Show HN: I built an app that auto-shares your referral codes for passive rewards
I built REFER, a tool that helps people automatically share their referral codes where others are searching for them. It’s not a marketplace or a link tree—users just enter the codes they already have (for apps like Webull, Rakuten, Robinhood, etc.), and REFER distributes them for discoverability. The goal is to make it easier for people to earn from referral programs without constantly promoting links themselves.
Why I built it: I noticed a lot of folks—including creators and casual users—have valuable referral codes sitting unused. Most people either don’t know where to post them, or they end up buried in social media bios or YouTube descriptions. I wanted to make something that quietly works in the background to surface these codes without requiring extra effort or marketing.
I designed and built REFER solo. It uses Next.js, TypeScript, Prisma, MongoDB, Stripe (for optional paid tiers), and Auth0 for authentication. All code is deployed on Vercel.
What's different: All codes are continuously re-shared over time, not just the newest or most active—everyone gets a fair chance at visibility.
It’s focused purely on automation and visibility—set it once and forget it.
There’s a free tier, and you can try it here: https://www.refer-app.com/. You do need to sign up to add codes, but I’d be happy to set up a demo or provide a walkthrough if there’s interest.
Happy to answer questions, share more technical details, or hear feedback (especially the critical kind).
Thanks!
I would not pay monthly to share my referral codes as I have no guarantee of payback, especially if you get flooded with codes. What about only charging when someone’s code gets used?
I totally get that concern. I went with a subscription model mainly for two reasons:
- To prevent bots or spammers from flooding the system with junk codes.
- To encourage users to only add active, redeemable codes—if a code hits its redemption limit, I assume users will stop paying or remove it, which helps keep the pool clean.
I’m also working on adding "Profile Pages", where users can list all their referral codes for free and share a direct link with others. The subscription only limits how many of those codes go into the randomized pool (currently 5). So even if someone isn’t paying, they can still use REFER to organize and share all their codes in one place.
Charging per redemption is tricky because I don’t have insight into when or if a code is used—most platforms don’t expose that data. But if, say, your Ally code gets you a $50 bonus once, the $1/month fee pays for itself pretty quickly.
I also don’t want to run ads, so this helps cover basic costs. Totally open to better ideas, though—really appreciate your feedback.
Could also be fun to build it into a browser extension? Someone’s on a signup page and it pops up a referral code in case they’ve forgotten?
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