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Refer & Earn Terms and Conditions

Last Updated:

December 13th, 2023

Payment Requirements:

  1. As a DreamHost Refer & Earn member ("Affiliate"), you may earn a one­-time referral commission ("Reward") for each paying customer you refer to us who signs up for hosting. Referred accounts that receive DreamHost's non-profit discount are ineligible for referral commission. All orders must be for the purchase of DreamHost hosting services by a new and unique customer who arrives at DreamHost.com by clicking on your referral link, completes the signup process within thirty (30) days of clicking on the affiliate tracking link, and maintains an active paid account with DreamHost for a minimum of 97 days.
  2. In the event that multiple Affiliates refer the same unique customer, only the last referrer before the customer orders DreamHost services will receive credit for the referral.
  3. Referred customers must maintain an active hosting service during any free trial and/or money-­back guarantee periods applicable in order for the affiliate Reward to be considered earned. Affiliates will not receive Rewards from customers who cancel/disable their hosting service, receive a refund, or become suspended during these free trial and/or money-­back guarantee periods.
  4. You are solely responsible for keeping all information up to date, including postal and email addresses, name, payment information, tax information and any other personal information that will impact the ability to issue a valid payment. Each Affiliate is required to submit an accurate and up to date W­8/W­9 tax form. If we do not receive the necessary tax or payment information from you within ninety (90) days of a qualifying referral sale that would otherwise trigger a Reward, such Reward shall not accrue and no resulting Reward will be owed with respect to such sale. Your tax information is required to be on file in order for your Rewards to accrue and become payable.
  5. Missing or untracked affiliate referrals must be reported within 14 days of the qualifying referred sale and will be credited to your account at our sole discretion, provided that such credit has accrued pursuant to all terms in the Affiliate Terms of Service. Referrals that are not reported during the then-­current referral period will not be credited to your account.
  6. Earned Rewards are available for redemption after the 97­-day holding period, provided that the Affiliate has chosen to cash out their Rewards. For affiliates who have an earnings balance in excess of $20, earned Rewards will be paid out via PayPal on the first business day after the 10th of the month. Such Rewards payments are subject to a 5% Paypal processing fee.
  7. Affiliates are responsible for making sure they are able to accept payments. Please ensure that your bank or PayPal account can accept payments from US-­based companies.
  8. Affiliates are responsible for all fees, taxes, exchange rates, surcharges and other expenses incurred in order to receive their Rewards. Please check with your bank or PayPal to find out if any of these apply to your account.
  9. In the event of possible credit card fraud and high cancellation rates, DreamHost reserves the right to hold Rewards for up to two (2) additional months for verification. At DreamHost's sole discretion, we reserve the right to cancel Rewards in the event that we are unable to collect funds from the referred customer, the order is fraudulent, the customer cancels within the first 97 days, or if it is found that the Reward was earned improperly for any other reason.

Reversals:

  1. If a referred customer initially purchases a hosting package with a term of at least one (1) year and then downgrades their hosting package to a term of less than one (1) year, or receives DreamHost's non-profit discount within one (1) year of their initial purchase, the applicable Rewards paid to the affiliate will be reversed and deducted from future earnings
  2. Referred customers that issue a chargeback or are found to be fraudulent (e.g. false information, fake/stolen credit cards, selling counterfeit goods etc.), as determined at DreamHost's sole discretion, will be reversed regardless of the amount of time that has passed since the signup occurred.

Promotional Codes:

  1. Effective March 15, 2016, promo codes will no longer be accepted as a method for tracking affiliate sales. Please review your panel to obtain current affiliate referral links for DreamHost.

Affiliate Restrictions and Responsibilities:

  1. DreamHost does not accept "coupon-only" sites in our affiliate program. We reserve the right to deactivate any account that uses coupons/discounts as a primary method of promotion at our sole discretion.
  2. Affiliates are responsible for ensuring that their tracking code is working properly before sending traffic to DreamHost's servers. Any modification to the links is the sole responsibility of the affiliate. Rewards may not be paid for tracking errors caused by editing, masking, redirecting, or tampering with affiliate links, as determined at DreamHost's sole discretion.
  3. Domain forwarding is prohibited. You may not purchase a domain and set it to forward directly to our site using your affiliate link.
  4. Affiliates MAY NOT copy DreamHost's website or any portions of it, including, without limitation, any of DreamHost's trademarks or other intellectual property, and display them on their own site or subdomain or use them in any way without DreamHost's prior expressed written permission.
  5. Purchasing, either directly or indirectly, the search name "DreamHost" or any misspelling or variant thereof from websites, search engines or other directory referral services is prohibited.
  6. Violations of our Anti-­Spam Policy or our Terms of Service will result in immediate forfeiture of all Rewards payments. Additionally, you are prohibited from (1) outranking DreamHost's internal paid search ad on any branded keywords, (2) direct linking to dreamhost.com from any paid search ads, and (3) using dreamhost.com as a display URL.
  7. Gaining referrals through misrepresentation, improper use of DreamHost intellectual property (ie. DreamHost trademarks and copyrighted material) or impersonation of DreamHost personnel is strictly prohibited and can result in loss of accrued Rewards and/or removal from the program.
  8. Referred accounts must use different billing and payment methods than the referrer to qualify for Rewards.
  9. Customers cannot refer themselves or their spouse/civil union partner. No exceptions will be made. Violations can result in the loss of all accrued Rewards and dismissal from the program.

FTC Disclosure Policy:

  1. It is our intent to treat our customers fairly. Accordingly, we require all DreamHost affiliates to comply fully with all applicable laws, regulations and guidelines concerning advertising and marketing, including without limitation, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Endorsement Guides (See the FTC Endorsement Guide for more information.), which require that material connections between advertisers and endorsers be disclosed. This means that all affiliate websites (e.g. directories, review/rating sites, blogs and other websites) and any email or collateral that provide an endorsement or assessment of DreamHost, must prominently disclose the fact that you may receive compensation for referring customers to DreamHost.
  2. For more information and suggestions about how to comply with these guidelines, please click the "FTC Disclosure" tab under the Terms tab when logged in to your affiliate account. Please note that the FTC Disclosure page is only intended to provide guidance. It does not purport to provide legal advice and it does not guarantee that you will be in compliance with FTC regulations if you follow the suggestions presented. You are advised to seek and obtain your own legal advice on how these rules apply to your website or other promotional activities for which you receive compensation.
  3. At our sole discretion, we reserve the right to withhold referral fees and/or terminate the affiliate relationship for your failure to comply with DreamHost's FTC disclosure policy or with any other applicable regulations or guidelines, as determined by DreamHost at our sole discretion.

Deactivation:

  1. Affiliate accounts may be deactivated at any time, without warning or notice, and at our sole discretion. Any affiliate who violates any of DreamHost's Terms of Service policies, including without limitation, these Affiliate Program Terms, or any applicable law, is subject to having their affiliate account deactivated immediately, and any and all accrued, but not yet received, Rewards will be forfeited.
  2. At our sole discretion, any false or misleading advertising or suspected fraudulent activity associated with your affiliate account will result in immediate deactivation.
  3. Affiliate accounts generating a large number of fraudulent accounts, as determined in our sole discretion, will be deactivated.
  4. If you would like to discontinue your participation in the Affiliate Program at any time, simply remove your affiliate links from your website and no longer promote them. For accounting purposes, our systems will retain your account and personal information.

We reserve the right to modify or cancel our Affiliate Program at any time. Please make sure to check this page, along with the Refer & Earn panel page, often! Your continued use of this service after modifications have been made constitutes an acceptance of the updated terms. If you do not agree with the updated terms, your only recourse is to stop utilizing our services and to terminate your account with us.