A hardware supplier in Newcastle says yes on the phone. You send the customer, the customer buys, and six weeks later nothing has landed in your account. Nine times out of ten the cause is not bad faith. It is that the referral agreement in Australia you signed never fixed the moment a fee becomes owed, never said who owns the attribution data, and never said what happens if the customer cancels in month four. Introducing business is one of the few activities where the paperwork does more work than the pitch. And there is a second layer that catches Australians specifically: in credit, in financial products and in several State-licensed trades, what you are allowed to say when you make the introduction is regulated, and your contract has to stay inside that line or you carry the risk personally. While a referral pipeline takes months to produce its first payment, apps like I am Beezy let you earn something in the meantime — a reported 5 to 15 euros a day, one viewed item at a time, from the phone you already carry.
What are you actually signing when you sign a referral agreement?
Three different commercial relationships get called "referral" in Australia, and they carry different obligations. Getting the category right before you argue about percentages saves you the whole negotiation.
Introducer, affiliate and reseller are not the same contract
An introducer passes on a name and steps back. An affiliate publishes a link and is paid on a tracked action. A reseller takes the customer relationship, and often the liability with it. The further you move from pure introduction towards advice or sale, the more likely it is that a licence or registration sits between you and the fee. Read the definitions clause first: many Australian templates describe an introducer in the title and then define duties that look like a reseller in clause 3.
What the fee is actually paying for
A referral fee compensates three separate things: the contact, the qualification work you did before passing it on, and the ongoing relationship if the contract expects you to keep the client warm. If the agreement only pays on the first invoice but expects you to handle questions for twelve months, you have priced one thing and agreed to three. Say so during negotiation, not afterwards.
The clauses that decide whether you get paid
Six clauses do almost all of the work. Every dispute this contract type produces traces back to one of them being vague, and vagueness always resolves in favour of the party holding the money.
The qualifying event, and the attribution window
A qualifying event is the thing that turns your introduction into a debt. "Introduction accepted", "first invoice paid" and "contract completed" are three different dates, and in a trade with long lead times they can sit a year apart. The attribution window is how long your name stays attached to that customer. A thirty-day window on a product with a six-month buying cycle is a fee you will almost never collect.
Clawback, and what triggers it
Clawback returns money you have already been paid. It is legitimate when a customer refunds or a fraudulent order is reversed. It is not legitimate when it is written broadly enough to cover the partner's own delivery failures. Ask for clawback to be limited to refund, chargeback and proven fraud, with a stated cut-off after which the fee is final.
Payment date, records and the right to check them
"Paid monthly" is not a payment term. A payment term names a cut-off date, a payment date and a method. Since Australia has no IBAN, the clause should say the fee is paid to a nominated BSB and account number, or to a PayID, and that bank fees are not deducted from your side. Add a right to see the underlying report: without it you are agreeing to be paid an amount you cannot verify.
| Clause | What a weak version says | What to ask for instead |
|---|---|---|
| Qualifying event | "On successful referral" | The named event and the date it is measured from |
| Attribution window | Silent, or 30 days | A window matched to the real buying cycle |
| Clawback | "At our discretion" | Refund, chargeback and proven fraud only, with a cut-off |
| Payment | "Monthly in arrears" | Cut-off date, payment date, BSB and account or PayID |
| Records | Not mentioned | A monthly statement you can check against your own log |
| Term and survival | Ends on termination | Fees earned before termination survive it |
Which Australian rules limit what you are allowed to say?
This is the part that has no equivalent in a generic affiliate template downloaded from overseas, and it is the part that decides whether your arrangement is legal at all.
Credit and financial products: ASIC's referral exemption
If your introduction points someone towards a specific loan from a specific lender, you are close to an activity that requires an Australian credit licence. ASIC publishes the boundary in Information Sheet 101, consulted on 12 August 2026: there is a referral exemption, which ASIC itself calls "a narrow exemption from licensing requirements for doing referrals". Its wording is that you may be able to rely on it if you only inform the consumer that a particular credit licensee or their credit representative is able to provide particular credit activities, how to contact them, and you disclose any benefit or commission you may receive. ASIC directs readers to Regulatory Guide 203, Do I need a credit licence?, for worked examples. The practical consequence is that your contract must cap what you say, not just what you are paid. A clause that obliges you to "explain the product benefits" is asking you to step outside the exemption.
Disclosure: the ACCC treats a hidden commercial relationship as misleading
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is explicit on its own guidance for businesses, consulted on 12 August 2026, that reviews and endorsements can mislead consumers when they are written by family, employees, or people paid in some way by the business, without stating the personal connection or commercial relationship. The ACCC also states that Australian Consumer Law obligations apply to advertising on social media, including posts a business pays for and posts it offers incentives to influencers to make. Your agreement should say who is responsible for the disclosure wording, and it should give you the right to disclose even if the partner would prefer you did not.
State and Territory licensing sits outside the contract
A large part of occupational licensing in Australia is set by each State and Territory rather than by Canberra. Before you accept a fee for introducing a buyer to an agency, a dealer or a trade, check the rules published by the fair trading or consumer affairs body of your own jurisdiction. A contract signed in Sydney does not license you in Perth.
Funding the slow first quarter with I am Beezy
Referral income is back-loaded by design. The introductions you make in August are paid on the partner's terms, after their qualifying event, after their payment cut-off — which in practice often means October or later. The gap is where most people give up.
What it does and does not replace
With I am Beezy you view content — videos, articles, ads — and each view generates earnings, paid out to the payment method you already use. Users report a range of 5 to 15 euros a day; at the European Central Bank reference rate of 1 EUR = 1.6385 AUD dated 5 August 2026, that is about A$8 to A$25, and since the pair floats you should redo the conversion on the day. That is not a salary and it is not a substitute for a signed referral programme. It is the thing that keeps the phone bill paid while your first qualifying events mature.
Using it without losing focus on the pipeline
Set a fixed slot — the commute, the queue, the half hour after dinner — and leave the rest of the day for the work that compounds. Referral income scales when you make more introductions; view-based income does not scale the same way. Treat one as a bridge and the other as the business.
Tax, GST and super: the three lines that shrink the fee
A referral fee is business income. Three separate rules decide what is left, and only one of them is inside your contract.
GST is a single rate, and there is only one
Australia has one indirect tax, the Goods and Services Tax, and one rate. The legislation is unambiguous: the amount of GST on a taxable supply is 10% of the value of the taxable supply, under section 9-70 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999, in the compilation in force since 1 January 2026. There is no reduced rate and no intermediate rate. What your contract must say is whether the fee quoted is inclusive or exclusive of GST — a 10% argument at invoice time is entirely avoidable in one sentence. Whether you must register for GST at all depends on your turnover, and that threshold should be checked directly with the Australian Taxation Office before you invoice.
The superannuation clause nobody reads
Australia's compulsory employer retirement contribution is set by statute at 12% of earnings, under section 17A(2) of the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992, as compiled and in force from 1 July 2026. The trap is that this obligation can reach contractors, not only employees, where the contract is principally for the person's labour. If your referral agreement is written so that you are paid for your time and effort rather than for a result, the paying party may owe superannuation on top — and some will try to deduct it from your fee instead. Get the agreement drafted around the outcome, and get the treatment confirmed with the ATO rather than with the partner's account manager.
Invoicing and the ABN question
Australian businesses expect a tax invoice quoting an Australian Business Number. If you do not have one, the paying party may be required to withhold from your payment. This is administrative rather than negotiable, and it is the single most common reason a first referral fee arrives smaller than expected.
| Cost or rule | What applies | Who sets it | Where to verify |
|---|---|---|---|
| GST | 10%, single rate, no reduced rate | Commonwealth | GST Act 1999, s 9-70 |
| Superannuation guarantee | 12% of earnings, can reach labour contracts | Commonwealth | SG (Administration) Act 1992, s 17A(2) |
| Income tax on the fee | Depends on your total income | Commonwealth | Australian Taxation Office |
| Credit referral limits | Narrow exemption, disclosure required | Commonwealth | ASIC, Information Sheet 101 and RG 203 |
| Occupational licensing | Varies by jurisdiction | State or Territory | Your State fair trading body |
The checklist to run before you sign
Print the agreement and mark six things. One: the named qualifying event and the date it is measured from. Two: the attribution window, compared against how long your customers actually take to buy. Three: clawback, limited and time-capped. Four: the payment cut-off, the payment date and the account details. Five: the disclosure clause, and whether it lets you say plainly that you are paid. Six: the words that describe what you must say to the prospect, checked against ASIC's referral exemption if any part of the deal touches credit or financial products. If four of the six are missing, you do not have a referral agreement, you have an expression of goodwill. Fix them in writing before the first introduction, because after it you have already delivered your side. And while the first fees work their way through someone else's payment run, a few views a day on I am Beezy keep something coming in from the same phone you are making the introductions with.
