How does the invite code work?

One code, eight characters

The Invites page mints your code the first time you open it, and it is the only one you ever get. Minting requires that you have paid at least once; after that the code is permanent and keeps working even if your own subscription lapses later, because the people holding it did nothing wrong. It travels as the code itself or as a link, foldem.app/i/<CODE>, which copies the code for whoever taps it and then sends them to the App Store.

It is not a keyholder invite. Keyholder and witness invites are a different thing entirely, sent from the Circle tab to a named person with a six digit confirmation, and nothing here touches your circle.

Their side: a free first month

Someone who enters your code before they buy is offered a variant of whichever plan they choose whose introductory offer is one free month rather than the usual 7 free days. The plan, its length and its price are otherwise identical, and the second period is charged normally.

The app checks the code the moment it is typed and gives one of a small number of plain answers: valid, not recognised, your own code, no longer active, or a code already used on this account. Only the first code an account applies counts, and re entering that same code is harmless. The check is rate limited to twenty attempts a day per account, so a code cannot be guessed at by brute force.

Your side: a free year, at three

The counter on your Invites page moves on a payment, not on a redemption. When one of your people reaches the end of their free month and Apple charges them for real, the server counts that as one, exactly once and never twice however many times Apple resends the notification. At three, the page turns and the reward is yours to take.

The reward is a signed offer for a free year, redeemed through Apple like any other purchase. Taking it is one tap on Redeem for a year, and it is consumed only when Apple confirms the redemption, so asking twice and buying once cannot burn it. Once redeemed it is redeemed: a fourth or fifth person who stays does not earn a second year.

What this does not do

A redemption alone earns you nothing, and neither does someone who redeems and then cancels inside their free month; the count moves only when real money is charged. The reward cannot be earned twice, and there is no cash alternative to it. Your code carries no information about you beyond the first name you gave, and it tells you nothing about the people who used it: you see a number out of three, never who they are or what they did. It also grants nothing inside the app itself, since nobody's block, term or circle changes because of an invite. The free month it gives is an introductory offer on a normal plan, so it is not a free tier and it does not survive being cancelled inside that month.