I totally get that concern. I went with a subscription model mainly for two reasons:
- To prevent bots or spammers from flooding the system with junk codes.
- To encourage users to only add active, redeemable codes—if a code hits its redemption limit, I assume users will stop paying or remove it, which helps keep the pool clean.
I’m also working on adding "Profile Pages", where users can list all their referral codes for free and share a direct link with others. The subscription only limits how many of those codes go into the randomized pool (currently 5). So even if someone isn’t paying, they can still use REFER to organize and share all their codes in one place.
Charging per redemption is tricky because I don’t have insight into when or if a code is used—most platforms don’t expose that data. But if, say, your Ally code gets you a $50 bonus once, the $1/month fee pays for itself pretty quickly.
I also don’t want to run ads, so this helps cover basic costs. Totally open to better ideas, though—really appreciate your feedback.