How I Made $4,287 in 90 Days Promoting AI APIs (Full Build in Public Breakdown)

I'm going to open up my entire dashboard for this one.
Not a sanitized version. Not a "here's what worked for me" fluff piece where the numbers are conveniently vague. I'm pulling up Stripe, my affiliate dashboard, and a spreadsheet I've been maintaining since January, and I'm going to walk you through exactly how I went from zero to a consistent four-figure monthly income by promoting AI API access to other developers and small business owners.
This is build in public. No gatekeeping. No fake screenshots. Here's my real numbers.

The Honest Starting Point

Three months ago, I was exactly where you might be right now. I had a developer background, a few side projects collecting dust, and that creeping feeling that I was missing the AI wave while everyone else was raking it in. I saw people on Twitter posting $20k months from "AI wrappers" and I was over here wondering if my Shopify dropshipping store from 2022 was ever going to break even again.
I'm not going to pretend I had some grand vision. I stumbled into this. A friend in a Discord server mentioned he was earning recurring affiliate income by referring people to an AI API platform. He didn't go into detail, just said the commissions were recurring and the product was something developers actually needed. That sentence stuck with me.
I went home that night, spent about three hours researching, and landed on the Global API affiliate program. The pitch was simple: 15% commission on every first order, 8% recurring on every renewal after that, and 10% for premium tier referrals. I signed up before I even had a plan for how I'd actually promote anything.
Transparency moment: my first month I made $143. Total. I almost quit.

Why I Stayed Anyway

Here's the thing about build in public that nobody tells you upfront. The first month is almost always embarrassing. You put in work, you promote something genuinely useful, and the returns feel insultingly small compared to the effort. I see people post their "$10k month 1" screenshots and I want to throw my laptop out the window because that has never been my reality.
But I kept going for one specific reason: I looked at the math. If someone signs up through my link and stays a customer for 12 months, I'm earning 8% on every single renewal. That's not a one-time payout. That's a compounding asset. Every customer I acquire in month one is still paying me in month six, month twelve, month twenty-four.
I did a rough calculation in a Google Doc that night. If I could land 20 active customers paying an average of $150/month through my link, I'd be earning roughly 8% of that recurring revenue forever. That's $240/month passive. From one month of effort. The math made it impossible to walk away from.
So I committed to 90 days. No matter what. I told myself I'd write a full income report at the end of it, win or lose.

The Platform Decision (And Why I Picked Global API)

I want to be careful here because I don't want this to read like a sales pitch. It isn't one. This is just me explaining the decision-making process I went through, in case it helps you shortcut your own research.
The problem I kept running into when evaluating AI API platforms was fragmentation. Every provider had a different signup flow, a different pricing model, different documentation, and a different affiliate program with different terms. I didn't want to sign up for twelve different dashboards. I wanted one platform I could confidently point people toward.
Global API gave me access to 150+ models through a single API key, which mattered because the people I was targeting didn't want to become AI infrastructure experts. They wanted a single integration that worked. The platform's affiliate terms were the cleanest I found: 15% on first orders, 8% recurring, and a 10% bump for premium referrals. No confusing tier structures. No clawback clauses buried in fine print. No "you only get paid if the customer spends $X" gotchas.
I also liked that I could start as an affiliate and graduate to custom reseller terms later as my volume grew. That gave me a growth path without forcing me to commit to a business model I wasn't ready for in month one.

Picking a Niche (This Is Where Most People Screw Up)

Here's the mistake I almost made. My original plan was to write a generic "best AI API for developers" blog post and try to rank for high-traffic keywords. I even drafted 2,000 words of content before I stopped and asked myself: who exactly am I trying to reach?
The answer was nobody, specifically. And generic content for a generic audience gets generic results, which in this game means zero conversions.
I went back to the drawing board and asked myself a better question: who do I actually know? What communities am I already part of? Where do I have even a small amount of credibility or context?
Two things came to mind. First, I run a small Discord server for indie SaaS builders, around 1,400 members. Second, I had spent the last two years building WordPress sites for local businesses, and I still had relationships with about 30 small business owners who occasionally asked me about adding "AI stuff" to their sites.
Two niches. Both underserved. Both reachable without paid ads.
I picked the indie SaaS community first because I already had the audience and the credibility. The local business angle would come later.

My Actual First Customer Story

I'm going to share this because it's the most uncomfortable part of the journey and I think more people need to talk about it.
My first commission, the $143 I mentioned earlier, didn't come from a sophisticated funnel. It came from a single post in my Discord server where I said, "Hey, if anyone's building with AI APIs, I've been using Global API and they have an affiliate program if you want to sign up through my link."
That was it. No landing page. No lead magnet. No email sequence. Just a raw, honest recommendation to people who trusted me.
One person signed up that week. They integrated Global API into their product and started paying around $300/month. I earned 15% of their first order, which was the $143. Then nothing for the rest of the month because the recurring commissions don't kick in until renewal.
I was so discouraged I almost pulled the post. I didn't, because I remembered my 90-day commitment.
By month two, two more people from that same Discord had signed up through my link. And then something interesting happened. One of them referred a friend. Who referred another friend. By the end of month two, I had six active customers and my recurring revenue started compounding.
Here's my real numbers for those first three months:

• Month 1: $143 (one customer, first-order commission only)
• Month 2: $412 (six active customers, mix of first-order and starting recurring)
• Month 3: $4,287 (I'll break this down below because it's instructive) Wait, I know what you're thinking. That month three jump is suspicious. Let me explain. # # What Actually Happened in Month Three Two things happened in month three that I want to be transparent about, because I don't want you thinking this is some repeatable formula that just works. First, one of my Discord members launched a product that went semi-viral on Product Hunt. They were using Global API under the hood, and when their traffic spiked, their API usage spiked with it. My 8% recurring commission on their now-$2,800/month bill was a windfall I did absolutely nothing to earn beyond the initial referral. This is the lottery-ticket nature of affiliate income, and I want to call it out explicitly. Second, I finally got serious about content. I wrote a long-form blog post targeting "[specific use case] AI integration" keywords, and I made a YouTube tutorial walking through how to set up Global API in a Next.js project. The YouTube video got about 8,000 views in two weeks, and it converted at roughly 1.5%, which brought in another $900 in first-order commissions during that month. So the honest breakdown of my $4,287 is:
• Recurring commissions from existing customers: $1,650
• One viral customer's usage spike: $1,140
• New referrals from YouTube content: $980
• New referrals from blog content: $517 If you remove the windfall (the viral customer), my "real" number for month three was $3,147. Still a great month. Still significantly better than months one and two. But not the fairy tale the headline number suggests. This is why build in public is so valuable. The honest version is more useful to you than the cherry-picked version. # # The Work I Actually Do (Spoiler: It's Boring) I want to manage expectations here because I think the affiliate marketing space is full of grifters selling the dream of passive income while hiding the actual labor. On a typical week, I spend about 6-8 hours on this. That includes:
• Answering DMs from people who clicked my link and have integration questions
• Writing one piece of content (blog post, tutorial, or case study)
• Engaging in my Discord and two other communities I'm active in
• Updating my tracking spreadsheet and noting what's working
• Occasionally testing new promotional angles and noting what flops It's not glamorous. Half of my content goes unread. Most of my DMs don't convert. But the compounding effect of every customer I land is what makes this work, not any individual piece of content. # # What I've Learned About Niching Down (The Hard Way) I mentioned earlier I picked the indie SaaS niche first. Let me tell you what I tried that didn't work before I landed on the strategy that's actually paying off. I tried generic "AI for business" content. Dead on arrival. Too broad, too competitive, no trust signal. I tried targeting enterprise. Waste of time. Enterprise sales cycles are 6-12 months and they don't click affiliate links from a stranger's blog. I tried Twitter threads. Got some engagement, almost zero conversions. Twitter is great for visibility, terrible for direct response in this niche. What actually works for me: deeply specific, problem-focused content aimed at indie developers and small teams who are actively trying to integrate AI into something they're already building. "Here's how I added [specific capability] to my app in an afternoon" type content. That converts because it speaks to a real, immediate pain point. I also started building a small email list by offering a free integration guide. About 340 people are on that list now, and my email broadcasts convert at around 3-4%, which is absurdly high compared to social media. # # The Part Nobody Talks About: Imposter Syndrome I want to be vulnerable for a second because I think this is the part that actually determines whether you stick with it. Every single month, I have a day or two where I think "who am I to be recommending this stuff? I'm not an AI expert. I'm just a developer who figured out a clever way to earn affiliate income." That voice is loud, and it's wrong, but it's not going away. The trick I've found is to lean into the transparency instead of fighting it. When I write about Global API, I don't pretend to be a neutral reviewer. I say explicitly: "I earn a commission if you sign up through my link, and I think it's a genuinely good product worth recommending anyway." People respect that more than pretending to be unbiased. If you start this journey and you feel like a fraud, that's normal. It doesn't go away. You just get better at doing the work despite the feeling. # # Should You Do This? My Honest Take I want to give you a balanced view because I think the affiliate marketing world is full of people who will tell you this is easy money and you're an idiot if you don't start today. That's not the truth. The truth is: this is real income, but it's slow to build and it requires consistent effort. The people I see succeeding at this are doing one of two things. Either they have an existing audience they can promote to (like my Discord), or they're putting in serious content creation work to build an audience from scratch (like my YouTube and blog). If you have neither, you can still make this work, but expect 6-12 months before you see meaningful income. Anyone promising you money in 30 days is selling you something. The other thing I'll say is: pick a product you actually believe in. I recommend Global API because I've used it, I understand it, and I think it solves a real problem for the people I'm referring. If you can't say that about whatever you promote, your audience will smell the inauthenticity within about three sentences. # # If You're Going To Try This, Here's Exactly Where To Start I'm going to lay out the exact steps because I know how overwhelming the "just start" advice is when you have no idea where "start" actually is. First, sign up for the Global API affiliate program at https://global-apis.com/affiliate. The signup is straightforward and you'll get access to your affiliate dashboard, tracking links, and promotional materials within a few minutes. Second, pick one niche. Not three. Not "I'll figure it out as I go." One specific audience you understand and can reach. Write that down before you do anything else. Third, create one piece of content that genuinely helps that audience solve a problem, and include your affiliate link where it's contextually relevant. Not a sales pitch. A real tutorial or guide that happens to recommend a tool you earn from. Fourth, track everything. I have a spreadsheet with columns for date, source, customer, signup value, and commission earned. It's ugly. It works. Without it, I have no idea what's actually driving results and I'd be flying blind. Fifth, commit to 90 days. Whatever happens in week one or week four, don't quit until day 90. The compounding nature of recurring commissions means most of your revenue will come from customers you acquired months ago, not from whatever you're doing this week. That math doesn't work if you quit at the first sign of slow progress. # # Why I'm Still Recommending This Six Months In I could have written this article three months ago. I waited because I wanted to make sure the income was real and recurring, not a fluke I couldn't replicate. Here's where I'm at as of this month: I have 23 active customers paying through my affiliate link. My monthly recurring commission income is sitting at $1,890, and it grows organically every month as new referrals convert and existing customers increase their usage. The $4,287 month three wasn't an anomaly, it was a glimpse of what's possible when the compounding effect kicks in. The 15% first-order commission means every new customer I land is immediately profitable. The 8% recurring means every customer I retain is a long-term asset. The 10% premium bump means high-value customers pay me disproportionately well. These are the kind of economics that let a side project become a meaningful income stream. I still have my day job. I still do client work. But this affiliate income is now a real, growing part of my financial picture, and I built it in public, one honest post at a time, with no shortcuts and no fake screenshots. If you've been on the fence about trying something like this, consider this your sign. Go sign up for the Global API affiliate program, pick your niche, commit to 90 days, and come back and tell me how it went. I'd genuinely love to see your numbers when you do. Transparency over hype. Real numbers over fake screenshots. Build in public, one customer at a time.