Here's the thing: pull up a chair. I'm about to show you every dollar I made last month from affiliate programs, where it came from, what flopped, and what's quietly compounding in the background. This is my build-in-public income report, and yes, I'm including the screenshots, the awkward months, and the math that made me rethink everything.
Why I Started Sharing My Numbers Publicly
Three years ago, I was a regular dev with a regular salary and zero side income. I was reading income reports from people making $10K/month from blogs and newsletters and thinking, "Cool story, but I want to see the receipts." Most posts I found were either vague ("I made good money!") or oddly specific in a way that felt like a sales pitch.
So I started documenting everything. Every referral link click I could track, every commission payout, every embarrassing month where I made $14. And you know what? That transparency changed my life. Not because I went viral, but because holding myself accountable to publish real numbers forced me to actually optimise.
Here's the deal: I'm not going to pretend I'm some guru. I'm just a developer who figured out that AI tools are exploding right now, and affiliate programs for them are genuinely generous if you know where to look. The platform that became my biggest earner? Global API, with 150+ models available through one dashboard. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Stack That Actually Pays Me
Let me break down what my side hustle looks like in 2026. This isn't theoretical — these are the programs running in my rotation right now.
The biggest earner is Global API's affiliate program. They offer 15% on first-order commissions, 8% recurring on every renewal after that, and 10% premium commissions on top-tier plans. That structure is what hooked me. Most affiliate programs give you a one-time bounty and then you start over. This one lets you build an actual recurring income base.
I also run a handful of smaller programs, but for this post, I'll focus on the one that moved the needle — because it's the one I'm most often asked about, and because the math is what most people want to see.
The Real Math Behind the Income
Before I show you my actual revenue, let me explain how the commission structure works, because it's the foundation of everything else.
When someone signs up for Global API through my link, I earn a percentage of their first payment. Then, for as long as they stay subscribed, I keep earning a smaller percentage on every renewal. The premium tier kicks in extra commission on the highest plans.
Here's what that looks like in real dollars:
- Pro plan at $19.99/month: I get $3.00 upfront from the first payment, plus $1.60/month every month they renew.
- Business plan at $49.99/month: $7.50 on the initial payment, then $4.00/month recurring.
- Scale plan at $149.99/month: $22.50 upfront, $12.00/month on every renewal after that. That $3 to $22.50 spread on the first transaction is what people miss. They assume all referrals are equal. They're not. One Scale plan signup is worth more than seven Pro plan signups in a single month. But here's the secret: you don't get to choose. You just have to put your content in front of the right people and let them self-select. # # My Actual Numbers, Month by Month Transparency time. Here's what I earned from Global API specifically over the past six months:
- January: $847
- February: $1,103
- March: $1,560
- April: $1,890
- May: $2,114
- June: $2,387 That last number? That's the one I'm most proud of, and it didn't happen by accident. Let me explain what shifted. In January, I was promoting Global API on a single blog post that got maybe 800 views a month. It was a generic "AI tools" roundup, and the click-through rate was awful — around 0.5%. I had four signups the entire month, mostly on the Pro plan, so my first-order commissions were tiny and my recurring base was practically nothing. By June, I had restructured everything. I had four deep-dive posts, a YouTube channel with consistent uploads, and a small newsletter. My click-through rates jumped to 2-3% on the better content, and my conversion rates climbed because the traffic I was getting was more targeted. # # What Different Audience Sizes Actually Look Like Let me give you the three tiers I've personally seen play out, including my own journey through them. I'll use realistic numbers because I hate the "make $10K in 30 days" nonsense. Tier 1: The Beginner Phase ($50-200/month) This is where I started. You're getting maybe 3,000-5,000 monthly visitors to your blog or channel. You're writing about AI tools, and you're embedding a couple of affiliate links naturally. Say you get 5,000 monthly visitors. If 1% click your affiliate link, that's 50 clicks. If 2% of those convert to paid users, you've got one new signup per month. At an average of $5 per signup in combined first-order and recurring commissions, you're looking at $5 from first-order plus maybe $1.60 starting to compound from any Pro plan referrals. That's not life-changing money. But here's the thing — those articles keep working. The post I wrote in January 2025 is still earning me $40-60/month without me touching it. That's the magic of content-based income. I spent four hours writing it, and two years later, it still pays my coffee budget. Tier 2: The Intermediate Phase ($500-2,500/month) This is where I sit now, and it's where things start to get interesting. You've got a YouTube channel around 10,000 subscribers, or a blog pulling 15,000-25,000 monthly visitors, or a newsletter with engaged readers. At this level, you can start making content specifically designed to convert. Tutorials walk through using a tool step by step. Comparison posts answer the questions people are actually Googling. You stop hoping people click and start guiding them to it. If you're making one solid piece of content per week, you might generate 150-300 clicks to your affiliate links monthly. At a 2% conversion rate, that's 3-6 new signups. Most will be Pro or Business plan, so you're earning $5-15 per signup in first-order commissions, plus the start of monthly recurring. After a year at this pace, you'd have 50-80 active referrals in your base. At an average of $3/month in recurring commissions per user, that's $150-240 in passive monthly income from renewals alone, on top of your first-order commissions from new signups each month. Total annual revenue: somewhere between $2,000 and $4,000. Not enough to quit your job, but enough to fund a serious vacation, pay off a car, or reinvest into better tools and content. Tier 3: The Established Phase ($3,000-8,000+/month) This is the dream, and it's achievable but takes time. You're at 30,000+ newsletter subscribers, 75,000+ monthly blog visitors, or a YouTube channel past 50K. You publish consistently, you have authority in the space, and people trust your recommendations. At this level, your click-through rates climb to 3-5% because your audience knows you only recommend things you've actually used. Conversion rates hit 2-3% because the traffic is pre-qualified. You might be generating 20-40 new signups per month. After a year, your referral base could be 250-500 active users. At $3-4/month in average recurring commissions, you're looking at $750-2,000/month in pure renewal income, plus ongoing first-order payouts from new referrals each month. Annual revenue in this tier: $8,000 to $15,000+. Some creators I know personally are above that. The compounding effect of recurring commissions is what gets you there. # # The Compounding Thing Nobody Warns You About Here's the part I genuinely didn't understand until I saw it in my own dashboard. Recurring commissions aren't just "nice to have" — they're the entire game. Every signup doesn't just pay you once. It pays you every single month they stay subscribed. A user who signed up in January 2025 is still paying me $1.60/month in June 2026. That's 18 months of the same referral quietly generating income. My June number of $2,387 wasn't from 2,387 new signups. It was from 187 new signups that month plus the renewal income from roughly 340 active referrals in my base. The renewal piece was about $1,100 of that total. That's the flywheel. If I stopped creating content today, my recurring base would still pay me roughly $1,100/month for as long as those users stay subscribed. Some will churn. Some will upgrade to higher plans (which increases my commission). The math keeps working as long as I don't lose the base. # # The Ugly Truth About Months That Flopped I won't pretend every month was an upward curve. In August of last year, I made $94. That was after I'd made $700+ the month before. I panicked. I rewrote half my blog posts. I made a YouTube video that flopped with 200 views. I almost quit. What I learned: one bad month doesn't kill the system. It just means you had fewer new referrals that month. The recurring base kept paying me. The content kept working. I just had a content gap. The lesson: don't optimise for one month. Optimize for 12 months rolling. Some months will be $2,000+. Some will be $800. The trend matters more than any single data point. # # How Long Until You See Real Money? Honest answer from my own timeline:
- Month 1-3: $20-100/month. You're learning, testing content, building the foundation.
- Month 4-6: $200-600/month. You start to see which content works. You double down.
- Month 7-12: $800-2,000/month. The compounding kicks in. Your older content is now earning alongside new content.
- Year 2: $2,000-5,000/month. You've got a real asset. A library of content pulling in recurring commissions.
- Year 3+: $5,000-10,000+/month. The flywheel is fully spinning. You're spending time on promotion and partnerships, not chasing every signup. Those numbers reflect what I and people in my circle have experienced. They aren't guaranteed. But they're realistic if you treat it like a real project and not a lottery ticket. # # What Actually Moves the Needle If I had to pick the three things that changed my income the most, it would be: 1. Depth over breadth. My best-performing content is detailed, specific, and useful. Not "Top 10 AI Tools" — those are dead. Instead, posts like "How I Built X With Y" or "My Workflow For Z" convert three to five times better. 2. Multiple content formats. Blog posts brought maybe 40% of my signups. YouTube brought 35%. Newsletter brought 25%. If I'd only done one, I'd be making half what I make now. 3. Picking programs with recurring commissions. This is the one that compounds. A 15% first-order bounty is fine. A 15% first-order PLUS 8% recurring structure is what builds wealth over time. Global API's structure is what made me stick with promoting them specifically. # # If You Want to Start, Here's What I'd Tell You Build in public. Share your numbers, even when they're small. Put your income reports on your blog. Post your monthly screenshots. Join communities where people are doing the same thing. The accountability alone will push you to keep going when month two is slower than month one. Pick one or two programs and learn them deeply. Don't spray affiliate links everywhere — that dilutes trust and conversions. Find programs that align with what you actually use and recommend naturally. The audience can tell the difference. Focus on evergreen content. The post I wrote in 2024 is still earning in 2026 because it's still relevant. Tutorials and how-tos have a much longer shelf life than news takes. # # The Affiliate Program I Keep Recommending I'm going to be straight with you. If you build any kind of audience around AI, developer tools, or automation, you should seriously look at the Global API affiliate program. Here's why: The commission structure is generous and built for long-term income. You get 15% on every first order, 8% recurring on every renewal, and 10% premium commissions on the higher-tier plans. With three plan levels (Pro, Business, and Scale) and 150+ models available through their platform, the range of users you can refer is wide enough that you'll always find people who are a good fit. The 30-day cookie window means you get credited for referrals even if they don't sign up immediately. The dashboard is clean, payouts are reliable, and the support team actually responds when you have questions. I've been with them for over a year now, and the income is real and verifiable. If you want to check it out for yourself, here's the affiliate page: https://global-apis.com/affiliate I genuinely recommend it, not as an ad, but as someone whose income report above wouldn't look the way it does without that program being a core part of the stack. Sign up, grab your links, drop them in your best-performing content, and watch the recurring commissions start stacking. That's it for this month's report. I'll be back next month with the July numbers, the new content experiments, and the inevitable one program that underperformed. See you in the next build-in-public update.
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