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Creator splits

How the creator revenue-share program actually works — no marketing gloss, just the mechanism.

Short version: a creator code is a small signed file a follower pastes into the OpenShip popup. From then on, a transparent share of that follower's referral conversions — 80% by default — carry the creator's own referral codes instead of the maintainer's. The split is decided by a deterministic hash, not a hidden dice roll, and the popup discloses the active creator at all times. Nothing about this requires an account, a login, or any server round-trip to activate — the code is verified entirely on-device.

What a creator code is

It's a short block of text containing a signed bundle: the creator's name, their share (default 0.8, i.e. 80%), and a set of referral codes — one per shopping agent they've registered with. It's signed with the maintainer's private key (ECDSA P-256), and every copy of OpenShip ships with the matching public key. When you paste a code into the popup, the extension checks that signature before trusting anything in it — a hand-edited or made-up code fails verification and gets rejected outright, with no partial trust.

How the split works

Once a creator code is active, every link you convert still gets a referral code attached — it just decides, per item, whose code to use. For each agent + item pair, OpenShip hashes the combination and compares it against the creator's share: if the share is 80%, roughly 80% of items route to the creator's code and the rest to the maintainer's. This is deterministic, not random — the same link always resolves the same way, so the split is auditable rather than a black box. The exact mechanism is in extension/engine.js (the whole conversion engine is one readable file, no build step, no obfuscation).

For creators — how to get a code

  1. Sign up for referral/affiliate programs with the shopping agents you want to be credited on (CNFans, Mulebuy, Sugargoo, Superbuy, and so on — whichever your audience actually uses).
  2. Send the maintainer the referral links from your agent dashboards — the same links your affiliate program already gives you — via the contact path (it doubles as the general contact form; just say what you're reaching out about).
  3. You'll get back a short signed code. Share it with your audience along with a link to this page, so they know what it does before they paste it anywhere.

Because the code is cryptographically signed, nobody can forge one claiming to be you — a fake code simply fails the signature check and OpenShip refuses to activate it. Your followers can trust a code that actually came from you.

For users — how to support a creator

Open the extension popup and expand the "Support a creator" card. Paste the code the creator gave you and press Activate. The popup will show who you're supporting and what share of your referrals go to them, and that same disclosure lives in the popup's footer at all times — not something you have to dig for. You can remove a creator at any time with the "Stop supporting" button; nothing else about how OpenShip works changes either way.

Honest limitations. There's no expiry or revocation mechanism yet — treat a creator code as long-lived once you have it. If a code ever needs to be killed (a leak, a dispute, a creator asking to be delisted), the only lever right now is rotating the maintainer's signing key, which invalidates every creator code at once, not just one. That's a blunt instrument, and it's disclosed here rather than pretended away. A more targeted revocation mechanism may come later; this page will be updated if it does.

Contact

Questions, or ready to get a code: reach out via the contact form.