ChatGPT offers referral rewards for Free users in India, Indonesia, and Mexico

OpenAI is borrowing a page from the Uber and Dropbox playbook. The company launched a referral program on August 18 that rewards ChatGPT Free users in India, Indonesia, and Mexico with boosted usage limits for bringing in new sign-ups. The campaign runs through September 17, giving participants a 30-day window to rack up rewards. Each qualifying referral doubles a user’s free-tier usage limits for seven days, and up to three referrals can stack, meaning the most enthusiastic recruiters get 21 days of doubled capacity. How the referral program works The mechanics are straightforward but come with guardrails. To qualify as a referrer, you need an active ChatGPT account that’s at least seven days old and you must have hit certain usage thresholds. In other words, you actually have to use the product before you can evangelize it. On the other end, the person you refer needs to sign up for a brand-new verified free account through your referral link and send at least one prompt. Both the referrer and the referred user must be in the same country, so you can’t rope in your cousin in Toronto to pad your stats. Self-referrals are explicitly banned. The rewards carry no cash value. And if y...