Referral Program Terms

From time to time we run a referral campaign for set dates. During a campaign, members get personal links for legal, medical, senior engineer and regular applicants on the Refer tab. Each campaign's amounts, goal and dates are shown on the Refer tab while it runs.

A campaign referral counts only when the person applies through your campaign link before the submission deadline, confirms you referred them, is new to RustLabs (no earlier application or account), is not you or an account you control, and is approved by a reviewer. Applications waiting for review, needing information, or not approved do not count.

Reviewers set each approved referral's level from the evidence, whichever link was used. Priority means: for legal, finished law school and more than 2 years of professional experience (exactly 2 years is not enough); for medical and healthcare, a healthcare professional with at least a bachelor's degree; for senior engineers, 5 or more years of professional software engineering in Python, TypeScript, JavaScript or Go, living in the United States or Canada, not working at Microsoft, and available 20 or more hours a week. Every other approved referral is regular.

Milestones are paid once per campaign. The goal bonus is decided once, when the campaign is settled after the review period: if the goal is met it applies to every approved referral; if not, it is zero and the other rewards still apply. Applications submitted on time and approved during the review period count. Campaign rewards become payable at settlement and are paid through our payout provider. You do not need an accepted task of your own.

A campaign may have a funded limit. When it is reached, new applications through campaign links stop earning campaign rewards; referrals already submitted keep their place. A campaign referral is also a referral under the program below. If one person could earn under both, only the higher reward is paid: the campaign reward first, and the program below tops it up to its own amount if the person later reaches its earnings threshold.

RustLabs pays $5 for each eligible person you introduce through your tracked Talent Sourcer availability link whom our team accepts into the matching sourcing project and private chat. They must complete the current required agreements before the introduction is approved. No client hire or accepted task is required.

Share the link with graduates in your professional field, ideally around 1–3 years after graduation, who have relevant experience and want to source talent. We review their qualifications and interest. Submitting the form, receiving an account invitation, or joining only one of the project and chat does not earn a reward. Earlier availability respondents, existing Talent Sourcers, self-referrals, duplicate people and accounts excluded by an expert review flag are not eligible. Each person can earn one sourcer introduction reward across the two sourcing projects.

In Talent Sourcer — Business Analyst drive, RustLabs pays $25 for each person you refer who a client hires.

A hire counts only when a reviewer records it. The person must apply through your link, be new to RustLabs and not be you or an account you control. An application, an interview or a submission alone earns nothing. You do not need an accepted task of your own.

In Talent Sourcer — Senior SWE drive (Senior software engineering: AI evaluation), RustLabs pays $25 for each person you refer who a client hires.

A hire counts only when a reviewer records it. The person must apply through your link, be new to RustLabs and not be you or an account you control. An application, an interview or a submission alone earns nothing. You do not need an accepted task of your own.

In US customer service voice referrals, open to members who live in the United States, RustLabs pays $10 for each person you refer whose recorded voice sample our team passes, and $100 more once that person has earned $1,000 from approved, paid work. At most 20 pass rewards are paid per member, and pass rewards stop once the program's funded limit of $5,000 is reached. You do not need an accepted task of your own.

A referral counts only when the person applies through your link for this role, is new to RustLabs and is not you or an account you control. Every referral is checked before anything is paid. Duplicate, fake or self-referred accounts earn nothing, and a member who refers them may receive a warning or lose referral rewards. A referral in this program is not also paid under the standard program below.

In Codebase licence referrals, the reward is 10% of the licence fees actually paid to the codebase owner you introduced. The codebase page has the same terms.

Refer an owner by sending them your link for a codebase request, from the Projects tab or the Refer page, or ask them to enter your referral code when they submit. The owner must submit personally; do not submit someone else's code.

For a valid referral, RustLabs pays you 10% of the licence fees actually paid to that owner for that codebase. For example, a $10,000 fee paid to the owner earns a $1,000 referral reward. It is paid separately and does not reduce the owner's fee.

No reward is earned for an introduction, a submission, a check, a selection or a licence that no customer pays for. If the owner is paid in instalments, the reward accrues only on amounts actually paid, rounded down to whole cents.

The first valid referral recorded with the owner's submission applies to that codebase. No self-referrals, alternate accounts, referrals of your own company's code, fabricated introductions or duplicate rewards for the same codebase. We verify the introduction and both people's identities before paying. Disputed referrals stay pending until reviewed.

This codebase referral reward is separate from the standard expert task referral program: it has no accepted-task requirement and does not also earn a task referral reward. It is paid through RustLabs' normal payout process after verification. Taxes are the recipient's responsibility.

Any contributor who holds a rustLabs Experts account (“Referrer”) may share their referral link and refer others. Referrals are recorded and shown on the Refer tab from the moment the referred contributor applies.

Payment is separate. To receive a referral bonus, a Referrer must have at least 1 approved, paid task of their own on any project at the time the bonus would be paid. A Referrer who has not met that bar keeps the recorded referral and becomes payable on it once they do — nothing is forfeited for referring before your own first task is approved.

To be a “Qualified Referral,” the referred contributor must:

• be new to rustLabs Experts (no prior application or account);
• apply using the Referrer's unique referral link, or name the Referrer in the “Referred by” field on the application;
• be accepted onto the platform; and
• earn a minimum of $1,000 from approved, paid tasks on any project.

A referred contributor who creates an application without using a referral link or naming the Referrer is not a Qualified Referral.

Each Referrer has a unique referral link, available from the Refer tab on the rustLabs Experts platform. Referred contributors may be placed on any project on the platform. Project placement is based on qualifications and project availability, at RustLabs' discretion. RustLabs does not guarantee project placement.

From the Refer tab, a Referrer may ask RustLabs to email people they choose from their LinkedIn connections. By sending an invite, the Referrer confirms that they know each person and asks RustLabs to contact them on the Referrer's behalf. Each person receives one standard email, in the Referrer's name, with the Referrer's referral link. RustLabs writes the email; it cannot be edited.

An email address can be invited only once, by anyone. The first Referrer to invite someone is recorded as having invited them, but a referral is still credited through the referral link or the “Referred by” field when the person applies. RustLabs limits how many invites a Referrer can send per day, honors every opt-out, and may suspend invites or the referral program for a Referrer whose invites draw complaints or are sent to people they don't know.

Bonus structure. The referral bonus is a single fixed payment of $100, paid to the Referrer once the referred contributor has earned $1,000 from approved, paid tasks on any project. It is not a percentage of pay and is paid at most once per Qualified Referral.

Limited project campaigns. RustLabs may also run time-limited, role-specific referral campaigns with a different fixed bonus, qualification rule, deadline, cap or eligible role. Those campaign rules must be stated in the campaign email or linked campaign page. A campaign referral is paid only after RustLabs verifies that the referred person is new, distinct, role-qualified and accepted for the specified work. Campaign bonuses do not change the general referral program unless the campaign says so.

How earnings are counted. A referred contributor's earnings are their approved, paid work on any project: accepted tasks at the project's stated per-task rate, plus work paid by the hour, clip or item on other projects, as shown on their own Payments page. The referral threshold and the Payments page read the same figure.

No cap on referrals. There is no limit to the number of Qualified Referrals a Referrer may earn a bonus for.

Paid, approved work. A task counts toward these threshold only once it has been approved and paid. Work that has been submitted but not yet approved, or that is later reversed or disputed, does not count.

Referral bonuses are reviewed and paid at RustLabs' discretion. RustLabs reserves the right to withhold or delay a referral bonus in cases of suspected fraud, referral gaming, or a violation of these terms. Referral bonuses are subject to applicable taxes and reporting requirements.

Referring yourself, an alternate account you control, or any account that is not a genuinely new, distinct individual is not a Qualified Referral and forfeits any bonus. RustLabs reviews signals including duplicate resumes, LinkedIn or GitHub profiles already on file, matching IP addresses, and lookalike email addresses before paying a referral bonus, and may ask a Referrer or referred contributor to verify their identity or relationship.

The primary safeguard against referral gaming is the qualification bar itself: a referral only earns a bonus once the referred contributor has real, client-approved work on the platform.

Rustlabs LLC, doing business as RustLabs, reserves the right to modify, pause, or terminate the referral program at any time without prior notice. Continued participation in the program after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

Questions about the referral program can be sent to team@rustlabs.ai. See also our Expert & Applicant Privacy Notice.