Your account carries a personal referral link. Share it while you pay for Pro, $4.99 CAD a month, or Discovery, $9.99 CAD a month, and a friend who joins on it gets a free month of Pro the moment they finish signing up, with no card. You earn a free month back the first time that friend subscribes, up to 3 rewarded months. On the free plan the link stays out of reach, because both months depend on you paying. How Treader works sets out what each plan adds.
Where to find your link
- 1 On a paid plan, tap Refer friends in the main menu, or in Settings under Billing, in the Referrals panel. Lifetime Discovery counts as paid.
- 2 Your link ends in a code such as ?ref=TRDR-7F3A9K. Tap Copy and send it. Friends who joined lists each friend by name as Active or On Free, never with their email or plan.
- 3 On Free, the same row carries a Pro badge and opens the plans instead. (Plans, pricing and billing)
What each side gets
| Who | Reward | When it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Your friend | 1 free month of Pro | When they finish signing up, if you are paying then |
| You | 1 free month of Pro | The first time they subscribe to Pro or Discovery, monthly or annual, if you are still paying then |
A Lifetime Discovery purchase does not trigger your reward, only a subscription does. The cap is 3 months, reset only when an annual plan renews.
Your reward is Pro time stacked onto your account, running on its own clock beside whatever you pay for, and it never pauses a charge. While you subscribe, the Refer friends dialog counts the months earned but nothing shows when they run out. Once no subscription is live, Settings under Billing shows the time as Pro via referral, with its end date.
This link is not the one that adds a friend to a trip, and a trip invite never earns a referral month. (Invite people to a trip)
Why a reward can be withheld
- You were not paying at the time. Free Pro time from a referral does not count as paying. Not paying when your friend signed up costs their month; not paying when they first subscribed costs yours. Neither comes back later.
- It is your own second address. A plus tag is stripped from any address, and dots on Gmail, so a variation on your own mailbox still reads as you.
- A throwaway mailbox. A friend signing up with an address from a known disposable-mail service gets no month, and neither do you.
- The same card. If a card on your friend's account matches one on yours, your month is withheld.
- The cap. 3 rewarded months, and each account can be referred once, ever. The count resets only when an annual plan renews, so it holds at 3 on a monthly plan until then, and on Lifetime Discovery for good.
Common questions
- Does my friend need to pay to get their free month?
- No, and no card either. The month starts when they finish signing up in the browser where they opened your link, if you are on a paid plan then.
- Why did my friend not get a free month?
- Usually because you were not paying when they signed up, or they opened the link on one device and signed up on another. A throwaway address, a variation on yours, or an account that already used a link also blocks it.
- How many free months can I earn?
- Up to 3. On an annual plan the count resets each time it renews. On a monthly plan it stays at 3 until an annual renewal, and on Lifetime Discovery it stays at 3.
- Does a referral month pause my subscription?
- No. It is Pro time running alongside whatever you already pay for, and it never delays a charge, so it only matters if your paid plan ends before the free time does.
- Can I refer myself with a second email address?
- Not for a reward that lasts. A plus-tag or dotted Gmail variation of your address is refused, a matching card withholds your month, and the Terms let Treader revoke free months earned through self-referral.
Tip
Ask your friend to open the link on the device, and in the browser, they will sign up with. The code is kept in that browser only, so a link opened on a laptop and finished on a phone misses both months, with nothing telling either of you why.