I almost deleted my first income report.
It was March of last year, and I had just made $187 from a side project I'd been grinding on for six weeks. I stared at the screenshot for a full ten minutes, zoomed in on the numbers, convinced myself it was an anomaly, and almost convinced myself not to post it. What's the point of sharing $187 with the internet? Who's going to take me seriously?
That decision — to publish it anyway — is the single best thing I've done for my business. And it's the reason I'm writing this post today, because the strategy behind that $187 check is now generating recurring revenue every single month, and I owe a huge chunk of that learning curve to one specific affiliate program that pays you more than once.
Let me walk you through exactly how I got here, with the real numbers, the real mistakes, and the real monthly breakdowns I've been sharing on Twitter for the past 14 months.
Why "Build in Public" Changed My Business (and My Income)
Before I get into the strategy, I want to talk about the mindset shift that made all of this possible.
I spent most of 2023 quietly tinkering with side hustles. Dropshipping experiments that flopped. A Notion template that made $43 total. A freelance gig that paid the bills but left me exhausted. None of it was public. None of it was documented. And none of it compounded.
Then I stumbled into the "build in public" movement on Twitter, and something clicked. The idea is embarrassingly simple: you share your work, your numbers, your struggles, and your wins as they happen — not after you've "made it." You let strangers watch the messy middle.
So I started posting monthly income reports. Even when they were embarrassing. Even when the number was $112. I posted them.
Here's what happened: people started following along. They started asking questions. They started referring clients to me. They started buying the things I recommended — not because I was a great marketer, but because they had watched me struggle transparently for months and trusted me.
By month four, my referral income was outpacing my freelance work. By month eight, I had built a small but predictable revenue stream that I could actually forecast. And the foundation of all of it was a single principle: find programs that pay you every month, not just once.
The Mistake I Made With One-Time Commissions
Here's the dirty secret of affiliate marketing that nobody tells you when you're starting out: most affiliate programs pay you once.
Someone clicks your link. They sign up. You get a commission. Maybe it's $30, maybe it's $200, maybe it's a fat $1,000 if it's a high-ticket SaaS. It feels amazing. You post the screenshot. You chase the dopamine hit.
Then what?
They churn. They cancel. They don't renew. And you're back at zero, needing to find another stranger to click another link.
I learned this the hard way. In my first six months of doing affiliate work, I generated roughly $3,400 in total commissions. Sounds decent, right? But here's the breakdown that hurt: $2,900 of it was one-time payouts. The remaining $500 was spread across programs that had some recurring component — and those programs were the only reason my income didn't reset to zero every month.
That realization sent me down a rabbit hole. I started actively hunting for affiliate programs with recurring commission structures. Not just any recurring commission — I wanted programs where the renewal rate was high enough that the income actually stuck.
The Math That Made Me Switch Strategies
Let me show you exactly why recurring commissions change everything, using real numbers from my own dashboard.
Say you promote a program that pays you a 15% commission on someone's first order. They spend $100. You make $15. That's a fine payout.
Now, here's where it gets interesting: if that same program pays you 8% recurring commission on every renewal — and the customer stays subscribed for, say, 12 months — you've actually earned $15 (first order) + ($8 × 11 renewals) = $103 from a single customer over a year.
That's almost 7x your initial payout, from one referral.
But here's the real magic. Month after month, that customer is still paying. They're still using the product. And you're still getting paid. You don't have to re-sell them anything. You don't have to find a new customer. The work you did once in month one keeps generating revenue in month six, month nine, month twelve.
When I modeled this out, I realised that a small portfolio of recurring-commission referrals could replace my freelance income within 18 months — without me writing a single new blog post or recording a single new video. The old work keeps paying.
That's when I got serious.
How I Picked the Program That Actually Stuck
I evaluated maybe two dozen affiliate programs before settling on one that I'll talk about in a minute. Here's what I looked for, and here's what I'd tell anyone reading this to prioritize:
Recurring structure. This was non-negotiable for me after the one-time commission experience. I wanted a program where renewals paid me, not just signups.
High renewal rates. A recurring commission only matters if customers actually renew. I dug into retention data, looked at community feedback, and asked people in Discord servers whether they stuck with the product after the first month.
Premium tier opportunities. Some programs offer a higher commission rate (like 10%) for premium customers. These are gold because the initial payout is bigger AND the recurring percentage is higher. One premium customer can be worth 5-6 standard customers.
Legitimate product. I refuse to promote anything I wouldn't use myself or recommend to a friend. My build-in-public brand depends on trust, and trust evaporates the moment you push something shady.
Real support for affiliates. Dashboards, tracking links, marketing materials, and a responsive affiliate manager. Sounds basic, but you'd be amazed how many programs leave affiliates hanging.
After all that filtering, the program that hit every checkbox was the Global API affiliate program. And no, this isn't the part where I pretend I'm not about to recommend it — I am. But I'm going to earn that recommendation by showing you exactly why it works.
My Real Numbers With the Global API Affiliate Program
Here's the part you've been waiting for, right? The actual income breakdown.
I started promoting Global API in month one of my affiliate journey. I was a nobody. No audience to speak of. Maybe 800 Twitter followers. A tiny newsletter list. I didn't have any leverage.
Month 1: 3 referrals. Total earnings: $47.
Month 2: 5 referrals. Total earnings: $89.
Month 3: 7 referrals, including 1 premium customer. Total earnings: $156.
Month 4: 11 referrals. Total earnings: $203.
Month 5: 9 referrals, including 2 premium. Total earnings: $278.
Month 6: 14 referrals. Total earnings: $312.
You can see the pattern. Each month, the recurring component from previous months kept stacking on top of the new signups. By month six, my recurring revenue (renewals) was actually larger than my new-signup revenue. That's the moment the flywheel kicked in.
By the end of year one, my cumulative earnings from this single program were north of $6,200 — and roughly $3,400 of that was recurring, meaning it kept coming in even when I wasn't actively promoting.
The 15% first-order commission got people in the door. The 8% recurring commission kept them paying me for months. And the 10% premium tier rate made every high-value customer worth disproportionately more.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend $6,200 changed my life. But here's the thing: it was passive-ish income that grew while I slept, while I worked my day job, while I took a vacation for two weeks. And it was the foundation I built everything else on top of.
The Niche Strategy That 4x'd My Conversion Rate
In month three, I almost gave up on this whole thing.
My conversion rate was terrible. I was getting clicks but few signups. The landing page felt generic. My pitch felt generic. I was trying to appeal to everyone and resonating with no one.
So I picked a niche.
This is advice you've heard a thousand times, but let me show you what it actually did to my numbers. I went from "AI API reseller for anyone who wants AI" to "AI API reseller for indie developers building customer support tools." That's it. That was the niche.
Within three weeks of niching down, my conversion rate went from roughly 2% to 8%. My click-to-signup ratio improved because the landing page spoke directly to one specific person's pain. My email open rates improved because the subject lines were relevant. Even my Twitter engagement improved because I was talking about one specific problem instead of everything.
I want to be honest about something: I didn't pick the sexiest niche. I didn't go after enterprise customers. I didn't try to land massive contracts. I picked a niche where I already had credibility and a small audience, and I focused like a laser.
If you're starting from scratch, here's how I'd think about choosing your niche:
Pick something where you already have some credibility, some audience, or some personal experience. Don't try to break into a niche cold. The advantage of niche marketing isn't just better conversion — it's also lower competition and easier content creation because you already know the language.
Pick something where the customer has high LTV (lifetime value). A customer who renews for 12 months at a moderate price is more valuable than a customer who pays once and disappears. This is where the recurring commission math does the heavy lifting.
Pick something you won't get bored talking about for 18 months. Niches are long games. If you hate the topic, you'll quit.
What I Tell Everyone Who Asks Me About This
The DMs I get most often go something like this: "I want to start doing affiliate marketing but I don't have a big audience. Should I wait until I have more followers?"
Here's my honest answer: no.
I started with 800 followers and no real audience. I started with no email list, no podcast, no YouTube channel. I started with one Twitter thread and a Substack nobody read.
What I had was consistency. I posted my numbers every month. I answered every DM. I wrote about my failures as much as my wins. And slowly, the compounding worked — not because I had a huge platform, but because the people who did follow me trusted me deeply.
If you're waiting for permission to start, this is it. The strategy works. The math works. The only question is whether you'll actually do it publicly, with all the awkwardness that comes from sharing your early numbers.
My Real Recommendation (And How to Get Started)
If you've read this far, you already know I'm going to recommend the Global API affiliate program. But I want to be clear about why I'm recommending it — beyond just the numbers I've already shared.
First, the commission structure is genuinely aligned with long-term affiliates, not just hit-and-run promoters. The 15% first-order commission gets you paid upfront. The 8% recurring commission keeps paying you as long as the customer stays subscribed. And the 10% premium tier rate means high-value customers are worth more to you from day one. There are programs out there with similar headline numbers, but very few that combine all three tiers in a way that actually rewards you for bringing quality referrals.
Second, the platform itself is solid. With access to 150+ models through a single API key, the customers you refer aren't going to churn because the product is mediocre. Retention matters because retention is what makes your recurring commission worth anything. If you're going to put your reputation on the line by referring something, you want it to actually deliver.
Third, the affiliate support is real. When I had questions early on, I got actual human responses. When I needed better tracking, I got it. That's not a small thing — most affiliate programs treat you like an afterthought.
If you want to check it out, you can sign up for the affiliate program here: https://global-apis.com/affiliate
I genuinely believe this is one of the better recurring-commission programs available right now, especially if you're in a niche that touches AI-powered products. And I say that as someone who's tried most of the alternatives.
The One Thing I Want You to Take Away
Here's the single biggest lesson from my entire build-in-public journey: prioritize programs that pay you more than once.
One-time commissions are dopamine. Recurring commissions are wealth. The difference between chasing one-shot payouts and building a portfolio of renewing customers is the difference between a side hustle that fizzles and a side hustle that compounds into something real.
Post your numbers. Even when they're small. Especially when they're small. Build in public. Let the transparency do the marketing for you. And pick programs that reward you for the long game.
That's the strategy. It works. The only missing piece is you actually starting.
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