Affiliate Terms of Service

1. Overview & Acceptance

The Branding5 affiliate program is operated by HeyQQ GmbH ("we", "us", "our"). By applying for or participating in the program, you ("affiliate", "you") agree to these Affiliate Terms of Service, our general Terms of Service, and our Privacy Policy, each of which is incorporated by reference.

In the event of a conflict between these Affiliate Terms and our general Terms of Service in relation to the affiliate program, these Affiliate Terms will prevail to the extent of the conflict.

If you do not agree to these terms, do not apply for, access, or use the affiliate program.

2. Eligibility

To participate in the affiliate program, you must:

• Be at least 18 years old or the age of majority in your jurisdiction;
• Have full legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement;
• Not be a current employee, contractor, board member, or immediate family member of an employee of HeyQQ GmbH or any of its affiliates;
• Not reside in, or be a citizen of, a country or jurisdiction subject to comprehensive sanctions or trade restrictions that prohibit you from receiving payments from us;
• Be solely responsible for declaring and paying any taxes, levies, or social contributions on commissions you earn;
• Comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including consumer-protection, advertising, marketing, data-protection, and anti-spam rules.

We may accept or reject any affiliate application, and suspend or terminate any affiliate account, at our sole discretion.

3. Enrollment & Affiliate Account

Our affiliate program is currently hosted on Tolt (tolt.io). To enroll, you must register an account there, complete the required information, and accept Tolt's own terms in addition to these Affiliate Terms. Your use of Tolt is governed by Tolt's terms and privacy policy, and we are not responsible for their platform.

You agree to provide accurate, complete, and current information during sign-up and to keep your contact, payout, and tax details up to date. You must not create more than one affiliate account, share your account or referral link with others to circumvent these terms, or transfer your account without our prior written consent.

You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your affiliate account, including referrals generated by anyone you allow to use it. You must keep your credentials confidential and notify us promptly of any suspected unauthorized use.

4. Commission Structure

You earn a commission on qualifying purchases of paid Branding5 plans that are correctly attributed to your affiliate account, at the rate published in the affiliate dashboard at the time of the sale. Current commission rates and any plan-specific terms are shown in your dashboard and on our affiliate landing page.

How commissions are calculated.

Commissions are calculated on the net, pre-tax price actually received and retained by us. Discounts, credits, refunds, payment-processing fees, taxes, and similar deductions reduce the commissionable amount.

No commission is payable on:

• Taxes (including VAT, GST, and sales tax), shipping, or processing fees;
• Orders that are refunded, cancelled, reversed, or otherwise not paid in full;
• Orders subject to chargebacks, disputes, or payment fraud;
• Orders we reasonably believe to be fraudulent, abusive, or generated in violation of these terms;
• Self-referrals or purchases made by you, your household, or any account you control;
• Internal accounts, test accounts, free trials, or sandbox transactions;
• Lifetime deals, AppSumo or similar marketplace sales, beta programs, or other transactions we designate as non-commissionable in advance;
• Purchases paid entirely with credits, vouchers, or non-cash incentives.

We may reverse, withhold, or claw back commissions at any time if we determine they were generated in violation of these terms, or if the underlying order is refunded, charged back, cancelled, or otherwise reversed.

5. Attribution, Tracking & Cookies

Referrals are tracked through the affiliate platform using cookies and similar technologies. Attribution, including the cookie window and any last-click rules, follows the configuration shown in your affiliate dashboard at the time of the click and may change from time to time.

A referral only qualifies for commission if the customer reaches our site through your affiliate link, the tracking cookie is set successfully, and the customer completes a qualifying purchase within the cookie window. Customers who clear cookies, use private browsing, block tracking, or switch devices may not be attributed to you, and we have no obligation to credit such referrals.

In limited cases, we may credit a referral to an affiliate even if it was not tracked automatically. If you believe a referral should have been attributed to you, please contact us at hello@branding5.com and we will do our best to investigate. We are under no obligation to grant manual attribution and our determination is final.

6. Payouts

Payouts are processed through the affiliate platform (currently Tolt) using the payment method you set up there, such as PayPal or Wise. We do not pay commissions outside of the affiliate platform.

A minimum balance of USD 10.00 is required before a payout is processed. Balances below the minimum will roll over to the next payout period.

Once you have met the minimum balance, payouts are processed at the beginning of each month, subject to a holding period to account for refunds, chargebacks, and fraud reviews.

Commissions are calculated and paid in US dollars. You are responsible for any currency-conversion fees, transfer fees, or platform fees charged by your payout provider.

You are solely responsible for reporting and paying all taxes, levies, social contributions, and other governmental charges arising from your commissions. We may withhold or deduct amounts from your payouts as required by applicable law.

If your affiliate account remains inactive for an extended period, has invalid payout details, or cannot be paid due to your action or inaction, we may withhold or forfeit unpaid commissions to the extent permitted by law.

If we terminate your affiliate account for breach of these terms, any unpaid commissions, including pending and held balances, will be forfeited and will not be owed or paid.

7. Affiliate Conduct

A few clear rules keep the program fair for every affiliate. You agree not to engage in any of the following:

• Self-referrals, such as signing up for or purchasing through your own affiliate link, or doing so via accounts you own or control;
• Coordinating with friends, family, employees, or third parties to generate referrals that are not the result of a genuine, independent purchasing decision;
• Promoting the program on coupon, voucher, deal, or discount-code websites, browser extensions, or aggregators, except with our prior written approval;
• Operating or promoting through cashback, loyalty, points, or rebate sites without our prior written approval;
• Offering rebates, kickbacks, gifts, or other incentives in exchange for clicking your affiliate link or making a purchase;
• Cookie stuffing, forced clicks, hidden iframes, popunders, auto-redirects, or any other technique that sets affiliate cookies without the user's knowledge and intent;
• Manipulating, exploiting, reverse-engineering, or attempting to deceive the tracking, reporting, or payout systems;
• Sending unsolicited email, SMS, DMs, comments, or any other form of spam, or violating any applicable anti-spam law such as CAN-SPAM, CASL, or the EU ePrivacy Directive;
• Distributing your affiliate link via malware, adware, toolbars, browser hijackers, or any software that interferes with users' devices or other affiliates' tracking;
• Making false, deceptive, or unverifiable claims about our product, pricing, results, security, or company;
• Registering or using domain names, subdomains, social-media handles, app names, or usernames that contain "Branding5" or confusingly similar variants, misspellings, or transliterations.

You will reasonably cooperate with our reviews of suspicious activity, including providing traffic sources, ad assets, screenshots, and any other information we reasonably request.

8. Paid Advertising & Search Engine Marketing

Prohibited activities. Affiliates may not promote Branding5 using any paid advertising channels, including but not limited to search engine ads (such as Google Ads, Bing Ads, and DuckDuckGo Ads), display advertising networks, paid social media ads (such as Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube), native advertising, sponsored content placements, paid influencer campaigns that direct-link, retargeting, or remarketing campaigns.

Brand keyword restrictions. Affiliates may not bid on, target, or otherwise use "Branding5", "Branding 5", "Branding-5", our domain names (including branding5.com), any variations, misspellings, or transliterations of the foregoing, or any branded keyword combined with other terms such as "Branding5 pricing", "Branding5 review", "Branding5 alternative", "Branding5 coupon", or "Branding5 discount". This restriction applies to keywords, negative-match strategies designed to circumvent it, ad copy, display URLs, and landing-page URLs in both paid and organic channels.

Direct linking prohibited. Affiliates may not direct-link from any ad to Branding5 using an affiliate tracking link, redirect, or short URL. All traffic must originate from owned and operated properties, such as websites, blogs, newsletters, podcasts, or videos, that provide original content and genuine value to the user.

Misrepresentation. Affiliates may not represent themselves as Branding5 or imply any official partnership beyond the affiliate relationship. You may not use "official", "authorized", "verified", or similar language in ads, domains, or landing pages, or create ads or pages that could confuse users into thinking they are interacting directly with Branding5.

Approval. If there is any doubt about whether a specific campaign, channel, or tactic is allowed, ask us for written approval at hello@branding5.com before running it. Verbal or implied approvals are not binding.

Monitoring and enforcement. Branding5 reserves the right to monitor affiliate traffic sources, ad creatives, search results, and on-platform reporting at its sole discretion. Violations may result in immediate suspension or termination of the affiliate account, reversal or withholding of commissions generated in violation of these terms, and removal from the affiliate program without prior notice.

9. Use of Brand Assets

Subject to your compliance with these terms, HeyQQ GmbH grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Branding5 name, logo, screenshots, and other brand assets that we expressly make available to affiliates, solely for the purpose of promoting Branding5 in line with these terms.

• You may not modify, distort, recolor, or animate our logo or other brand assets, or combine them with your own marks in a way that suggests a joint product or endorsement;
• You may not register or attempt to register any trademark, domain name, social-media handle, or app name that contains or is confusingly similar to our marks;
• When using our marks, you must do so in a manner that clearly identifies them as ours and complies with any brand guidelines we publish;
• You may not use our brand assets to imply endorsement of any product, service, person, or political or religious view;
• All rights granted under this section terminate automatically when your participation in the affiliate program ends, and you must promptly remove our brand assets from your properties.

10. Disclosure & Legal Compliance

You are responsible for ensuring that your promotional activities comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and platform policies, including:

• Clearly and conspicuously disclosing your affiliate relationship in line with FTC guidelines (e.g., "affiliate link", "#ad", "sponsored") in every channel where you promote us;
• Complying with EU and national consumer-protection rules, including the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and any local rules on advertising and influencer marketing;
• Complying with the GDPR, UK GDPR, and other data-protection laws when collecting, storing, or processing personal data of your audience, including obtaining valid consent where required and providing a privacy notice;
• Complying with anti-spam laws such as CAN-SPAM, CASL, and the EU ePrivacy Directive when sending email, SMS, or push notifications;
• Not presenting our product as medical, legal, financial, or tax advice, and not making promises of specific outcomes that we do not publicly make;
• Not guaranteeing earnings, business success, or specific results from using Branding5, and not misrepresenting our pricing, features, security, or roadmap;
• Not abusing or circumventing the AI-service usage rules in our general Terms of Service when demonstrating or recording Branding5 for promotional purposes.

11. Confidentiality

Non-public information you receive in connection with the affiliate program (including custom commission terms, performance data, dashboards, unreleased features, internal benchmarks, and any information marked or reasonably understood to be confidential) is our confidential information.

You agree not to disclose, publish, or use such information for any purpose other than your participation in the affiliate program, and to protect it with at least the same care you use to protect your own confidential information. This obligation survives termination of your account.

12. Independent Contractor; No Agency

You and HeyQQ GmbH are independent contractors. Nothing in these terms creates any partnership, joint venture, employment, agency, franchise, or fiduciary relationship. You have no authority to make any statement, representation, commitment, or warranty on our behalf, or to bind us in any way.

13. Modifications to the Program

We may modify these Affiliate Terms, the commission structure, payout thresholds, attribution rules, eligible plans, promotional restrictions, or any other aspect of the affiliate program at any time, in our sole discretion.

Material changes will take effect when we post the updated terms on this page (or, where required by law, after notice to you). Your continued participation in the program after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree, you must stop using your affiliate link and close your account.

14. Termination

Either party may terminate your participation in the affiliate program at any time, with or without cause, by giving notice through the affiliate dashboard or by email.

We may suspend or terminate your account immediately and without prior notice if we believe, in our sole discretion, that you have breached these terms, engaged in fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful activity, or otherwise harmed our brand, customers, or other affiliates.

Upon termination, your right to use our brand assets and affiliate links ends immediately. Commissions generated in violation of these terms, and any unpaid commissions in an account terminated for cause, are forfeited and will not be owed or paid. Commissions earned in good-faith compliance with these terms before non-cause termination will be paid at the next scheduled payout, subject to the minimum payout threshold and any applicable holds.

The sections on commission reversal, payouts, confidentiality, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, governing law, and any other provisions that by their nature should survive, will survive termination.

15. Disclaimers & Limitation of Liability

The affiliate program is provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by law, HeyQQ GmbH disclaims all warranties, express or implied, regarding the affiliate program, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not guarantee any minimum traffic, clicks, conversions, commissions, or earnings, and we do not warrant that the affiliate platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure. The disclaimers, limitations of liability, and indemnification provisions in our general Terms of Service apply to your participation in the affiliate program.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or relating to the affiliate program will not exceed the total commissions paid or payable to you in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including statutory consumer rights.

16. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Affiliate Terms are governed by the laws of Austria, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

If you are a consumer resident in the European Union, you also benefit from the mandatory protections of the consumer-protection law of your country of residence, and nothing in these terms limits those rights.

The courts having jurisdiction at our registered seat will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Affiliate Terms, except where mandatory consumer-protection laws provide otherwise. The European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution platform is available at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

17. Contact

If you have any questions, objections, or requests regarding these Affiliate Terms of Service or the affiliate program, please contact us at hello@branding5.com.