Manage your programme
Rewards and holds
Follow a reward from qualifying payment to credit or discount.
Start with a qualifying payment
A qualifying payment is a paid subscription invoice above zero. Trial invoices, 100%-off invoices, invoices covered entirely by credit and one-off invoices do not count.
The friend's percentage discount applies at Checkout using the promotion code. Friend account credit is earned after the first qualifying payment; the referrer's reward is earned after your chosen payment milestone. Credits and referrer rewards then wait for the hold.
Only first-time customers qualify. The first attribution wins; a promotion code takes priority over link references or metadata when first matching. Matching customer IDs or emails block self-referrals.
Pending is not always a failure
| State | What happens next |
|---|---|
| Waiting for payments | The referral has not met the milestone. Check qualifying invoices, not just signup or trial status. |
| On hold | The reward waits until its available date. Match the hold to at least your refund window. |
| Waiting for active subscription | A percentage reward has no eligible active subscription. It stays pending and is checked hourly. |
| Programme paused | Pending rewards are kept. Restore billing or the Stripe connection before they can issue. |
| Provider failure | Stripe rejected an attempt. This is a failure, not a subscription wait. Check the failure and retry; the same reward is not credited twice. |
| Issued | The credit or discount has been applied. It is not clawed back. |
| Revoked | A full refund or dispute left too few qualifying payments before issue. The pending reward is cancelled. |
Due rewards are checked hourly, not instantly at the end of the hold. Existing obligations continue even if the referrer is later deactivated, subject to the normal hold, refund and programme access rules.
Why a percentage reward waits
A verified free or trial customer can refer without an active subscription. But an earned percentage reward needs an eligible active subscription to attach to. With none available, it waits; ReferSprout does not replace it with account credit.
When an eligible active subscription becomes available, the hourly retry can apply the same reward once. Do not enrol the customer again, create a second reward or reset their participation. Other customers' due rewards keep processing while this one waits.
Refunds, disputes and issued credit
A full refund or dispute stops the payment counting and can revoke an unissued reward if the remaining payments no longer qualify. Partial refunds do not stop it counting. Issued credits and discounts stay in place; ReferSprout does not claw them back.
Account credit is a future invoice balance, not cash. Stripe treats balance credit as a prepayment after tax; check tax treatment with your accountant. Full referral rules →