Affiliate Program Terms

Last updated: September 5, 2026 · Version 2026-09-v1

These terms govern the Nerd Notes affiliate program: how you earn a commission, when we confirm it, and how we pay it. They apply to you as an affiliate.

They are separate from the Terms of Use and the Sales and Refunds policy, which govern buying from Nerd Notes. Nothing here changes what a customer is entitled to, and nothing in those policies sets what you earn.

You accept these terms when you get your affiliate link. We record which version you accepted.

1. Joining the Program

Anyone with a Nerd Notes account can join. Get your link at nerd-notes.com/affiliate — getting it is the opt-in, and there is no application and no approval step.

You get one link, tied to your account. It never changes. You may not sell, rent, transfer, or share your link's code with someone else so they can earn on it.

You must be 18 or older to receive a payout. If you are under 18, a parent or legal guardian must receive payouts on your behalf and accept these terms with you.

We may decline or close an affiliate account at any time, for the reasons in section 7.

2. What Earns a Commission

A commission is earned when someone clicks your link and then completes a paid purchase of an eligible product.

Eligible products. Currently the affiliate program covers the self-paced course Learn Physics From Scratch. We may add products later. Your existing link works for anything we add.

How a sale is credited to you. Your link sets a cookie in the buyer's browser that lasts 30 days. If they buy within that window, the sale is credited to you. Last click wins: if someone clicks another affiliate's link after yours, that affiliate gets the sale.

Because attribution depends on a cookie, we cannot credit a sale when the buyer blocks or clears cookies, buys on a different device or browser, or buys more than 30 days after clicking.

These never earn a commission:

• Your own purchases, or purchases on an account you control. Self-referrals are blocked automatically.
• Orders that are refunded or charged back (see section 4).
• Subscriptions and recurring plans.
• Free products, gifts, comped access, and staff accounts.
• Purchases made without your link, even if you introduced the buyer.

Buyer privacy. Your dashboard shows counts and amounts only. We never tell you who bought, and we never share a buyer's name, email, or any other personal information with you.

3. Commission Rates and Tiers

Your commission is a percentage of what the buyer actually paid, after any discount, rounded to the nearest cent. Nerd Notes may discount a product at any time, and your commission follows the real amount collected.

Your rate rises with the number of sales standing on your account:

Sales that were refunded or charged back do not count toward a tier.

Each sale locks in the rate you were on at the moment of that sale. Reaching a new tier applies to your next sale, not to earlier ones.

4. Holds, Confirmation, and Reversals

Every commission is held for 60 days from the date of the sale. During the hold it shows as pending. After the hold it is confirmed and becomes payable.

The hold exists because a sale can still be reversed after it happens. A refund or a card chargeback can occur for up to 30 days after the purchase, and card networks can raise a dispute later than that in some cases.

If a sale is refunded or charged back, the commission on it is reversed in full. This includes partial refunds.

If the sale is reversed after we already paid you for it, the amount is deducted from your next payout. If you have no further payouts, we may ask you to return it.

5. Getting Paid

We pay out twice a month, on the 1st and the 15th. A commission is included in a payout once its hold has cleared before that date.

How we pay. By bank transfer through Stripe. Stripe emails you to collect your bank details before your first payout — you do not need to set anything up in advance. Outside the United States we may pay through PayPal instead.

Minimum balance. We hold balances under $100 until they reach $100, so a payout is worth the transfer fee.

Your details. You are responsible for giving us accurate payment details and keeping them current. We are not responsible for money sent to details you gave us incorrectly. If a payout cannot be delivered and you do not respond to us within 12 months, the balance may be forfeited.

Taxes. You are responsible for any taxes on what you earn. Commissions are paid gross, with nothing withheld. Before we pay you, we may need a completed tax form (a W-9 in the United States, a W-8 series form elsewhere). United States affiliates paid $600 or more in a calendar year will receive a 1099.

6. How You May Promote

Say that you earn a commission. Wherever you share your link, disclose that you get paid if someone buys. A short, plain line is enough: "I earn a commission if you buy through this link." This is required by law in the United States, and it is required by us everywhere.

Be honest. Do not describe the product as something it is not, invent testimonials, or claim a discount that your link does not carry. Your link does not give the buyer a discount.

Do not do any of the following:

• Present yourself as Nerd Notes, or as an employee, agent, or official partner.
• Register domains, handles, or ad accounts that use the Nerd Notes name or logo, or bid on our brand terms in paid search.
• Send spam: bulk unsolicited email, mass DMs, or comment spam.
• Use bots, click farms, cookie stuffing, forced clicks, iframes, redirects, or browser extensions to generate clicks or set cookies.
• Post your link on coupon, deal, cashback, or "free download" sites, or offer people cash or rewards for buying through it.
• Place your link alongside adult, hateful, violent, or illegal content, or anywhere prohibited by that platform's own rules.
• Buy through your own link, or arrange for others to route your own purchases through it.

You may use our name, logo, and product images to promote the products you link to. That permission ends when you leave the program or we close your account.

7. Pausing, Closing, and Forfeiture

We may pause or close your affiliate account if you break these terms, if we see fraud or manipulated traffic, or if we end the program.

If commissions were earned through fraud, manipulated traffic, or a serious breach of these terms, those commissions are forfeited, including any still on hold, and we may reclaim amounts already paid.

You may leave at any time by contacting us. Commissions already confirmed at that point will still be paid on the normal schedule.

8. Changes to the Program

We may change the commission rates, the tiers, the eligible products, the hold period, and the payout schedule.

Changes apply going forward only. A commission already earned keeps the rate and terms that applied when the sale happened. When we make a material change we publish it here with a new version number and date.

We may end the program at any time. If we do, commissions confirmed at that point will still be paid.

9. Your Relationship With Us

You are an independent participant in a referral program. These terms do not make you an employee, agent, partner, or joint venturer of Nerd Notes, and they do not give you authority to make commitments on our behalf.

You are responsible for your own taxes, for any licences or registrations your promotion requires, and for following the rules of any platform you post on.

10. General

The general provisions of our Terms of Use — governing law and jurisdiction, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and the class action waiver — also apply to your participation in this program. Where those terms and these terms differ on an affiliate matter, these terms control.

11. Questions

Email nerdnotes.business@gmail.com with anything about the program, a payout, or a reversed commission. Your link, your numbers, and your earnings are always at nerd-notes.com/affiliate.