Partner program terms.

01Scope and who this covers

These Partner Program Terms (the "Terms") govern your participation in the Message.com Partner Program (the "Program") operated by Message.com LLC ("Message," "we," or "us"). They apply to every approved Partner regardless of tier or country.

The Program has three tracks. Affiliates drive signups through content, links, and audience promotion in exchange for a revenue share. Agencies resell our platform to clients they manage on an ongoing basis. Resellers purchase Message at a discount and sell to their own customers under their own commercial terms.

By accepting these Terms in the partner portal, signing a counter-signed copy, or earning any commission under the Program, you agree to be bound. If you do not agree, do not enroll. Questions go to [email protected].

02Eligibility and prohibited industries

To be a Partner you must be a legitimate business or sole proprietor in good standing, at least 18 years old, legally able to enter contracts in your jurisdiction, and able to provide a valid tax form (W-9 for US persons, W-8BEN for non-US individuals, W-8BEN-E for non-US entities).

We do not accept Partners whose primary business is in any of the following categories: adult content, gambling not licensed in the jurisdiction we are sending traffic from, payday lending, multi-level marketing, deceptive lead generation, cryptocurrency primary markets and unregistered ICOs, weapons and ammunition direct-to-consumer, surveillance-as-a-service against private individuals, and anything sanctioned under OFAC, EU, or UK regimes.

You also must not be a competitor selling a directly substitutable product (a unified inbox combining chat, ticket, and phone, with a self-hosted AI offering) under your own brand. Resellers of complementary tooling are welcome.

03Application and approval

Apply at the partner portal. Approval is at our discretion and typically takes five business days. Affiliates with a credible audience, agencies with at least one production case study, and resellers with a defined target market are approved fastest.

We may ask for follow-up materials: traffic snapshots, client references, security policies, sample marketing assets. We may approve you into one track and not another. Approval into the Program does not create a partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship; you remain an independent contractor.

We reserve the right to revoke approval at any time if you provided false information during application or if your business changes such that you would no longer qualify under section 2.

04Commercial terms by track

The default commercial terms for each track are:

• Affiliate. 30 percent of recurring net revenue from every customer you refer, paid for the life of that customer's account, with no cap. Trials that do not convert pay nothing. Refunds and chargebacks are clawed back from future commissions.
• Agency. 25 percent of recurring net revenue on accounts you manage on the customer's behalf, paid for as long as you remain the agency of record. You receive co-managed admin access on those accounts and our Tier 2 support queue.
• Reseller. A margin-based model. You purchase Message at a published reseller list price and sell to your end customer at a price you set. We do not control the resale price. You are the merchant of record and handle customer billing, taxes, and first-line support; we provide back-end support to you.

Custom commercial terms (volume bonuses, upfront market-development funds, enterprise referral overrides) require a separate signed order form and override these defaults only for the deals listed on that form.

05Referral attribution

Attribution is last-click with a 30-day cookie. A signup is credited to a Partner if the prospect clicked an approved Partner link within 30 days before completing signup, and if no later Partner click overrides it.

The cookie is set on the prospect's browser when they hit a Message landing page through your tracked link. We also support server-side attribution via referral codes entered at signup or applied through Stripe Checkout promo codes; those carry the same 30-day window from the moment the code is shared.

Manual attribution claims (where a Partner says a customer is theirs despite no tracked click) are accepted only when the customer confirms in writing and only inside the first 14 days of the signup. We will not retroactively reassign closed-won accounts.

06Payouts and minimums

Commissions accrue daily and lock at the end of each calendar month. Payouts are issued monthly, net 30 from month close, in US dollars. The minimum payout is fifty dollars (USD 50); accruals below the minimum roll forward until cleared.

Supported payout methods are PayPal, Stripe Connect (direct deposit in supported countries), and wire transfer for balances above USD 1,000. Wire fees are deducted from the payout. Currency conversion is at the rate provided by our payout processor on the day of payment.

We may withhold a payout pending fraud review. We may claw back any commission tied to a refund, chargeback, account termination for breach, or a signup later determined to be fraudulent or in violation of these Terms. Clawbacks first reduce future commissions; if no future commissions cover the balance we will invoice the Partner.

07Tax compliance

You are responsible for your own taxes. You must submit a valid IRS Form W-9 (US persons) or W-8BEN / W-8BEN-E (non-US persons and entities) before the first payout. We will not release commissions to a Partner with a missing or invalid tax form.

For US Partners we issue Form 1099-NEC by January 31 of the following year for any Partner paid USD 600 or more in the calendar year. For non-US Partners, you remain responsible for any income tax, VAT, or GST in your jurisdiction; we report and remit any US withholding tax required by the IRS.

If your tax status changes (you move to a different country, change entity type, gain or lose VAT registration), refresh your tax form in the partner portal within 30 days.

08Approved channels and disallowed promotion

Approved channels for affiliate promotion include your own website and blog, your owned email list (with valid CAN-SPAM, CASL, and GDPR consent), your podcast and YouTube channel, your social profiles, sponsored newsletters, and paid search on non-brand keywords.

The following are not allowed and will result in commission forfeiture or termination:

• Bidding on "message," "message.com," "message ai," or any variant or misspelling of our marks in Google Ads, Bing Ads, Apple Search Ads, or any other paid search platform.
• Squatting on or directing traffic from typo-domains or look-alike URLs (messsage.com, mesage.com, message-com.com, etc.).
• Unsolicited email, SMS, or DM blasts. Cold outreach is allowed when sent under your own opted-in list and with clear sender identification, never under a Message-branded sender.
• Incentivized signups (cashback, gift cards, points, sweepstakes entries) without a written carve-out from us.
• Fake reviews, sock-puppet endorsements, paid testimonials presented as organic, AI-generated reviews you did not edit and disclose.
• Coupon-site scraping, browser-extension injection, force-clicking, cookie-stuffing, last-touch hijacking via toolbars.
• Content that misrepresents pricing, features, security posture, or our partnerships, including any claim that we have endorsed a Partner's own product when we have not.

09Use of the Message name, logo, and marks

You may use the Message name and logo in your Partner promotion under a limited, non-exclusive, revocable license, only while these Terms are in force, and only in accordance with the Brand Identity Policy (linked from the legal index at /legal).

Use the approved logo files from the partner portal. Do not modify the marks, change colors, stretch, recolor, add drop shadows, or place the logo on a busy or unsanctioned background. Do not register a domain, social handle, app name, or trademark that contains "message," "messageai," or any confusingly similar string.

When describing your relationship, use "Message Partner," "Message Affiliate," "Message Agency," or "Message Reseller," as applicable. Do not say "official Message reseller" or "authorized by Message" without our written confirmation that you carry that designation. All goodwill from your use of the marks inures to Message.

10Training and certification (agencies)

Agency Partners must complete the Message Foundations course within 60 days of approval and maintain at least one team member with current certification at all times. Foundations covers the inbox, ticketing, phones, AI configuration, and the security posture clients will ask you about.

A second course, Message Advanced, is required for agencies that manage more than ten active clients on the platform. We provide both courses free of charge in the partner portal and re-certify annually. Failure to maintain certification drops the agency commission rate to the affiliate rate until certification is restored.

11Co-marketing and case studies

We may co-author case studies, webinars, social posts, and press releases with Partners. Either party can decline any co-marketing request without reason. Co-marketing assets become joint property of both parties for the term of the partnership and revert to single-party usage rights afterward, with attribution preserved.

You may not issue a press release, blog post, social post, or paid placement that mentions Message in a headline or implies an investment, acquisition, or strategic partnership beyond what these Terms establish, without our prior written approval.

For agencies that want to be listed in our public partner directory, send your one-pager and three client logos to [email protected]. We review listings quarterly.

12Termination

Either party may terminate these Terms for convenience on 30 days' written notice. Either party may terminate immediately for cause if the other party materially breaches and does not cure within 10 business days of notice, becomes insolvent, files for bankruptcy, or engages in conduct that materially harms the other party's reputation.

We may suspend your Partner account at any time, with or without notice, pending investigation of suspected fraud, attribution abuse, AUP violations, security incidents, or claims by third parties. Suspension is not termination; if the investigation clears you, the account is reinstated and any accrued commissions during suspension are released.

On termination you must cease using the Message name and marks, remove all Partner badges, retire your tracked links, and return or destroy any confidential information.

13Effect of termination on commissions

On termination, accrued and unpaid commissions through the termination date are paid in the next regular payout cycle, subject to the payout minimum and any clawbacks in process.

No further commissions accrue after termination, including on customers referred before termination. The Program is a forward-looking revenue share; there is no residual or trailing commission once you exit. The exception is for Partners terminated for our convenience (not for cause), where customers active on the date of termination continue to pay a recurring commission for the lesser of 12 months or until that customer churns.

Termination for cause forfeits all unpaid commissions accrued during the period that the breach was occurring. Where the breach is fraud-related, we may seek recovery of commissions already paid.

14Confidentiality

During the Program you may receive non-public information about pricing, roadmap, customer lists, and our internal operations. You will keep this information confidential, use it only to perform under these Terms, and protect it with at least the same care you use for your own confidential information (and in no event less than reasonable care).

Confidentiality survives termination for three years. Information that is publicly available, was already known to you free of any duty, was independently developed, or was lawfully disclosed by a third party is not confidential.

If you are compelled by law to disclose confidential information, give us prompt notice (where legal) so we can seek a protective order.

15Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. The parties consent to the exclusive personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Harris County, Texas, for any matter that is not subject to arbitration.

Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms that the parties cannot resolve through good-faith negotiation within 30 days will be finally settled by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules. The seat of arbitration is Houston, Texas. The arbitrator may award only direct damages; consequential, incidental, and punitive damages are excluded.

Either party may seek injunctive relief from a court of competent jurisdiction to protect intellectual property or confidential information, without first arbitrating. Class actions and consolidated proceedings are not permitted.