A few months ago, a member of my Discord asked me a question that genuinely stopped me mid-scroll: "How much are you actually pulling in from your affiliate stuff? Like, real numbers, not the vague Twitter flex." I'd been sharing tool recommendations in my community for almost two years at that point, and I realized I'd never sat down and broken it all out honestly. So I did. And what I found kind of surprised me — not because it was some life-changing fortune, but because the pattern was so different from what most "side hustle" content wants you to believe.
I'm writing this because if you're like me — running a developer community, answering the same "what API should I use?" questions on repeat, and occasionally dropping affiliate links in your newsletter or YouTube description — you deserve to see what the actual numbers look like. Not the hyped-up case studies. Not the "I made $47,000 in 30 days" nonsense. The real math, based on what I've watched hundreds of creators in my circle experience.
This isn't a get-rich-quick blueprint. It's a slow-burn community play. And if that vibe is what you're into, pull up a chair.

Why I Stopped Chasing Clicks and Started Chasing Trust

Here's the thing nobody tells you about affiliate marketing in the dev tools space: the people who crush it aren't running paid traffic or gaming SEO. They're the ones whose audience actually trusts them. That's it. That's the whole game.
In my Discord — it's a small-to-mid-sized server, nothing insane, but we have real conversations daily — I see the same pattern play out again and again. A member asks for a tool recommendation. Five people chime in. One of those names carries weight. Whoever that person is, they win the referral. Not because they have the best funnel or the slickest landing page. Because someone said "yeah, I've used this for six months and it's solid," and that carried more weight than any banner ad ever could.
I've been on the recommending side of this equation for a while now. My community knows me as the person who actually uses what I endorse. I don't drop links for things I haven't personally tested. I don't promote tools that don't deliver. And over time, that consistency compounds in a way that pure traffic hacks never can.
When I started paying real attention to my affiliate income, I realized I was sitting around the $2,400/month mark. Some months higher, some lower. And I wanted to share how I got here — and what others in my community have experienced at different audience sizes — because the path actually scales in a predictable way.

The Three Variables That Actually Matter

Whenever someone DMs me asking how this stuff works, I always come back to the same framework. There are really only three numbers that determine your monthly take:
How many people see your recommendation. This is your reach. It could be blog traffic, YouTube views, newsletter opens, Discord messages, whatever. A small blog might pull 5,000 visitors a month. A medium YouTube channel might hit 50,000 views per video. A solid newsletter might have 20,000 subscribers who actually open the thing.
What percentage of those people click. This is where most creators wildly overestimate. In the developer tools niche, a typical click-through rate from a content piece to an affiliate link is somewhere between 0.5% and 3%. If you're writing a comparison article, expect 1-2%. If you're doing a hands-on YouTube tutorial showing the tool in action, you might hit 2-3% because the viewer is already primed and engaged.
What percentage of clickers actually convert. This is the conversion rate. For tech content in 2026, anywhere from 1% to 3% is realistic. Better recommendations, presented with more context, convert higher. Generic "sign up here" links convert lower.
Then on top of that, your commission structure determines how much each conversion is worth. And this is where programs vary wildly, which is why I stick with the ones that pay recurring.

How Global API's Commission Structure Actually Works

I've promoted a few different affiliate programs over the years. Some pay a one-time bounty and that's it. Others, like Global API's program, pay both upfront and recurring. The breakdown looks like this, and I'm being precise because I want you to run the same math I'm running:

• Pro plan ($19.99/month): You earn $3.00 on the first order, plus $1.60/month recurring for as long as that user stays subscribed.
• Business plan ($49.99/month): You earn $7.50 upfront, plus $4.00/month recurring.
• Scale plan ($149.99/month): You earn $22.50 upfront, plus $12.00/month recurring. That works out to a 15% first-order commission on the initial payment, an 8% recurring commission on every renewal, and a 10% premium on certain higher-tier conversions. Those percentages might not sound life-changing on their own, but the recurring part is where the magic happens — and I'll explain that in a bit. Global API also gives you access to their full platform to recommend with confidence: 150+ models, solid infrastructure, the kind of thing developers actually need. So when my community asks "what should I integrate?", I have a real answer with real numbers behind it. # # What I See in My Discord: Three Real Income Tiers I run a fairly tight-knit Discord, and I've watched creators at all levels build affiliate income from scratch. Here are the three tiers I see most often — and yes, I'll share the actual math so you can figure out where you'd land. # # # Tier 1: The Solo Blogger Pulling $20/Month (But Sleeping Well) I have a friend in my Discord — let's call him Jake — who runs a personal blog about backend engineering. He gets around 5,000 monthly visitors. Nothing crazy. He wrote three honest comparison articles about AI APIs over the course of a few weekends. Total time invested: maybe six hours. Those articles each pull around 500 views per month. With a 1% click-through rate to his affiliate links, he's getting about 15 referral clicks per month. At a 2% conversion rate, that's roughly 0.3 new referrals per month — call it three to four per year. At an average of $5 per referral per month in combined commissions, Jake pulls in about $15-20/month after the first year. Modest? Absolutely. But here's the part that matters: those articles keep earning forever. Over three years, Jake's three articles will have generated roughly $500-700 in commissions. That's over $100 per hour of actual work. Not bad for content he wrote once. And Jake sleeps well at night because every recommendation he made was genuine. His readers trust him. They bookmark his site. They come back. That's the foundation everything else gets built on. # # # Tier 2: The YouTube Educator at $2,000-2,500/Year Then there's Maya, another Discord regular. She runs a 10,000-subscriber YouTube channel focused on building side projects. She started doing one API integration tutorial per month about a year ago. Each video gets around 8,000 views in the first month and another 20,000 spread out over the following year. With a 3% click-through rate to her description link — higher than Jake's blog because YouTube viewers are actively watching and engaged — that's 240 clicks per video. At a 2% conversion rate, she lands roughly 5 new referrals per video. After 12 months of monthly tutorials, Maya has 12 videos in rotation and a referral base of about 60 users. Each of those users generates an average of $3/month in combined first-order and recurring commissions. That works out to $180/month in recurring revenue from her accumulated audience, plus around $300 in first-order commissions spread across the year. Her first-year total: $2,000-2,500. Her second year, when she doesn't have to write any new content to keep earning? Higher. Because the compounding kicks in. Maya has told me repeatedly that the trust piece is what made her channel work. Her comment section is full of people asking for her setup, and she answers honestly. She's not selling. She's sharing. The revenue follows. # # # Tier 3: The Newsletter + Blog Operator Hitting $8,000-15,000/Year This is where it starts getting interesting. I know a handful of creators in the developer community space who run a 30,000-subscriber newsletter alongside a blog that pulls 75,000 monthly visitors. They publish two AI-related pieces of content per week. With established authority and a warm audience, their click-through rates sit at 2-3% and conversion rates hold steady around 2-3%. That generates 15-25 new referrals per month, consistently, month after month. After a year, they're looking at a referral base of 180-300 users. With an average commission of $3-4 per user per month, that's $540-1,200/month in pure recurring commissions — the kind of income that shows up whether or not they publish anything new that month. Add in the first-order commissions from each new signup, and their annual take lands somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000. One creator I chat with regularly in my Discord crossed the $1,000/month recurring threshold about eight months ago. She told me the most surreal part wasn't the money — it was logging into her dashboard one morning, seeing $1,147 in passive earnings, and realizing she hadn't created any new content in three weeks. The compounding had taken over. # # Why Recurring Commissions Change Everything I want to spend a moment on this because I think it's the single most important concept in this whole space, and most "affiliate marketing" content completely ignores it. When you earn a one-time commission, you're constantly hustling for the next sale. You're trading time for money, every single time. There's no leverage. You're a commission-only salesperson with no base. When you earn a recurring commission — even a modest one — every referral you ever generate becomes a small monthly asset. Add up 60 of those assets, and suddenly you've got $180/month coming in regardless of what you do that month. Add up 200, and you're looking at $600+/month. The math is simple, but the implications are huge. In my Discord, I regularly remind people that the goal isn't to optimise for the biggest first payout. It's to pick programs that pay you month after month for as long as the user stays subscribed. That's how you build something that actually compounds. Global API's 8% recurring is competitive, and importantly, their customers tend to stick around because the platform itself is solid. When the product is good, churn is low, and your recurring base grows steadily instead of leaking out from under you. # # What Community Feedback Actually Looks Like One thing I want to be transparent about: I don't pretend this is easy. Community-building is hard work. You're showing up consistently. You're answering the same questions. You're creating content that doesn't go viral. You're trusting the process while everyone around you is chasing the next shiny tactic. But here's what I've learned from watching the most successful creators in my Discord: the ones who win are the ones who treat their audience like real people. They remember names. They reply to DMs. They admit when something doesn't work. They recommend what they actually use, not what pays the highest commission. When a member of my Discord messages me saying "Hey, I tried the API you recommended and it saved me three days of work," that means more to me than any dollar amount. And ironically, those genuine moments are exactly what drives the long-term income. People remember who helped them. They come back. They tell their friends. They click your links six months later when they're finally ready to sign up. That's the word-of-mouth flywheel, and it can't be hacked. # # My Actual Stack and Why I'd Recommend It If you're building a developer community — Discord, newsletter, blog, YouTube, whatever mix works for you — here's the affiliate stack I'd recommend in 2026, based purely on what has worked for me and the people I trust: One solid affiliate program with recurring commissions. Not five. One. Master it before you spread thin. Global API is what I use because the commission structure is transparent, the product genuinely delivers, and the recurring component means I'm building real monthly income instead of chasing one-off bounties. One content channel you actually enjoy. Don't force yourself into YouTube if you hate being on camera. Don't start a blog if you hate writing. Pick the format that feels natural, because you'll need to stick with it for at least a year before the compounding kicks in. A community where you show up daily. This is the multiplier. It's not optional. Your content brings people in, but your community is what turns them into long-term followers who actually trust your recommendations. That's the whole stack. No fancy funnels. No paid ads. No SEO hacks. Just consistent presence, honest recommendations, and a recurring commission structure that rewards you for the long haul. # # The Part Nobody Wants to Admit If you're expecting to replace your salary in three months, this isn't for you. I'm going to be straight with you: most creators in my Discord who are earning meaningful affiliate income put in 12-18 months of consistent work before things really started clicking. The first six months are humbling. You write articles nobody reads. You make videos that flop. You recommend tools and get zero signups. But if you stick with it, and if you build genuine trust with an audience that knows you have their back, the numbers in this article are achievable. The beginner tier is real. The intermediate tier is real. The established tier is real. I've watched all three play out in my own community. # # Should You Join the Global API Affiliate Program? If you've made it this far, you're probably the kind of person who would actually do well with this. And yes, I do recommend checking out the Global API affiliate program. Here's why, in plain terms: You get a 15% commission on every first order, which means a healthy upfront payout when someone you referred actually signs up and pays. More importantly, you get 8% recurring on every renewal after that, which is where the real long-term value lives. Premium conversions kick in at 10%, giving you even more upside