Client Referral Program: Reward Agent Referrals

Agents already recommend photographers to each other. The referral program gives them a reason to recommend you. Every client gets their own referral link. When a new client books through it, the new client gets money off their first shoot and the agent who referred them earns credit on their account with you. Spatiko tracks the whole thing, so there are no codes to make and no spreadsheet of who owes whom.

The referral program is available on Starter and up. See pricing for plan details.

How it works

1. You turn the program on and choose the offer.
2. Each client automatically gets a personal link and a short code. They appear on the client’s delivery page and in your client portal, so you don’t have to send anything.
3. A new client opens the link and books on your booking form. Their discount is applied automatically.
4. Once that order is paid (or delivered), and a hold period has passed, the referring client gets their credit.
5. The credit comes off their total the next time they book from your client portal.

Setting up the program

Go to Settings → Payments → Referrals. The card at the top sums up your current offer in one sentence, and the On / Off switch next to it turns the program on or off straight away.

The offer

• Friend’s discount. What the new client saves on their first booking, as a Fixed amount or a Percentage. It comes off at checkout on your public booking form.
• Referrer’s reward. What the referring client earns as account credit, as a fixed amount or a percentage. A percentage is taken from the referred order’s services, before travel and tax.

The defaults are $50 off for the friend and $50 in credit for the referrer.

When the credit is paid out

• Qualify on. Choose Payment to wait until the referred order is paid, or Delivery to wait until it’s delivered.
• Hold period. How many days to wait after that before issuing the credit, from 0 to 90. The default is 7 days. A hold gives you time to catch a cancellation or refund before any credit goes out. Set it to 0 to issue credit right away.

Limits

Both limits are optional. Leave them blank for no limit.

• Minimum order subtotal. Below this amount, the referral code doesn’t apply at all. The new client gets no discount and the referrer earns no credit.
• Rewards per client per year. Caps how many rewards any one client can earn in a rolling year.

Terms

Add optional fine print, up to 2,000 characters, such as “Credit applies to future bookings only and can’t be exchanged for cash.” It’s shown with the referral link in the client portal and on delivery pages.

Click Save changes to apply edits to the offer, payout timing, limits, or terms. A referral that’s already under way keeps the reward it was booked with. Changes to Qualify on, the hold period, or the yearly limit apply to it too, and a new friend’s discount applies to every client’s link from then on.

What your clients see

When the program is on, a Refer a friend card appears on each client’s delivery page and on their order pages in the client portal. Portal home shows a one-line version that opens the full card. The card shows:

• The offer, for example “Give a friend $50.00 off their first shoot, and get $50.00 in credit.”
• A reminder that the credit stays on their account with you and comes off their total when they book from the client portal.
• Your referral link, with Copy link and Share buttons.
• Their short code, for passing on out loud. Codes are made from the client’s name plus four characters, such as JORDAN-7K2M.
• In the client portal, once they have any: how much they’ve earned and how many referrals are pending. The delivery page leaves this out.
• Your terms, if you added them.

You can also send a client their link yourself. On their client record, open the ⋯ menu and choose Copy referral link.

What the new client sees

The referral link opens your booking page. The browser remembers the code for 30 days, so the discount still applies if the new client comes back later on the same device. The code goes into the promo code slot automatically. A new client who got the code by text can type it into the promo code box instead.

On the review step, the discount shows as a Referral discount line, with a note saying who referred them. Receipts show the same “Referral discount” label, not the code.

Referral rules

• New clients only. Anyone who has booked with you before can’t use a referral code. They’re told referral codes are for new clients only.
• No self-referrals. A client can’t use their own code. They’re told it’s their own code and to share it with someone new.
• One code per booking. A referral code uses the same slot as a promo code, so the two can’t be combined.
• Public booking form only. An order you create by hand in the dashboard isn’t linked to a referrer, so no discount or credit comes from it.
• One referral per new client. Each new client can only be referred once.

If a code turns out not to qualify when the booking is submitted, Spatiko removes it and shows the updated total before the client pays.

Referral codes don’t appear in your Promo codes list. You’ll find referrals on the Referrals tab and on each client’s record instead.

Tracking referrals

The Referrals tab shows running totals: Referrals, Waiting, Credited, Credit issued, and Discount given. Below the settings, Recent referrals lists who referred whom and where each referral stands:

• Waiting on the order — the referred order hasn’t been paid (or delivered) yet.
• Clears in N days — the order qualified and the hold period is running.
• Ready to pay out — the hold is over. The credit goes out shortly while the program is on.
• Credited — the referrer has their credit.
• Reversed — the referred order was cancelled, or refunded so that you kept less than the reward, after the credit went out, so the credit was taken back.
• A reason, such as “Referred order was cancelled” or “Annual referral reward cap reached”, when a referral didn’t pay out.

When credit is issued, you get a Referral credit issued notification. The referring client gets an email, “You earned $50.00 in credit”, with a Book with your credit button. A client’s record also shows their referrals on the Overview tab, and you can filter their Activity tab by Referrals.

How referral credit is spent

Referral credit is added to the client’s account balance with you, like any other credit on file. It comes off their total when they book from the client portal, and they pay only the rest.

If the referred order is cancelled after the credit was issued, or refunded so that you keep less than the reward, the referral shows as Reversed and Spatiko takes the credit back from the referrer’s balance, as far as it’s still there. Credit they’ve already spent isn’t charged back to them.

Pausing the program

Switch the program Off at any time. While it’s off, the Refer a friend card disappears, new referrals stop, and referrals that are waiting don’t pay out until you turn it back on. The same happens if you move to a plan without referrals.

Go deeper

• Promo codes — run your own discount codes alongside the referral program.
• Delivering your media — the delivery page where agents first see their referral link.
• The client portal — where agents find their link and spend their credit.
• Credit notes and write-offs — the other ways a client ends up with credit on file.