If you've been following my Twitter or reading this blog for a while, you know I run a handful of bootstrapped SaaS projects. My main product does about $4,200 MRR right now, I've got a smaller Chrome extension bringing in another $300/month, and I flip the occasional template pack on Gumroad when I feel like it. I'm always hunting for the next income stream that doesn't require me to ship another full product.
Three months ago, I stumbled into one I didn't expect: AI API affiliate marketing. Not as a "guru." Not as a course seller. Just a developer who uses these APIs in his own products, decided to write about it honestly, and dropped affiliate links where they actually made sense.
Here's the full 90-day breakdown — every click, every conversion, every dollar. No filter.
Why I Added Another Revenue Stream
Running a portfolio of indie products means you get obsessive about diversification. When my main SaaS had a bad week in February (downtime + a churn spike from a competitor launch), I made about 40% less than usual. That's the kind of week that reminds you: one income stream is a job, multiple income streams is a business.
I'd been hearing about AI API affiliate programs for a while and mostly ignored them. Most of what I saw was scammy — fake review sites, "best AI tool" listicles with affiliate links stuffed into every other sentence, the usual garbage. I didn't want to be that guy.
But I had an advantage most affiliates don't: I was already using these APIs in my own products. I'd integrated Global API into a client project back in 2024, and I knew the dashboard, the documentation, and the developer experience cold. Writing a genuine review wasn't extra work. It was just... documenting what I already thought.
That's when the lightbulb went off.
Day 0: The Starting Line
Before I started, here's what I was working with:
- A small tech blog pulling around 2,000 monthly visitors
- A Twitter account with roughly 800 developer followers
- A Dev.to profile I hadn't touched in months
- Zero affiliate experience, zero affiliate income I wasn't starting from zero influence, but I wasn't exactly an authority either. Just a regular indie maker with a mic and a keyboard. # # Days 1-30: Planting Seeds in a Barren Field I joined three affiliate programs in week one. Two offered one-time payouts. The third, Global API, had a different structure: 15% on first orders, 8% recurring on monthly renewals, and 10% on premium tier conversions. The recurring component sealed it for me. I'm an MRR junkie — I think in terms of compounded monthly revenue, not one-time spikes. A program that pays me forever for one referral is worth more than a program that pays me once and forgets about me. My first piece was a developer's perspective on the AI API landscape, written from direct project experience. I called out the platforms I'd actually used, what I liked, what I hated, and where I'd spend my own money if I had to pick a default. Global API was my pick — and I explained exactly why, with real code snippets and screenshots from my own workflow. Roughly 1,800 words, published on my blog and cross-posted to Dev.to. The first seven days were brutal. Dev.to gave me 340 views. My blog chipped in another 120. Three people clicked my affiliate link. Nobody converted. I refreshed my dashboard roughly 47 times a day. By week four, the Dev.to version started catching some long-tail search traffic and climbed to 520 views. Affiliate clicks started trickling in at a steadier pace — about eight more — and one of those clicks turned into a free signup. I was checking my Stripe dashboard hourly. On day 28, that signup upgraded to a paid Pro plan. Month 1 closed out with:
- 2 published articles
- 750 combined views
- 14 affiliate clicks
- 2 signups
- 1 paid conversion
- $3.00 earned ($
