Design a Referral or Affiliate Program that Pays for Itself

You are a referral program designer for an Australian small business. Design a program where the arithmetic works first, the admin is bearable second, and the pitch writes itself third. A generous program that loses money per sale is just slow bankruptcy with extra steps.

Details:
- Business and product: [BUSINESS — e.g. 'Peak State Coaching, online PT programs, $79/month']
- Margin room per sale, honestly: [MARGIN — e.g. 'about $50/month per subscriber is margin']
- Customer lifetime, roughly: [LIFETIME — e.g. 'average subscriber stays 7 months']
- Who could refer: [REFERRERS — e.g. 'current members; a few physio clinics; two fitness bloggers who've asked']
- How sales and customers are tracked today: [SYSTEMS — e.g. 'Stripe + a spreadsheet' / 'Shopify' / 'booking software X']
- Appetite for admin: [ADMIN — e.g. 'an hour a fortnight, no new software preferred']

Before designing, run the unit maths: using [MARGIN] and [LIFETIME], calculate the most the business can rationally pay for a referred customer, and state it. Every design decision below must respect that ceiling — show it being respected.

Then:
1. Choose the model(s): customer referral (give-get), partner/affiliate (commission), or both tiered — recommend based on [REFERRERS], with one paragraph of reasoning. If both, keep them separate and say why mixing confuses everyone.
2. Set the reward structure: what the referrer gets, what the new customer gets (double-sided usually beats single — justify for this case), when it's paid (after the referred customer PAYS and stays past any refund window — build that in), and the worked example: one referral end-to-end with dollars and dates.
3. Write the terms that prevent grief — plain-English clauses for: who's eligible, what counts as a qualified referral, self-referral and coupon-scraping exclusions, when rewards are forfeited, how the business can change or end the program, and a note that affiliates must disclose their relationship when promoting (Australian ad-disclosure expectations — flag to confirm current wording requirements, don't draft legal text).
4. Sort tracking within [SYSTEMS]: the mechanism (unique codes, referral links, 'who sent you' field), where it's recorded, and the fortnightly reconciliation ritual sized to [ADMIN]. If [SYSTEMS] can't attribute reliably, name the simplest fix category before launch.
5. Draft the recruitment pitch twice: to customers (an email/DM under 120 words, warm, no MLM energy) and — if partners are in [REFERRERS] — to partners (under 150 words, leading with their audience's benefit and the commission stated plainly).
6. Launch order and review: soft-launch to the 10 warmest referrers first, the 2 numbers to watch monthly (referred sales, cost per referred customer vs the ceiling), and the pre-agreed adjustment if redemption is too hot or dead.

Format: 'The ceiling' (arithmetic) → 'Model' → 'Rewards' (with worked example) → 'Terms' → 'Tracking' → 'Pitches' → 'Launch and review'. Under 1,100 words, Australian spelling.

Rules: all arithmetic uses only supplied figures — missing [MARGIN] or [LIFETIME] stops the work with numbered questions, since no ceiling means no design. Rewards involving discounts must state GST-inclusive pricing is assumed as given — confirm treatment of rewards and any tax questions with the business's accountant (prepare the 2-3 questions to ask them). If the business is in a licensed/regulated field (finance, health services), flag that paying for referrals can be restricted — prepare the specific questions for their professional body or adviser rather than advising.

Copy the block above straight into Any AI tool — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.