REFERRAL PROGRAM — $29/mo PM app

THE CONSTRAINT THAT SETS EVERYTHING
LTV at $29/mo and 4% monthly churn = ~$725. You can spend up to ~$180
per referred customer and stay at a 4:1 ratio. That's the budget the
incentive has to fit inside — design down from it, not up from "what
feels generous."

INCENTIVE — double-sided, credit not cash
  Referrer:  $29 credit when the referral's 2nd payment clears
  Referee:   first month free

  Why credit: cash attracts people who want cash, not people who want
  your product. Credit keeps CAC inside the ecosystem and extends the
  referrer's own tenure.
  Why the 2nd payment: gating on signup buys you fraud; gating on the
  2nd payment buys you customers. Costs ~30 days of attribution lag.
  Total cost: $58 against $725 LTV.

THE TRIGGER MOMENT — this matters more than the reward size
Do NOT put the ask in onboarding. Nobody refers software they've used
for four minutes. Fire it after the user completes their third project
— the point where they've felt the thing they'd describe to a friend.
Same offer, same copy: roughly 3× the share rate.

MECHANICS
  • One link per user, cookie 60 days (PM tools have a long consider cycle)
  • Attribution: last-touch, referral beats organic
  • Self-referral block: same card fingerprint or same email domain +
    same IP
  • Cap 10 rewarded referrals/user/month — above that it's affiliate
    behavior and belongs in a different program with a contract

SURFACES, IN ORDER OF YIELD
  1. Post-third-project in-app modal
  2. Persistent nav entry (low volume, high intent, never annoying)
  3. Invoice email footer
  4. Quarterly campaign to users with 5+ months tenure

MEASURE
  Referral rate = referrers ÷ active users. Under 2% the program is
  broken; 5%+ is working. Watch referred-user churn separately — if it
  runs above organic, the incentive is buying the wrong people and the
  fix is the trigger moment, not the reward.