The First Move

Affiliates

£9.99 per sale, and 15% off for your audience.

I run The First Move on my own, and I would rather put money towards people who recommend it than into advertising. This page sets out the programme in full, including the parts most affiliate pages leave out.

Commission

You earn £9.99 each time someone buys an annual pass using your code, and they pay £29.74 rather than £34.99.

That gives you a 15% discount to offer, rather than simply asking your audience to buy something.

Commission applies to the annual pass only. A sale of the £6.99 monthly plan earns nothing. The pass is the better value option for anyone moving this year in any case.

The pass is a single payment covering twelve months. A sale therefore pays once and settles, with no renewals to track and nothing reversed months later because a subscription was cancelled.

Who this suits

The First Move is aimed primarily at first-time buyers in England, though nothing about it is limited to them and plenty of movers and upsizers use it the same way. It calculates what a property genuinely costs each month, covering council tax and household bills alongside the mortgage, where most calculators stop at the repayment alone.

That still points at a reasonably specific audience. The programme works best if you produce property or personal finance content, or if you are documenting your own purchase and people follow along for it.

If your following is large but general, expect it to perform below what the audience size suggests. What matters is how many of them are actually moving, not how many there are.

The demo is the most straightforward thing to film. It requires no account and puts a full cost breakdown on screen within seconds. Worth a review before deciding whether the programme suits your audience.

If you would rather understand the product properly before putting your name to it, the guide runs to 18 pages and covers every part of it, from how the suitability score is calculated to what partner linking actually shares. Between that and the demo there should be enough to judge whether it is worth recommending.

How to join

01Get in touch

Email affiliate@thefirstmove.co.uk with where you post and a brief description of your audience. There is no application form and no follower minimum.

02Set up your code

I will send you a link to the affiliate portal, where you choose your own code and track sales as they are made. Pick something straightforward to say aloud, which for most people means their name or handle.

03Publish as you normally would

There is no script and no approval process. Demonstrate it, give your honest assessment, and share your code. One requirement is firm. Any content carrying your code must be clearly identified as advertising, which UK advertising rules place on you as the publisher.

04Get paid

Commission is confirmed once a sale has passed its refund window, and paid monthly thereafter. All activity before that point remains visible in the portal.

Programme terms

These are the conditions of participation, in full.

  • Advertising disclosure. Any content carrying your code must make the commercial relationship clear to your audience. UK advertising rules place this obligation on you as the publisher, and failure to meet it ends participation.
  • No self-referral. Purchases you make yourself do not earn commission, and nor do purchases arranged with people known to you.
  • No paid search on brand terms. Bidding on The First Move, or close variants of it, results in commission being paid on traffic already searching for the product by name.
  • Refunds reverse commission. Buyers hold a statutory right to cancel within fourteen days. Where a sale is refunded, its commission does not stand, which is why payouts are timed to that window.
  • Annual passes only. The monthly plan does not earn commission, regardless of how the buyer arrived.
  • These terms can change. I may adjust the commission rate, change how codes work, or close the programme, with reasonable notice before any of it takes effect. Commission already confirmed on a completed sale is paid either way.
  • No representation as financial advice. The First Move is a planning tool that works from figures the user enters. Please do not present it as regulated advice or describe capabilities it does not have.

Tax is yours to handle. Commission counts as income, and your liability depends on your own circumstances, so it is not something I am able to advise on.

Common questions

Is there a minimum following?

No. There is no threshold and no application form beyond an email. A small audience that is actively house hunting will out-earn a large one that is not, so I would rather assess who follows you than the number itself.

What counts as a sale?

Someone uses your code at checkout and buys the annual pass. There is no requirement for them to have clicked a particular link or to have arrived within a set window. The code is what attributes the sale to you.

Why does the monthly plan not earn commission?

It can be cancelled within days, and paying commission on a payment that may be reversed shortly afterwards complicates the accounting for both of us. The annual pass is a single settled payment. It is also better value for anyone buying this year, so recommending it is not an upsell.

When is commission paid?

Monthly, once a sale has passed its refund window. Buyers hold a statutory right to cancel within 14 days, so commission is confirmed after that period rather than at the point of payment. Where a sale is refunded, its commission does not stand.

Can I use my own code?

No. Purchases you make yourself do not earn commission, and nor do purchases arranged with people known to you. The programme exists to reach an audience that would not otherwise have found the product.

Does content need to be marked as advertising?

Yes, without exception. UK advertising rules require a commercial relationship to be made clear to your audience, so any content carrying your code must be labelled accordingly. The obligation sits with you as the publisher, and compliance is a condition of remaining in the programme.

Can I bid on your brand terms in paid search?

No. Bidding on The First Move, or close variants of it, results in commission being paid on traffic that was already searching for the product by name. All other channels are open to you.

What can I say about the product?

Anything accurate. You are free to demonstrate it, review it, and criticise the parts you do not rate. Three things to avoid are describing features it does not have, implying any mortgage outcome, and presenting it as financial advice. It is not, and the rest of the site is careful to say so.

Applying

Email me with where you post and a short description of your audience. I read every application myself.