How paid links work

What a paid link is

Many stores run affiliate programs: they pay a small share of a sale to the app or website that sent them the customer. A paid link is how the store knows that customer came from Homeling. Often the store works with an affiliate network, a company that keeps track of which app or website sent which visit.

If you buy something soon after clicking, usually within a few days to a month depending on the store, the store pays Homeling its share. The price you pay is the same as anyone else's.

What happens when you click

1. Homeling makes the link right then. Nothing is made, loaded or opened before you click.
2. It opens in your own web browser, not inside Homeling.
3. The store, or its affiliate network, notes that the visit came from Homeling. It may set a cookie in your browser to remember that while you shop.
4. If you buy, the store credits Homeling. Nothing changes for you at checkout.

What the store learns

From Homeling, the store learns only that the visit came from Homeling, sometimes with a random reference number for that click. The number isn't your name, your account or anything from your conversation, and Homeling makes a new one for every click.

Once you're on the store's website, it sees what any website sees when you visit, and its own privacy policy applies. Homeling keeps its record of your paid-link clicks on your Mac. The privacy policy has the details.

What Homeling earns, and why

Each store sets its own commission. It's a small share of what you spend, usually a few percent. If you return something, the store usually takes the commission back.

Homeling does a lot of work on your Mac for you every day, and commissions are how we plan to pay for it, so the app itself can be free. That only works if you can trust what it suggests, which is why a paid link never changes the order, and why every one is labelled.

Your controls

• Click or don't. Homeling's suggestions are the same either way, and nothing opens unless you click.
• Every paid link is labelled “Paid link”, so you always know which is which.
• Turn them off. Paid links aren't live yet. Before they are, Settings will have a switch that turns them off; Homeling then recommends exactly the same things, just without paid links.
• Cookies are up to you. You can clear or block them in your browser's settings at any time.

Which stores

We're applying to affiliate programs now. Until one is active, Homeling shows no paid links. Once they are, the affiliate disclosure will name the programs and stores we work with.

How Homeling recommends things explains how it picks, and why paid links never come first.