The full answer
Your side of it is a free year, and it arrives only when three of the people who used your code stay past that free month and Apple actually charges them. A redemption on its own counts nothing, which is deliberate: the reward is for helping someone start, not for collecting sign ups. The code is yours for good and keeps working even if your own subscription later lapses.
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.
The same code is the one a friend uses to ask to support you or to hold your key, from People, then the plus. Giving a friend a free month and adding a person to your circle are two separate acts that use one code.
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the code the moment it is typed and gives one of a small number of plain answers: valid, not recognised, your own code, no longer active, or a code already used on this account.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 starts at 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.
Sharing it, and collecting it
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Open Invites and share the code
The row is in Settings, on the Subscription page: Give a friend 30 days free. The page, titled Invites, is headed Give 30 days of Fold’em, free, with the line Earn a free year when 3 friends stay past their first month underneath. Your eight characters sit on a card under Your invite code, and tapping them copies the code. At the foot are Copy link, Messages, Instagram, WhatsApp and More, then a Share invite button.
Invites, counting to three
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Watch the counter
A card under the code reads how many have stayed out of three, such as 2 of 3 friends, with the line A free year unlocks at three and three short bars that fill as each one pays.
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Redeem the year
At three the page is headed Three friends stayed, with Your next year is on us under it, and its one button reads Redeem for a year. Tapping it opens a sheet, A year on us, that shows your next renewal at $0.00 and your usual price a year after that. Its own Redeem for a year opens Apple's purchase sheet with the free year attached. Once redeemed, the page reads Free year redeemed and names the renewal that costs $0.00, and your code still works.
Invites, earned
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. The free month it gives does not change anyone's block or protection. The same code is how a friend asks to join your circle, and you confirm each ask yourself. 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.
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