earned and what is on its way.
Machine-readable: /docs/account/referrals.md · /llms.txt
What changed and when: /changelog