Affiliate Terms

These Affiliate Terms ("Terms") govern participation in the affiliate program (the "Program") operated by Growvit GmbH, a limited liability company incorporated in Germany ("Growvit", "Hoofine", "we", "our"), on the Hoofine platform. By submitting an affiliate application or accepting these Terms in your dashboard, you agree to them.

The Program is open to approved applicants only. We review every application by hand and may approve, decline, or revoke participation at our discretion. You must be at least 18 years old, legally capable of entering a binding contract, and not previously banned from Hoofine.

Affiliates are independent contractors. Nothing in these Terms creates an employment, agency, partnership, or joint-venture relationship. You may not make commitments on Hoofine's behalf.

You earn a commission calculated as a percentage of HOOFINE'S PLATFORM REVENUE generated by users you referred — that is, our platform fees on completed transactions and the price of paid services those users purchase from us (such as featured placements, verification badge subscriptions and application fees, auction listing fees, and breeding leads). The commission is NEVER a share of a horse's sale price, stud fee, or any amount paid between buyers and sellers.

The applicable commission percentage is shown in your affiliate dashboard. Unless we have agreed an individual rate with you in writing, the program default applies. We may change the default rate and other program parameters (earning window, clearing hold, payout minimum) prospectively with 30 days' notice by email; changes never affect commissions already accrued.

A user counts as your referral when they create their Hoofine account after following your referral link or entering your referral code, as recorded by our attribution system (a 30-day attribution cookie; the account-creation record is decisive). Commissions accrue on a referred user's qualifying revenue for the earning window shown in your dashboard, measured from that user's sign-up date — including revenue events that occur before your application was approved only if they occur while your affiliate account is active.

Self-referral is prohibited: you may not earn commission on your own accounts, purchases, or transactions, including accounts you control directly or indirectly. Creating additional accounts to route your own activity through your referral link is fraud and results in immediate termination and forfeiture of unpaid commissions.

You may not: (a) bid on Hoofine's brand terms or misspellings in paid search, or use the Hoofine name in ad display URLs; (b) send unsolicited bulk messages (spam) containing your link; (c) use cookie-stuffing, forced clicks, iframes, or other techniques that attribute users who did not genuinely follow your link; (d) make false or misleading claims about Hoofine, its fees, or its services; (e) offer unauthorized rebates, cash-backs, or other inducements funded from your commission; or (f) promote Hoofine on content that is unlawful, hateful, or harmful to animal welfare.

You must clearly disclose your material connection to Hoofine wherever you promote your link, as required by the laws that apply to your audience — including the FTC Endorsement Guides (United States), §5a UWG and the Telemediengesetz labelling rules (Germany), and equivalent rules elsewhere. A clear "ad", "advertisement", "Werbung", or "I earn a commission if you join through this link" near the link satisfies this.

You are solely responsible for compliance with the advertising, consumer-protection, and data-protection laws applicable to your channels.

Accrued commissions enter a clearing hold (shown in your dashboard) before they become payable. If the underlying payment is refunded, charged back, or reversed — in whole or in part — the related commission is reversed in full. If a reversal lands after the commission was already paid out, the amount is deducted from your next payout(s) as a negative adjustment.

Payable balances are paid monthly, on or around the first of the month, in USD via Stripe Connect to the payout account you connect from your dashboard. Balances below the payout minimum (shown in your dashboard) roll over to the next month. Where your commission basis arises in another currency, we convert it to USD at our prevailing exchange rate at accrual time.

Payout availability depends on Stripe Connect support in your country. If Stripe cannot pay your country, commissions continue to accrue and will be paid once a supported payout method is available to you. We may withhold or offset amounts where required by law or where we reasonably suspect fraud, pending investigation.

Commission payments are consideration for marketing services you provide to Growvit GmbH. You are responsible for declaring and paying all taxes that apply to you. If you are a VAT-registered business in the EU outside Germany, the reverse-charge mechanism applies (Art. 196 of the VAT Directive) and you must provide a valid VAT ID. We provide a commission statement for each payout from the admin records; if you require a formal self-billing invoice arrangement, contact [email protected].

Either party may end participation at any time. You can stop sharing your link; we can suspend or terminate your affiliate account, with notice stating the reason. On termination without cause, commissions already accrued are paid out per the normal schedule. On termination for fraud or material breach of these Terms, unpaid commissions are forfeited.

We may pause the Program as a whole (no new accruals) at any time; accrued balances remain payable.

Hoofine's aggregate liability to an affiliate arising out of the Program is limited to the commissions accrued and unpaid at the time of the claim. Nothing limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules. If you participate as a consumer, mandatory consumer-protection rules of your country of habitual residence remain unaffected.