Referral - Overview

Overview

gaiia's Referral feature enables users to launch a fully white-label referral program in minutes. Existing customers receive unique referral codes, new customers apply them at checkout, and rewards are issued based on your business rules.

In this article, we'll cover how the referral feature works, how customers experience it at checkout, and how to apply or track referral codes. For configuration, validation, and performance reporting, see the related articles in the guide above.

The Referral feature allows you to:

• Automatically generate unique referral codes for every customer.
• Allow new customers to apply referral codes during checkout.
• Issue rewards automatically or manually based on your configuration.
• Track referral status in both the client portal and gaiia.

Key concepts

Referrer

An existing customer who shares their referral code.

Referee

A new customer who signs up using a referral code.

Referral code

Each customer automatically receives a unique 8-character referral code, visible in their client portal.

How the referral flow works

1. Existing customer shares their code.
   Each customer has a unique referral code and shareable referral link available in the client portal, with a Copy action for easy sharing.
    

   

2. New customer enters the code.
   During checkout, the referee can enter the referral code manually, or — if they arrived via a referral link — it is applied automatically and persists through the full signup flow without any action required. When the referral is applied via a link, a confirmation message is displayed on the address verification screen indicating the referral has been detected and will be applied.
    

   

   For tenants with payment capture disabled in checkout, the promo/referral code entry field appears on the Personal Information screen (below the service updates field) rather than at the payment step.

   Whether a promo code and a referral code can be used together at checkout depends on the individual promo code's eligibility settings. See Combining Promo Codes and Referral Codes for details.

3. gaiia validates the referral.
   gaiia confirms the code is valid and that the referrer's account is active. If you use a custom workflow, you can define your own validation logic.
4. Rewards are issued based on your settings.
   Rewards may be applied immediately at checkout or delayed until the referee meets a minimum active period.
5. Status tracking.
   Referrers and referees can view reward status in the client portal. Users can access full referral history and detailed statuses in gaiia.

Apply referral codes after signing up

When enabled in Referral settings, users can apply referral codes after a customer has already signed up. This supports customers who forgot to enter a referral code and teams creating accounts on behalf of customers.

User visibility

From gaiia's interface, users can:

• View a customer's referral code.
• See full referral history and statuses, including "Pending", "Rewarded", and "Failed validation".
• Manually apply referral codes to accounts.

Changes to referral settings

When you modify referral program settings, changes apply only to new referrals created after the update. Existing in-flight referrals are not affected. Referrals that are already pending will continue to follow the rules that were in place when the referral code was originally applied.

Example: If you change the referrer reward from $25 to $50 on March 1st, any referral codes entered before March 1st will still receive the $25 reward when validated, even if validation occurs after March 1st. Only codes entered on or after March 1st will receive the $50 reward.