Referrals - User Guide

Overview

The Referrals section is where restaurant owners invite other restaurants to Innkeeper and earn free months in return. This is an owner-only feature that allows you to:

  • Create a personal invitation link for each restaurant you want to invite
  • See what happened to every invitation you have sent
  • Earn a free month of the Professional plan when a restaurant you invited subscribes
  • Withdraw an invitation you no longer want anyone to use

Important: The Referrals page is only accessible to users with the Owner role. Administrators and Staff members cannot access this section.

How it works

Four steps, and only the first one is yours to do twice:

  1. Create a link for a restaurant you would like to invite.
  2. Send them the link — by message, email, or however you normally reach them.
  3. They register their restaurant through it. The link brings them to a signup page that names you as the person who invited them.
  4. When they subscribe, your restaurant gets a free month of Professional.

There is nothing to claim and no code to type. The free month is added to your own subscription automatically once the restaurant you invited pays for a plan.

Creating an invitation

  1. Open Referrals from the sidebar
  2. Click Invite a restaurant
  3. Optionally type a label — the restaurant's name, or the person you are speaking to
  4. Click Save

The label is only ever seen by you. It is there so you can tell your invitations apart later; the restaurant you send the link to never sees it. An invitation with no label appears in your list as (unnamed).

Tip: Name each invitation after the restaurant it is for. When three of them are outstanding, "Kava Bar, Lviv" tells you far more than three unnamed rows.

Sending the link

Click anywhere on an invitation's row and the link is copied to your clipboard. A message confirms it. You can also use Copy link in the row's menu (the three dots at the end of the row).

If copying does not work: some browsers only allow copying on secure connections. If the message says the link could not be copied, open Innkeeper over https:// and try again.

Only invitations that are still Created can be copied. Once a restaurant has registered through a link, that link has done its job and cannot be used again.

Reading your list

Each row shows the label you typed, where the invitation got to, and what it earned.

Status What it means
Created The link exists and nobody has used it yet
Registered A restaurant signed up through it. They have not subscribed yet
Subscribed They are paying customers, and you have earned a free month
Expired Nobody used the link within 30 days
Withdrawn You withdrew it, or it was withdrawn for you

Once an invitation reaches Subscribed, the row also shows the free month it earned:

  • 1 — the month has been added to your subscription
  • 1 · Pending — the month has been earned and has not been added yet
  • 1 · Reversed — the month was taken back, because the payment that earned it was refunded

A pending month is unusual. The month is added the moment your invitee subscribes. One stays pending only when there is nothing on your own subscription for it to move — a subscription with no expiry date, for instance. If a month has been pending for more than a few days, contact support.

Withdrawing an invitation

If you sent a link to the wrong person, or simply changed your mind:

  1. Click the three dots at the end of the invitation's row
  2. Click Delete
  3. Confirm

The link stops working immediately. The row stays in your list as Withdrawn, so your history stays complete.

You cannot withdraw an invitation somebody has already used. By then it names a real restaurant and possibly a free month you have already been paid, and removing it would be rewriting what happened rather than cancelling an invitation.

Limits worth knowing

  • Invitations expire after 30 days. A referral that lands four months later is not a referral, and an old link is one you have lost track of. Create a new one — there is no limit on how many you send over time.
  • You can have 10 outstanding invitations at once. Outstanding means created and not yet used, expired or withdrawn. If you reach the limit, withdraw an invitation nobody is going to use.
  • One restaurant, one referral. A restaurant can only ever be somebody's referral once.
  • You cannot invite yourself. A link cannot be used to register a restaurant on the account that created it.

Frequently asked questions

Does the restaurant I invite get anything?
Not at the moment. They get the standard trial, exactly as they would signing up on their own.

What if they sign up without using my link?
Then there is no referral. The link is the only thing that connects their restaurant to yours, so send it before they register rather than after.

When exactly do I get the month?
As soon as they move from their trial onto a paid plan — the month is added to your subscription with their payment, not at the end of any waiting period. Upgrading between paid plans later does not earn a second month, and neither does their renewal each month afterwards.

What happens to my existing subscription?
Nothing is cancelled and your card stays attached. The free month moves your next payment date out — you simply are not billed for that period.

What if I am on a trial myself?
The free month is added to whatever you have. If your trial has not started being billed yet, the month extends it.

Can I see who registered?
Yes — the row names the restaurant once they have signed up.

Troubleshooting

Common issues:

  • The link does not copy: Your connection may not be secure. Open Innkeeper over https:// and try again, or use Copy link from the row's menu.
  • The person I invited says the link has lapsed: It is more than 30 days old, has already been used, or was withdrawn. Create a new one and send it to them.
  • A restaurant registered but the row still says Registered: They have not subscribed yet. The month arrives when they do.
  • I cannot create a new invitation: You have ten outstanding. Withdraw one that nobody is going to use.
  • My free month says Pending: It has been earned and not yet added. Give it a few days, then contact support.

Before you send a link:

  • ✅ Label it, so you recognise it later
  • ✅ Send it to somebody who has not already signed up
  • ✅ Send it soon — the link lapses after 30 days

Last Updated: August 2026