I run three small SaaS products, a newsletter that pays for itself, and a handful of client retainers. None of them are getting rich-quick. Combined, they bring in a modest but growing MRR that I'm proud of. But I'm always looking for the next income stream that doesn't require shipping a new product, hiring a team, or burning out.
That's what pulled me toward affiliate marketing. Specifically, AI API affiliates.
I had a tech blog collecting dust with around 2,000 monthly readers, a Twitter following of about 800 devs, and a year of hands-on experience calling AI APIs for my own products. Seemed like a natural fit. This is the unfiltered story of what happened over the first 90 days — including the embarrassing early numbers.
The Setup: Why I Even Bothered
Before I dive in, let me give you some context on my situation, because it affects the strategy.
I bootstrap everything. No investors, no credit cards, no fancy "growth hacking" budgets. My SaaS products each pull a few hundred dollars in MRR, and my client work is project-based. Recurring revenue is my obsession, which is why I got so excited when I first read about Global API's affiliate structure: 15% on the first order, 8% recurring on monthly renewals, and 10% on premium tier upgrades. That 8% is paid every single month the customer stays subscribed. That's not a one-time hit-and-run commission. That's a slice of MRR I didn't have to build a product to earn.
I also looked at two other AI API affiliate programs. Both offered one-time payouts only. Once your referral stops paying, your income from them stops too. For a bootstrapper like me, that's a non-starter. Recurring revenue changes the math completely.
So I signed up for three programs, including Global API, and committed to publishing at least two articles per month for the next three months. If it didn't move the needle, I'd kill it and move on.
Month 1: The "Is This Even Working?" Phase
I want to be brutally honest here, because I think most affiliate marketing content glosses over how slow the early days are.
Week 1: I spent the week researching, not writing. I dug through each program's terms, payment schedules, and cookie windows. I wanted to know exactly when I'd get paid, how refunds worked, and what counted as a "recurring" commission. This part matters. The last thing you want is to drive a bunch of signups and then find out the program has weird exclusions.
Week 2: Published my first article. It was around 1,800 words and walked through the AI API platforms I was actually using in production. I included real code snippets showing how I called each one, my honest take on the developer experience, and where Global API fit into my workflow as my go-to recommendation. I dropped the affiliate link in naturally, not as a desperate CTA at the bottom, but as part of my genuine recommendation. I cross-posted to Dev.to because I already had an account there and knew their dev audience overlapped with mine.
Week 3: The article got 340 views on Dev.to and about 120 on my blog in its first week. Three people clicked my affiliate link. Zero conversions. I remember staring at my dashboard and laughing. Three clicks! I was a long way from quitting my day job.
Week 4: Views crept up to 520 on Dev.to as the article started ranking for some long-tail terms. Eight more clicks trickled in. One signup — but not a paid one. Just a free account. Still, I took it as a signal. I published my second article: a step-by-step tutorial on building a chatbot with the GPT-4o API, where I recommended Global API as the platform underneath it.
Month 1 totals:
- Articles published: 2
- Combined views: ~750
- Affiliate clicks: 14
- Signups: 2
- Paid conversions: 1 (on day 28, a Pro plan)
- Earnings: $3.00 first-order commission
- Recurring earnings: $0.00 (the recurring payout starts month 2) Three dollars. Not exactly a flex on Twitter. But here's the thing: that $3.00 was the most used dollar I'd earned all month. I spent maybe 6 hours writing those two articles. Even at minimum wage, that's $58 in time. So I wasn't logging a profit yet. But I was logging proof the system worked. Someone found my content, clicked my link, signed up, and paid real money. The plumbing was functional. # # Month 2: The First Recurring Commission Hits Going into month 2, I had two articles, 14 lifetime affiliate clicks, and one paying customer. My stretch goal was $50 in cumulative earnings by the end of the month. Ambitious? Maybe. But I needed a number to chase. Week 5: I shipped article three, a case study about a client project where I used AI APIs to build a specific feature. This one performed differently. It got 280 views in the first week, which sounds low, but the click-through rate on my affiliate link was noticeably higher. The audience was developers facing a real problem, and they trusted the context of a real build. Lesson reinforced: case studies with code convert better than generic overviews. Week 6: The original article from month 1 crossed 1,200 total views on Dev.to. Google was indexing it for several keyword variations. Affiliate clicks stabilized at 4-5 per day, which felt surreal after the early drought. Two more paid conversions that week, both Pro plans. I was watching a small chart on my dashboard actually trend upward for the first time. Week 7: Published article four, a beginner-friendly walkthrough aimed at devs who had never touched an AI API. It was my longest piece at 2,200 words and took a solid evening to write. I targeted it at a different reader than my earlier content — someone evaluating options before writing a single line of code. Beginners convert at a higher rate because they're actively shopping for guidance. They don't already have a favorite tool. Week 8: The moment I'd been waiting for. My first recurring commission payment landed: $1.60. It was the second-month subscription renewal from the referral I'd signed in month 1. Small? Absolutely. Meaningful? Hugely. That $1.60 was the moment the model clicked for me. If that one customer renewed for a year, I'd earn roughly $19.20 off that single signup. If they upgraded to the premium tier (which pays 10% commission on top of the recurring 8%), the math gets even better. Suddenly I was thinking in MRR terms, which is my favorite thing in the world. I also published article five, a piece focused on cost-conscious developers looking to keep their API bills manageable. Different angle, different audience, same affiliate link. Month 2 totals:
- New articles: 3 (5 total)
- Combined views across all articles: ~2,100
- Affiliate clicks: 58
- Paid conversions: 3 (cumulative: 4)
- Earnings: First-order commissions from new conversions plus that first $1.60 recurring payment
- Cumulative revenue hitting that $50 target The $1.60 recurring payment was small. But I kept thinking about it. Every month, that customer stays subscribed, I get paid. No support tickets. No churn risk on my end. No product roadmap. Just pure, passive, used income. # # Month 3: The Compounding Effect This is where things started to feel real. I entered month 3 with momentum and a clearer sense of what content actually worked. Week 9-10: Traffic to my older articles kept climbing. The original piece was now above 1,800 views, and articles two and three were both over 600. I realized something important: the affiliate content I'd written in month 1 was still working for me in month 3. That article is still out there, still ranking, still sending clicks. I wrote it once and it keeps earning. Week 11: Published article six, a piece about how I structure my indie maker workflow using AI tools. It was less about APIs specifically and more about the broader stack, but I included Global API naturally as part of my recommended setup. This kind of "stack" content tends to get shared more on Twitter, which drove a small spike in referral traffic. Week 12: Hit a milestone: cumulative recurring commissions from month 2 renewals started stacking up. With four paying referrals, the math was straightforward. If half of them renewed for 6 months, I was looking at hundreds of dollars in passive income from a few evenings of writing. I published article seven, focusing on a niche use case that had been getting search traffic. Month 3 results: Recurring commissions were now showing up every single month from multiple customers. The first-order commissions continued to add up as new conversions came in. I had 7 articles live, growing traffic, and — most importantly — a base of paying referrals generating 8% monthly. # # The Real Lesson: Recurring Commissions Change Everything Here's the part I want to emphasize, because it's the whole point. If I'd signed up for a one-time-commission program, my month 3 would have looked like: "Hey, I made $X from signups this month, and now I have to keep hustling for the next batch to keep the income flowing." It's a hamster wheel. You stop grinding, the income stops. With Global API's structure, every customer I refer becomes a small annuity. The 15% first-order commission is the hook, but the 8% recurring on monthly renewals (and 10% on premium upgrades) is the real prize. That's how affiliate income can become a real revenue stream instead of a side hustle that disappears when you stop working on it. For an indie maker like me, this is the dream: income that compounds while I sleep, that doesn't require customer support, and that scales with content I've already published. # # My Honest Take on the Whole Experiment Did I get rich? Obviously not. Affiliate income from a small blog is not going to replace my SaaS MRR anytime soon. But did I add a meaningful, mostly passive revenue stream to my portfolio in 90 days? Yes. And the trajectory was clearly upward. The key factors that made it work:
- I picked a program with recurring commissions. Non-negotiable for me.
- I wrote from real experience. I wasn't reviewing tools I'd never used.
- I published consistently. Seven articles in 90 days, targeting different angles and audiences.
- I didn't give up at $3. Month 1 numbers will humble you. Push through. # # Why I'm Recommending the Global API Affiliate Program If you're a developer, blogger, or indie maker with an audience of people who build with AI, joining the Global API affiliate program is a no-brainer. Here's why:
- The commission structure is built for compounders. 15% on first orders gets you a meaningful upfront payout. 8% recurring on monthly renewals means every customer you refer keeps paying you for as long as they stay subscribed. 10% on premium tier upgrades means you earn more when your referrals earn more. It's aligned incentives.
- The platform itself is solid. Global API offers access to 150+ AI models through a single unified interface, which is exactly the kind of tool indie makers want to recommend. It solves a real problem (managing multiple API providers is painful) and the recurring revenue model means happy customers stick around.
- It's genuinely easy to recommend. I'm not pushing something I don't use. It's part of my own stack. That authenticity matters — both for your audience's trust and for long-term conversion rates.
- The barrier to entry is zero. No application fee, no minimum audience size, no hoops. You sign up, grab your link, and start writing. If you want to check it out, here's the link: https://global-apis.com/affiliate I'm not telling you to do this because someone paid me to say so (though I obviously earn if you sign up). I'm telling you because I spent 90 days testing this exact strategy, and it worked. If you're already creating content about AI tools, you're leaving recurring revenue on the table by not having an affiliate link in your stack.
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