I Made $1,847 Last Month Promoting AI Tools — Here's the Exact Spreadsheet

Let me pull up my Notion tracker real quick because I want to walk you through the actual numbers, not some hypothetical BS.
Last month — October — I made $1,847 from a single affiliate program. Before that, September was $1,612. August was $1,203. My dashboard looks like a stair-step going up, and I promise you, it didn't start that way. I started at literally $0.
I'm a software developer with a day job. I make decent money writing backend code for a mid-size SaaS company. But I've been obsessed with side income streams for years — rental properties, freelance contracts, dividend investing, the whole Dave Ramsey-meets-indie-hacker pipeline. Affiliate marketing was always the thing I avoided because I thought it was scammy. Turns out I was just doing it wrong.
Here's what I learned, with the math laid out so you can copy whatever works for your situation.

Why I Picked AI Tools (and Why It Actually Pays)

Around 14 months ago, I started building weekend projects that used AI APIs. Not because I'm a prompt wizard — I just wanted tools to summarize documents, generate embeddings for a search feature, and prototype some internal automation at work. The more I used these services, the more I realized two things:

1. There's a massive wave of developers, indie founders, and small business owners who need access to AI tools but don't know which ones to trust.
2. The companies offering these tools are desperate for affiliates because their customers are technical and skeptical. Affiliate marketing usually converts like garbage in the dev world. But for AI tools? It's different. I picked Global API as my primary program because they hit every checkbox I care about: 150+ models available through one dashboard, recurring commissions (which is where the real money lives), and a commission structure that scales. Here's the structure, straight from my dashboard:
3. 15% first-order commission on every new signup
4. 8% recurring commission on every renewal, every month, for as long as they stay
5. 10% premium tier bump when referrals upgrade to higher plans That last one matters more than people think. I'll show you why in a minute. # # The Real Math: What Actually Converts Let me break this down the way I'd explain it to a junior dev — variables first, then scenarios. Every affiliate income stream has three inputs:
6. Traffic (how many eyeballs see your link)
7. Click rate (what % actually click)
8. Conversion rate (what % of clickers actually pay) Then there's a fourth variable most people forget: retention. A referral who pays once and cancels is worth 1/10th of a referral who stays for 12 months. This is why recurring commissions print money and one-time payouts feel like a hamster wheel. For tech content, here's what I'm seeing in my tracker after 14 months:
9. Blog posts: 1-2% click-through, 1-2% conversion
10. YouTube tutorials: 2-3% click-through, 2-3% conversion (higher because viewers are actively learning)
11. Newsletter mentions: 3-5% click-through, 1-2% conversion A tutorial video crushes a blog post on conversion because the viewer just watched you use the tool. They're sold before they click. A blog post has to do all the convincing with text, and most people skim. # # Income Scenario #1: The Solo Dev With a Modest Blog This is where I started. Picture someone running a tech blog that gets around 5,000 visitors per month. Not viral. Not dead. Just quietly pumping. They write three comparison-style articles about AI development tools. Each piece pulls maybe 500 views per month after the initial spike fades. Total: 1,500 targeted views per month across the three posts. At a 1.5% click-through rate, that's about 22 clicks per month. At a 2% conversion rate, that's roughly 0.4 new signups per month. Math: 0.4 referrals × 12 months = about 5 referrals in year one. Now let's see what that pays using the Global API structure:
12. Average referral lands on the Pro plan at $19.99/month
13. 15% first-order commission = $3.00 upfront per signup
14. 8% recurring = $1.60/month per signup
15. Plus the 10% premium bump if they upgrade After one year with 5 active referrals:
16. First-order commissions: 5 × $3.00 = $15.00
17. Recurring commissions: 5 × $1.60 × 12 months = $96.00
18. Year one total: ~$111 Is that worth it? Here's where the per-hour framing kicks in. Those three articles probably took 6-8 hours total to research and write. That's about $14-18 per hour of work. Not life-changing on its own, but those articles are still earning in month 14, which I'll get to in a second. Year two? If even 3 of those 5 referrals stick around, that's $57.60 in pure recurring income. Year three? Same story. This is how the compounding works. # # Income Scenario #2: The YouTube Tutorial Machine Now let's talk about the channel I actually started. I've got around 11,000 subscribers. Nothing crazy. I post one AI tool tutorial per month — the kind where I screen-record myself building a real project and drop the affiliate link in the description. Each video pulls around 8,000 views in the first month and continues to get another 15,000-20,000 over the next 12 months as the algorithm drips it out. Click-through on a YouTube description link sits around 2.5-3% for me. Conversion lands at 2-3% because anyone watching a tutorial is buying mode, not browsing mode. Let me run the math on one video:
19. 28,000 total views over 12 months
20. 3% click-through = 840 clicks
21. 2.5% conversion = 21 new referrals per video Now, not all 21 will stick. Realistically, maybe 60-70% stay past month three. Let's call it 14 active referrals per video after churn. Using the commission structure across a mix of plans (most referrals land on Pro, a few upgrade to Business or Scale):
22. Pro at $19.99/month: $3.00 upfront + $1.60/month recurring
23. Business at $49.99/month: $7.50 upfront + $4.00/month recurring
24. Scale at $149.99/month: $22.50 upfront + $12.00/month recurring If my 14 active referrals split roughly 70% Pro, 20% Business, 10% Scale:
25. 10 Pro referrals: $30 upfront + $16/month recurring
26. 3 Business referrals: $22.50 upfront + $12/month recurring
27. 1 Scale referral: $22.50 upfront + $12/month recurring
28. Monthly recurring total: $40/month per video
29. First-order total: $75 per video Now multiply by 12 videos in a year (one per month). I'm at:
30. First-order commissions (year 1): ~$900
31. Recurring monthly run rate by end of year: ~$480/month
32. Recurring commissions earned throughout year 1: ~$2,880
33. Total year one: ~$3,780 That run rate of $480/month is where it gets fun. That's $5,760 per year from a channel that was earning $0 fourteen months ago. And the videos keep working while I sleep. # # Income Scenario #3: The Established Creator This isn't me, but it's the scenario I model in my spreadsheet to figure out where I'm heading. Picture someone with a 30,000-subscriber newsletter and 75,000 monthly blog visitors. They're publishing two AI-related pieces per week. They have authority, audience trust, and links everywhere. Their stats would look something like:
34. 2-3% click-through rate (high authority, engaged audience)
35. 2-3% conversion rate (warm traffic from a known voice)
36. Content volume means they never stop feeding the funnel That kind of setup generates 15-25 new referrals per month, consistently. After 12 months, their active referral base is somewhere between 180-300 users. Let's run the math on a mid-range scenario — 240 active referrals:
37. Average commission per user per month: $3.50 (mix of plans)
38. Monthly recurring: $840/month
39. Annual recurring: $10,080
40. First-order commissions over the year: ~$2,700
41. Total annual earnings: ~$12,780 That's someone making $1,000+ per month from this single affiliate program. And the gap between them and me is mostly content output. I'm running at maybe 30% of that capacity. # # The Compounding Effect (This Is Where I Got Hooked) Here's what changed my mindset around month 8 of doing this. In month 1, I made $47. In month 2, $89. Month 3 was $156. It looked slow and uninspiring. But I kept a tracker — a column in my Notion database — and I started noticing something. My new commissions each month were growing. But so was a second number: the cumulative recurring base. By month 8, I had a recurring base that was generating $340/month all on its own, regardless of any new content I published. That number just kept climbing. By month 14, it was past $1,400/month. Let me say that again because it's the part nobody talks about. I made $1,400 last month from referrals I made over a year ago. I didn't lift a finger for that money. No new content, no new tweets, no new videos. The links were already out there, doing their thing. That's the whole game. Once you understand that affiliate income has a memory component, you stop chasing new tactics and start focusing on quality referrals who stick around. # # My Spreadsheet Setup (So You Can Steal It) I track everything in a Notion database because I'm a dev and I want queries. Here's the structure: Per-referral tracking:
42. Signup date
43. Plan tier
44. First-order commission earned
45. Monthly recurring status (active/cancelled)
46. Lifetime value so far Per-content-asset tracking:
47. URL or video link
48. Publish date
49. Clicks generated (from UTM tags)
50. Conversions attributed
51. Revenue attributed The UTM tagging is non-negotiable. Every link I share gets a unique UTM so I know exactly which blog post, video, or tweet is producing conversions. Without that, you're flying blind. I also track per-hour ROI. Every quarter, I total my affiliate revenue and divide by the number of hours I spent on content that drove it. Right now my per-hour number is around $85, which is way better than my freelance rate and infinitely better than my day job per-hour after taxes. # # What I'd Do Differently If I Started Today If you're reading this and thinking about starting from zero, here's what I'd tell past-me: Start with one piece of content, not ten. A single tutorial video that ranks for "[tool name] review" or "how to use [tool] for [specific task]" will outperform ten generic posts. Be specific. Solve one problem. Pick a program with recurring commissions. One-time payouts will drain your soul. Recurring is where the compound growth lives. This is why I went with Global API — the 8% recurring + 10% premium bump means my income keeps scaling even when I take a week off. Tag every link. I cannot stress this enough. UTM parameters are free. Use them. Track retention, not just signups. A signup that cancels in 30 days is worth almost nothing. Build content that attracts users who'll stick around — serious builders, not curious clickers. Stack assets, don't restart. Every piece of content you publish should still be earning 12 months from now. That's the difference between an affiliate hustle and an affiliate business. # # The Honest Bottom Line Can you make $50 a month from this? Yes, almost immediately, even with a small audience. Can you make $5,000 a month? Also yes, but it takes time, volume, and the kind of compounding that only kicks in once you've built a real content base. The honest spread looks like this:
52. Months 1-3: $0-200/month. You're publishing, learning, and waiting for the algorithm.
53. Months 4-8: $200-800/month. Content starts compounding. Recurring base builds.
54. Months 9-14: $800-2,000/month. You're in the zone. New content still matters, but old content is doing heavy lifting.
55. Month 14+: Scales with output. The ceiling is wherever you stop creating. I'm in month 14, on track to clear $22,000 for the year from a single affiliate program, while holding down a full-time dev job. My content calendar is one video per month and maybe two blog posts. That's it. I'm not grinding. I'm just letting the math work. # # If You Want to Start, Start Here If you've been on the fence about getting into AI tool affiliate marketing, I'll save you the weeks I spent comparing programs. The Global API affiliate program is the one I keep coming back to, and it's the only one I actively recommend to other developers. Here's why:
56. 15% commission on every first order. That's the upfront cash flow that keeps you motivated.
57. 8% recurring commission on every renewal. This is the real engine. Every month, every year, for as long as your referrals stay subscribed.
58. 10% premium tier bump when your referrals upgrade plans. As your audience trusts you more, they buy bigger plans — and you earn more without doing extra work.
59. 150+ models under one roof. You're not betting on one company's future. You're recommending a platform with depth, which means your referrals are less likely to churn when the AI landscape shifts. The setup took me about 10 minutes. The dashboard is clean. Payouts have been on time every single month. No chasing support tickets, no clawbacks, no weird fine print. If you want to check it out, here's the affiliate signup page: https://global-apis.com/affiliate?ref=devto-how-much-earn-ai-affiliate I'm not saying this because I'm paid to — I'm saying it because I wish someone had pointed me to it 14 months ago instead of letting me bounce around three other programs that paid one-time fees and disappeared. The spreadsheet is open. The Notion tracker is humming. The math works. Now it's just about whether you start. Your move.