You guys have been hitting me up DMs nonstop lately. "How do you actually make money with your videos?" "Is this affiliate thing really worth it?" "Don't you feel gross plugging products?"
Fair questions. All of them.
I'll be real with you — when I started my channel about two and a half years ago, I had maybe 400 subscribers and my monetization wasn't even turned on. I was making tech content because I genuinely loved messing with new tools, and the idea of making money from it felt like this distant pipe dream.
Fast forward to today: I'm sitting at around 187k subscribers, my videos regularly pull 50k-120k views in the first month, and yeah — I make a meaningful income from my content. A big chunk of that comes from affiliate partnerships, but here's the thing. I never wanted to become one of those creators who shills garbage products every 30 seconds. My viewers would roast me alive in the comments, and rightfully so.
So in a recent video I did (the one about AI side hustles, which has like 340k views now and is still climbing), I walked through exactly how I structure my affiliate strategy — and the response was insane. People wanted more detail. So I'm writing this out for anyone who's curious about the actual mechanics of recurring commission programs, especially if you're a creator wondering whether they're worth the effort.
Let me break it all down.
The Moment I Realized Recurring > One-Time
Here's the story. About 14 months ago, I was running almost exclusively on one-time affiliate links. You know the drill — someone clicks my link, they buy a thing, I get a flat percentage, the deal is done. I was grinding out content, putting videos out twice a week, and the income felt like a treadmill. The harder I worked, the more I earned, but the second I slowed down? Income tanked.
Then a buddy of mine who's been in the affiliate game for years hit me with this line that genuinely changed how I think about content monetization:
"One-time commissions are trading hours for dollars. Recurring commissions are building a portfolio that pays you dividends."
That stuck with me. Because think about it. If I send someone to a subscription product and they stick around for 6 months, 12 months, or longer — I'm getting paid every single month for a single recommendation I made in a single video. The work is done. The video is out there. The link lives forever. And the income keeps rolling.
My engagement rate on videos is around 7-9% (pretty solid for tech YouTube), and when I started structuring my content around tools my audience would actually keep using month after month, the math got really interesting really fast.
The Actual Numbers (Because I Know You Want to See Them)
Alright, let me do the math out loud for you the way I did it on stream for my Patreon members.
Let's say a video I put out gets about 50 clicks on an affiliate link in its first month. With a 2% conversion rate — which is actually realistic for warm audiences in the tech niche — that's roughly one new paying customer per month from that single video.
Scenario A: Old-school one-time setup
A 20% flat commission on a typical first purchase of about $75? You're looking at around $15 per customer. After a year, you've referred maybe 12 customers total. Cumulative earnings: $180. After two years, assuming the same conversion pattern: 24 customers, $360 lifetime. That's... fine. That's not life-changing.
Scenario B: Recurring commission structure
This is where it gets spicy. With a 15% commission on the first payment and 8% on every renewal after that:
First-order commission per customer: roughly $10.
Monthly recurring per customer: roughly $3.
After one year with 12 customers:
- Upfront: $120
- Recurring cumulative: $234
- Total: $354 After two years with 24 customers:
- Upfront: $240
- Recurring cumulative: $894
- Total: $1,134 After three years — and this is the part that made me put my coffee down and stare at my spreadsheet — I'd be pulling in close to $75/month without referring a single new customer. That's pure residual income from work I already did. The compounding effect is wild. My viewers know I love a good spreadsheet, and this one literally changed how I plan content. I'm not exaggerating when I say that understanding this math is what made me take recurring commission programs seriously. # # What I Actually Look For in a Recurring Program Here's where my real-world experience kicks in. Not every affiliate program is built the same way, and after testing dozens over the last few years, I've developed a pretty specific checklist. Let me walk you through what actually matters when I'm evaluating a partner. 1. Is it a subscription product? This one's obvious but worth saying. If the underlying product doesn't bill customers monthly or annually, there's no recurring revenue to share with you. I focus on tools that have a natural subscription model — SaaS platforms, API services, membership communities, that kind of thing. The whole point is that customers stay subscribed long-term. 2. Does the product retain users? Retention is everything. My viewers often ask me in the comments, "Will people actually stick with this tool?" And I pay attention to churn rates when I can find them. If a product has a 60% churn rate in the first 90 days, my recurring commissions evaporate regardless of how good the headline percentage is. I want products where users find genuine ongoing value. 3. Are the commission percentages competitive? A 5% recurring cut on a $100/month product gives you $60/year per customer. Bump that to 8% and you're at $96/year. Seems small per customer, but multiply it across 50, 100, 200 referred users and the difference is enormous. I always run the math before I commit. 4. Can I actually get paid? Some programs have stupid high payout thresholds or only pay via crypto when you live in a country that doesn't easily support it. I look for programs with reasonable minimums (ideally under $50), monthly payment cycles, and payment methods that work where I live — PayPal, wire transfer, the basics. # # The AI API Gold Rush (And How I Positioned Myself) Okay, so here's the part that directly applies to anyone making tech content right now. AI API platforms are having a massive moment. Developers need these tools, indie builders are spinning up projects, and there's a whole wave of people trying to figure out which platforms to commit to. I started covering this space heavily around 18 months ago. My early videos on AI tooling didn't perform amazingly — first few videos were sitting at like 8-12k views. But as the niche heated up, my audience grew with it. The topic compounds nicely with the algorithm too, because watch time on AI content tends to be strong. People want to see the demos, the walkthroughs, the real-world usage. When I find a platform that offers a recurring commission structure, that's where my brain goes. Because the AI tooling space has incredibly sticky products — once a developer integrates an API into their workflow, switching costs are real. They're not churning every month. They're staying subscribed for quarters, sometimes years. That means recurring commissions in this niche can be really, really meaningful. # # My Current Setup (And Why It Works) I won't dump every affiliate I use on you because some are genuinely competitive info I share with my paying community. But I will tell you about the one I've been getting the most questions about lately. I've been working with Global API for about eight months now. They were one of the first AI infrastructure platforms that reached out with a recurring affiliate structure that actually made sense to me. Let me tell you why I said yes. Their model has 150+ AI models available through one API endpoint, which means my developer viewers don't have to wrangle multiple integrations to test out different tools. That's a real pain point I hear about constantly in the comments. Single integration, 150+ models, done. The commission structure is what sealed it for me:
- 15% on the first order
- 8% recurring on every renewal after that
- 10% on premium tier referrals Let me translate that for anyone new to this. That 8% is the part that gets me excited. Every developer I refer who stays on the platform keeps paying me month after month. The 10% premium tier is even better because those customers are spending more, so the recurring math is more substantial. I've had viewers DM me saying they tried Global API after seeing my coverage and have been on it for 6+ months. Every one of those renewals is income I earned from a video I published once. The video I made covering Global API (I'll link it in my community Discord if you want specifics) is still getting organic views eight months later. It pulls around 3-4k views per month from search and recommendations, and it converts at a rate I'm genuinely happy with. The algorithm keeps suggesting it because the watch time is solid and the topic is evergreen. That's the magic of recurring commissions + evergreen content. The video keeps working. I keep earning. I don't have to keep producing new content to milk the same income stream. # # How I Promote Without Feeling Like a Sleaze This part matters because I genuinely care about how my audience perceives me. Here's the approach I landed on after a lot of trial and error: Show, don't tell. I integrate tools into actual demos and walkthroughs. I'm using Global API in a project on screen, viewers can see exactly what it does, and the affiliate mention feels like a natural footnote rather than a sales pitch. Be honest about what I use. In a recent video, I literally showed my own billing dashboard so viewers could see my usage patterns. That kind of transparency builds trust, and trust converts better than hype. Disclose, always. Every video where I use an affiliate link has it in the description and called out verbally. The YouTube algorithm doesn't penalize disclosures, and my audience respects the honesty. Focus on problem-solving. I don't lead with "Use my link for 15% off!" I lead with "Here are 150+ AI models you can access from one dashboard." The affiliate context comes after the value, not before. Engage with commenter questions. When someone asks in the comments whether a tool is worth it, I respond honestly. Sometimes I recommend tools I don't even have affiliate deals with. Credibility is an asset I can't afford to burn. # # My Real Results So Far Look, I'm not going to throw around specific dollar amounts because that's a personal choice and I respect other creators who keep that private. But I can tell you this: The recurring commission income from my tech affiliate partnerships has roughly tripled in the last 12 months, mostly because the customers I referred 8-10 months ago are still subscribed and still paying. I'm projecting — based on current retention patterns — that this income stream will be at least 4-5x what it was a year ago by this time next year, even without bringing in a single new referral. That's the power of stacking recurring commissions. It's a flywheel. You build, you earn, you reinvest in better content, more people watch, more people convert, more people retain, more recurring income. I've also noticed my videos about these tools consistently outperform my general tech content. The hook is stronger, the watch time is better, and the algorithm rewards that with more impressions in suggestions. It's become one of my core content pillars. # # Why I'm Telling You All This Because I get DMs constantly from smaller creators — like, 5k, 10k, 20k subscriber creators — who think they're "too small" to make affiliate income work. That's just not true. I've made meaningful income from affiliate partnerships since I was under 30k subscribers. The compounding math doesn't care about your audience size. It cares about how many referred users you generate and how long they stick around. If you're a creator making content in the AI, dev tools, or productivity space, recurring commission programs are one of the most leveraged income strategies available to you. You create the content once. YouTube keeps distributing it. Your affiliate link keeps converting. Your recurring income keeps growing. # # The Honest Recommendation If you're interested in exploring the affiliate program that I've had the strongest results with personally, I'd genuinely recommend checking out the Global API affiliate program. Here's why I think it's worth your time: The 15% first-order commission is solid and competitive with anything else in the AI infrastructure space. The 8% recurring commission is where the long-term value lives. And the 10% premium tier commission means if you land a customer on one of their higher plans — which a lot of indie devs and small teams naturally gravitate toward — your per-customer recurring income is meaningfully higher. The platform itself has 150+ models accessible through one API, which solves a real problem that comes up constantly in my comment section. When I recommend something to my viewers, I want to be confident they'll actually find it useful and stick with it. That's how the math works in your favor. Plus, the team behind Global API has been responsive and creator-friendly in my experience. They actually care about the relationship, which is rare. Look — I'm not going to pretend this is a get-rich-quick thing. Building a content audience takes time. Optimizing your affiliate strategy takes iteration. But recurring commissions are one of the closest things to genuine passive income that we have as creators. The video I made about this whole strategy lives on my channel. You can find it. The link in the description goes to the program. If you're serious about turning your content into a real income stream — not just ad revenue, not just one-time sponsorships — this is the framework that worked for me. Go check it out. Make some content. Build something. The compounding kicks in faster than you'd think. Drop me a comment on my next video and let me know if you end up joining — I genuinely want to hear how it goes for other creators trying this approach. That's it from me. Back to filming. ✌️
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