Referral program should be more transparent about the Pro subscription requirement

I’d like to share some feedback about the referral program.

I don’t have an issue with referral credits requiring a Pro subscription. If that’s the policy, that’s perfectly fine.

My concern is that this requirement wasn’t made clear when I participated in the referral program. The messaging around earning “$5 per referral” gave me the impression that the credits would be available once they were earned. I only discovered that a paid Pro subscription was required when I attempted to use my referral credits.

I spent time referring users and earned $35 in referral credits, only to find out afterwards that I first needed to pay for a Pro subscription before those credits could be used.

I believe this requirement should be displayed much more prominently during the referral process—not hidden in documentation or terms that many users may never read. A simple notice such as:

“Referral credits can only be used after upgrading to the Pro plan.”

would have set the correct expectation from the beginning.

This isn’t a request to change the policy. It’s simply feedback about improving transparency so users can make informed decisions before investing their time referring others.

Thank you for considering this suggestion.

Appreciate the feedback

The v0 referral program ended recently. If you want to join our inner circle to get early access to features and help shape the future of Vercel, please apply to Vercel Insiders!

Update: the team shipped fix for a bug that was preventing use of referral credits on some accounts. There should not have been any restriction on those and the UI now honors that for everyone.