You're on the free tier. You've got a project half-planned, the AI Scan is sitting there waiting, and your credit balance is reading zero. The upgrade math doesn't work out this month.
There's another route: share your referral link, and when a friend creates their first project, you both get 100 credits. Not a temporary voucher. Not credits that vanish at the end of the billing month. A real credit top-up that sits in your account the same way a paid purchase would.
Here's how the whole thing actually works.
How the 100/100 split works
Every Draftlytic account gets a unique 8-character referral code at signup. You can find it in the Refer friends tab on your Profile page, along with a ready-made link in the format https://draftlytic.com?ref=YOURCODE.
Share that link. When someone clicks it, the code gets captured before they sign up, so the referral is tracked even if they do an OAuth login and the page reloads mid-flow.
When the referral lands:
- Your friend gets 100 credits added to their account, right after they create their first project.
- You get 100 credits at the same moment.
Both of you get exactly the same amount. There's no tiered structure, no "you get 10% of what they buy," no tracking pixel nightmares. Give 100, get 100.
The code itself is designed to be shareable without creating confusion. The character set skips the letters I, O, and the numbers 0 and 1, because those are ambiguous when you read them off a screen or say them out loud. So your code will always look unambiguous, even if someone's copying it by hand from a Discord screenshot.
The trigger: their first project, not their signup
This is the part worth paying attention to, because it's different from how most referral programs work.
Credits are not issued when your friend signs up. They're issued when your friend creates their first project.
From a technical standpoint, a trigger fires when lifetime_projects_created transitions from 0 to 1. From a practical standpoint, it means you both need to wait until the referred user actually does something in Draftlytic. A signup that sits idle won't trigger anything.
This is worth knowing if you're going to share the link. The framing isn't "sign up here." It's "sign up and try it, create a project." If you want a deeper look at what that first project looks like and what Draftlytic walks you through, the step-by-step guide to using Draftlytic from idea to spec is a good thing to send alongside the link. It shows someone what they're walking into.
The other side of this: a project created at status generating is enough to trigger the grant. If the AI generation fails for some reason, the credits still land. The project slot was consumed from the new user's perspective, so the referral is counted.
Why these credits don't vanish at month-end
Most free-tier credits in SaaS products reset on a monthly cycle. Spend what you get, and if you don't use it, it disappears. Referral credits in Draftlytic work differently.
When you earn referral credits, they go into the purchased credits bucket, not the monthly bucket. Think of it like two separate balances sitting side by side:
- Your monthly allowance, which refills (and resets) each billing month based on your tier.
- Your purchased credits, which never reset. They stay until you spend them.
Credits in the purchased bucket are drained first when you use a feature. Only once that bucket is empty does the monthly allowance kick in.
Referral credits go into bucket two. That means if you earn 100 credits in July and only use 30 of them, the remaining 70 are still sitting there in August, September, and however long after that. They're not a temporary boost. They accumulate the same way credits you've bought outright would.
If you refer three friends and they all create their first project in the same month, you end up with 300 purchased credits in your account. That balance carries forward indefinitely.
Three places to share your link that actually convert
Posting in a group you're barely active in rarely works. Context converts, not volume. Here are three situations where a Draftlytic referral link lands without feeling spammy.
Vibe-coding Discords, when someone asks how to brief an AI tool. Someone posts "how do I get Lovable to stop hallucinating features?" or "what's the best way to prompt Cursor for a new project?" That's the moment. Reply with a concrete answer, and mention that Draftlytic handles the spec-writing step so they stop guessing at prompts. Then post your link once, clearly labelled.
Replies on X, in threads about indie builds or AI coding. Founders sharing what they're building, devs complaining about AI drift, vibe-coders asking for workflow advice. Engage with a genuine reply first. If the conversation gets to planning or spec-writing, the link is a natural fit. Don't open with the link; let it follow the useful part.
Indie-dev newsletters with reader sections. A lot of newsletters in the Cursor/Lovable/Bolt orbit have "what I'm using" or "tools I tried this week" sections submitted by readers. A short genuine note about using Draftlytic, with your referral code, reaches an audience that's already interested in AI dev tooling. One newsletter mention to the right list is worth a hundred Discord posts.
The common thread: someone already looking for what Draftlytic does. Don't create the need. Find the conversation where it already exists.
The honest math: how many referrals equal a month of Plus
Draftlytic's Plus plan pricing is on the pricing page. As a reference point for the math:
- A Plus subscription gives you a meaningfully larger monthly credit allowance than the free tier.
- The monthly Plus credit allowance currently costs roughly the same as three to four paid top-up packs.
- Each referral earns you 100 credits.
So the rough math is: four to five successful referrals puts you in range of a month's worth of Plus-tier credits, depending on what you use them for. The AI Scan (30 credits), AI Edit turns (10 credits standard), and PRD Workshop turns (10, 15, or 25 credits depending on PRD length) are the main costs.
Referral credits stack without a cap. There's no limit on how many people you can refer, and referral_credits_earned tracks the lifetime total in your account. If you're sharing with a crowd that's actively using AI dev tools, the math tips well in your favor.
One thing the math doesn't account for: the 100 credits your friend gets makes them more likely to actually complete a project and see value. Which makes them more likely to share the link themselves. That second-order effect is real, even if it's hard to put a number on.
Make the first project count
The one thing that matters for the referral to pay off is that the person you refer creates a project. Not just signs up. Creates something.
That's a higher bar than most referral programs set, but it's an honest one. A friend who creates a project has actually tried Draftlytic, not just clicked a link. And a friend who's tried it is far more likely to mention it to someone else.
If you want to give them the best shot at a useful first project, send them the link alongside something concrete. The how-to walkthrough explains the full flow from idea to spec in one post. A new user who starts there instead of going in blind is more likely to get value out of the first session, which is when the referral actually triggers.
The credits are a side benefit. A friend who now has a better way to plan their builds is the actual win.