Webhooks - adding benefits to referrals

Webhooks in Reditus let you automatically grant benefits to referred users the moment a referral event happens: discounts, extended trials, bonus features, credits, or priority onboarding.

That makes your affiliate program double-sided. Affiliates earn commissions, and referred customers receive an immediate, tangible benefit.

How it works

1. Reditus detects a referral event. Examples:

• referral.created: a new user signs up via an affiliate link
• referral.converted: a referred user becomes a paying customer
• referral.upgraded / referral.downgraded: plan changes for a referred customer

1. Reditus sends a webhook to your endpoint.

• HTTP POST request
• JSON payload with referral and customer details
• Signed so you can verify authenticity

1. Your system processes the event.

• Validates the signature
• Applies your benefit logic (discounts, extended trials, features, credits, onboarding flags)
• Responds with HTTP 200 on success

Why use webhooks for referral benefits?

1. Increase conversion rates

Referred users convert better when they see an immediate benefit, such as:

• 20% off the first 3 months
• Extended 30-day trial instead of 14 days

This reduces friction and makes the decision feel like a special, time-bound opportunity.

2. Double-sided incentives

The best affiliate programs reward both sides:

• Affiliate: earns commission
• Referred customer: gets a discount, extended trial, or bonus features

Affiliates can then promote you as offering a real deal, not just another product.

3. Full automation

Without webhooks, you would need to:

• Manually check which signups were referred
• Apply discounts or trial changes in your billing system
• Notify customers about their benefits

Webhooks automate this end to end, so benefits are applied instantly and reliably.

Common referral benefit flows

1. Extended trial period

Use case: standard trial is 14 days; referred users get 30 days.

Flow:

1. referral.created webhook received
2. Your endpoint:

• Looks up or creates the user in your database
• Sets trial_end to 30 days from signup
• Flags the account as referred = true

2. Discount on first payments

Use case: 20% off the first 3 months for referred customers.

Flow:

1. referral.converted webhook received when the user becomes paying
2. Your endpoint:

• Calls your billing provider (e.g., Stripe) API
• Applies a coupon or promotional code to the subscription
• Stores the discount details on the customer record

3. Bonus features or credits

Use case: temporary access to premium features or usage credits.

Flow:

1. referral.created webhook received
2. Your endpoint:

• Grants a feature flag (e.g., premium_features_until = now + 30 days)
• Or adds credits (e.g., credits += 1,000)
• Triggers an email explaining what they received and for how long

4. Priority onboarding

Use case: white-glove onboarding for referred customers.

Flow:

1. referral.created webhook received
2. Your endpoint:

• Creates a task in your CRM or CS tool
• Tags the account as priority_onboarding
• Notifies your customer success team (Slack, email, etc.)

Implementation steps in Reditus

Step 1: Define your benefit rules

Decide what benefit to grant and when. Examples:

• "All referred signups get a 30-day trial instead of 14 days."
• "All referred customers get 20% off their first 3 invoices."
• "Referred users get premium features for 30 days + 500 bonus credits."

Write down three things:

• Trigger event(s): referral.created, referral.converted, etc.
• Conditions: specific plans, countries, affiliates, or campaigns
• Exact benefit: discount %, duration, features, credits

Step 2: Create a webhook endpoint

Implement an HTTPS endpoint on your server, e.g. POST /webhooks/reditus. It needs to do four things.

1. Accept JSON. Set Content-Type: application/json and parse the request body as JSON.
2. Validate the signature. Use the signing secret from Reditus, recompute the signature from the raw payload, and compare it with the header value using a constant-time comparison.
3. Process the event. Inspect event.type (e.g., referral.created) and run the appropriate benefit logic.
4. Respond with HTTP 200 on success. Return non-2xx only if you want Reditus to treat it as a failure.

Step 3: Configure webhooks in Reditus

In your Reditus dashboard:

1. Go to Integrations / Webhooks
2. Add your endpoint URL (e.g. https://yourapp.com/webhooks/reditus)
3. Select the events you need, such as:

• Referral created
• Referral converted
• Referral upgraded / Referral downgraded

1. Copy the signing secret and store it securely (e.g., environment variable)

Step 4: Implement benefit logic in your handler

Use the flows above as your template. Inspect event.type, then apply the benefit rule you defined in Step 1 and respond with HTTP 200.