How we make money: one referral bonus, fully disclosed

The one bonus we earn

Capital on Tap runs a Refer a Friend programme for its existing customers. As a customer, I have a referral link and a promo code. When a business that has never held a Capital on Tap account applies through that link or code, is approved, and makes a first transaction within within 30 days of activating the card, Capital on Tap credits 7,500 points to both the referrer and the new customer. Points can be taken as £75 off the balance instead. It arrives within one month of the first transaction.

The programme is capped. A referrer can receive at most 10 bonus payouts per calendar month and 100 bonuses in total. So the income this site can ever earn is finite, and we track how many bonuses have been paid. The full mechanics, including the eligibility rules and the reasons a bonus sometimes does not arrive, are on the referral code page. The rules themselves are in Capital on Tap’s Refer a Friend programme terms.

Two other points from those terms that apply to us as much as to you: the bonus may be taxable income, which we treat as business income; and it bonus can be lost if payments are not kept up. Neither is a reason to avoid the scheme; both are things a disclosure page should say.

What we do not do

• No paid placements. No card issuer, broker or agency has paid to appear on this site, to be ranked in a particular position, or to have wording changed. None has been asked.
• No affiliate links to other cards. When we compare Capital on Tap with Amex Business, Barclaycard, Revolut Business or the high-street banks, the links to those products are plain links. We earn nothing if you choose them.
• No adverts. No display advertising, no sponsored posts, no “partner content”, no remarketing pixels. The privacy policy lists everything the site loads.
• No data sales. We do not sell, rent or share visitor data with anyone.

What this means for objectivity

A referral bonus is a conflict of interest, and the honest way to handle one is to describe it precisely and then show how it is contained. The containment works like this:

• The amount is fixed. We receive 7,500 points whether the page you read was glowing or critical. There is no tiered payout, no bonus for volume and no commission on your spending. Praising the card harder earns nothing extra.
• We publish the downside. The credit limit page exists because my own limit was lower than expected and has been hard to increase. The review leads with that. A site optimising purely for referrals would leave it out.
• We point people elsewhere and earn nothing for it. Capital on Tap does not accept sole traders. Our sole trader guide sends those readers to cards that do, with no referral attached. The best cards roundup names the situations where another card is the better choice.
• Figures come from the source documents. The editorial policy explains how every figure is tied to a primary source with a checked date, so a reader can verify us without trusting us.

Why we still recommend the card

Because I use it, and because for a limited company with ordinary spending it holds up: no annual fee on the standard card, points on everything, no fee on non-sterling transactions, free cards for staff and subscriptions, and an accounting feed that removes real admin. Those are the reasons it is the card in my wallet, and they would be true without the referral. The caveats, chiefly the credit limit and the fact that sole traders cannot apply, are stated wherever the card is recommended.

What happens when we hit the cap

Because the programme is limited to 100 bonuses in total, there will come a point at which our link no longer pays anyone anything. When that happens we will do one of two things: remove the referral link and code from the site, or replace them with whatever Capital on Tap offers new customers directly at the time. Either way this page and the referral code page will be updated the same day, because a page promising a bonus that cannot be paid would be misleading. If you ever click through and the bonus terms shown on Capital on Tap’s site do not match ours, please tell us.

How to avoid the referral if you prefer

You do not have to use our link. If you would rather apply with no referral attached, go to capitalontap.com directly and apply there without entering a code. You will not receive the new-customer bonus, we will not receive ours, and that is entirely fine. The information on this site is free to use either way. Under the programme terms the bonus is only paid when the application comes through the referral link or code, so there is no way for us to earn from a direct application, and we would not want one.

How we label it

UK advertising rules ask that commercial content be recognisable as such at the point you see it, not just on a separate disclosure page. So every button that leads to Capital on Tap carries the words “Referral link” directly beneath it, along with the destination site. Every in-page apply block repeats the bonus amount and the credit line: credit is subject to status and eligibility, and Capital on Tap does not publish a representative APR. The links themselves are marked as sponsored in the page code so that search engines treat them accordingly.

If you find a button or link to Capital on Tap anywhere on this site without that labelling, that is a mistake. Email the contact address and we will fix it.