$18 Hobby Receipt, $12 in Referral Rewards

01 / The $18 receipt before any referral rewards

A referral program can reduce the economic cost of a hobby. It cannot make the receipt disappear by enthusiasm alone. The useful question is simple: how much must invited users actually pay to offset your spending?

Start with a small monthly budget for someone building AI-assisted electronics projects. These are hypothetical expenses, not quoted CheapRelay token prices or a prediction of what your projects will cost.

• ■ AI API usage, excluding cache charges: $9.60.
• ■ Cache reads and writes: $1.40.
• ■ Small electronic components: $7.00.
• ■ Total hobby spending: $18.00.

The API subtotal is $11.00. Cache charges are included once, not added again after the subtotal. Keeping that distinction visible prevents an easy bookkeeping mistake: comparing referral rewards with an incomplete usage bill.

02 / A 20% reward turns $60 of payments into $12

CheapRelay offers a referral reward equal to 20% of what invited users pay. For this example, assume three invited users make payments that qualify for the reward:

• ■ Invited user A pays $15.00; reward: $3.00.
• ■ Invited user B pays $20.00; reward: $4.00.
• ■ Invited user C pays $25.00; reward: $5.00.
• ■ Total invited-user payments: $60.00.
• ■ Total referral reward: $12.00.

The calculation is $60.00 × 0.20 = $12.00. Against the $18.00 hobby receipt, that leaves a $6.00 economic cost. The reward offsets two-thirds of the budget. It does not mean the API usage or components were discounted by two-thirds at checkout.

This example treats the reward as usable economic value. Before counting it toward purchases outside the service, check the actual reward terms, availability, and redemption method. An account balance and money available for components are not interchangeable.

03 / Covering the full $18 requires $90 in payments

Work backward from the expense rather than guessing how many invitations will be enough. The formula is target offset ÷ 0.20 = required invited-user payments.

• ■ Offset $5.00: invited users must pay $25.00.
• ■ Offset the $11.00 API subtotal: invited users must pay $55.00.
• ■ Offset $12.00: invited users must pay $60.00.
• ■ Offset the entire $18.00 receipt: invited users must pay $90.00.

Invitation count alone cannot answer the budget question. Ten people who pay nothing generate no reward under this calculation. One person paying $60.00 produces the same $12.00 reward as three people whose payments total $60.00. Budget against qualifying payments, not clicks, registrations, or friendly promises.

04 / The same receipt still costs $18 in a quiet month

Keep a zero-reward version of the budget. With no qualifying payments, the hobby costs $18.00. At $30.00 of invited-user payments, the reward is $6.00 and the remaining cost is $12.00. At $60.00, the remaining cost falls to $6.00.

Those scenarios are arithmetic, not a forecast of repeat payments. Do not assume last month's referrals will fund next month's experiments. Record expenses and available rewards separately, especially when their timing differs.

05 / Thirty minutes of promotion changes the calculation

Suppose explaining the service and helping friends takes 30 minutes. If you personally value that time at $12.00 an hour, the effort has a $6.00 opportunity cost. Your $12.00 reward still exists, but its net benefit after that time allowance is $6.00. This is an optional personal valuation, not another cash charge.

CheapRelay's pay-as-you-go billing, with no monthly fee or subscription, makes usage spending a useful line to track. Billing follows real tokens, including cache reads and writes. If that fits your projects, sign up for CheapRelay and measure your own receipt before expecting referrals to cover it.

The disciplined budget remains $18.00 until rewards are actually available. Treat referrals as an offset earned afterward, not permission to spend beforehand.