How the MEXC Affiliate Program Actually Pays (2026)

The headline is 70%. The published fallback is 50%, and the route between them runs through holding MX rather than through referring people. Here is the mechanism, from MEXC's own documentation, written by someone who is on the programme.

I am an MEXC affiliate. That is the whole basis of this site, and it means you should read this page knowing I benefit if you sign up. It also means I have seen the inside of the dashboard, and the gap between what the programme advertises and how it actually settles is worth writing down.

The number you will see, and the number that applies

Every page about this programme, mine included, can honestly say "up to 70%[src] commission", because that is MEXC's own wording. What almost nobody prints is the other end. MEXC's affiliate portal guide states that when an evaluation period's upgrade requirements are not met, the commission rate "will default to 50%[src]".

So 50% is the floor and 70% is the ceiling, and the interesting question is what stands between them.

What you are actually paid on

Commission is a share of the trading fees your referrals pay, not a share of what they trade. That distinction does most of the work in this programme, and it is why the honest answer to "how much will I earn" is almost always less than people expect.

MEXC's spot maker fee is 0%[src]. A referral who only places limit orders that rest on the book generates no fee at all, so they generate no commission at all. The taker side is 0.05%[src], so a referral has to cross the spread before anything reaches you. Commissions cover both spot and futures trades.

Payouts are daily. MEXC states that spot and futures commissions for the previous day are issued at 00:00 UTC.

The tier system, in plain numbers

Each month is split into two evaluation periods, the 1st to the 15th and the 16th to the end. At the close of a period MEXC checks whether you met the upgrade requirement. There are two ways to meet it.

• Route one: five valid first-trade users within the period, and hold at least 2,000 MX[src] at the end of it.
• Route two: hold at least 20,000 MX[src] at the end of the period. No referrals required at all.

Route two is the part worth sitting with. The upgrade that moves you off the base rate can be bought outright, with no audience and no referrals. MX was $1.75[src] when I checked, which puts route one's holding at roughly 3,500 USD and route two's at roughly 35,000 USD. Those conversions move with the token price and I have not fixed them; check the current price before treating either as a plan.

The honest reading of "up to 70%" is therefore closer to: the programme pays 50% unless you are also an MX holder of some size. It is a token-demand mechanism with an affiliate programme attached, which is a reasonable thing for an exchange to build and a thing worth knowing before you build a content plan around the higher number.

What counts as a "valid" referral

This is the detail I would most want to know before starting, and it is the one that is hardest to find. MEXC defines a valid first-trade user as one whose trading fees reach 5 USDT[src], updated daily at 16:10 UTC.

Fees, again, not volume. At the spot taker rate of 0.05%[src], five USDT of fees is about 10,000 USDT of taker volume. At the futures taker rate of 0.02%[src] it is about 12,500 USDT. That is the arithmetic on MEXC's published rates, and it is a great deal more trading than a curious new signup usually does.

Which means the five-users route is not five signups. It is five people who each traded roughly ten thousand dollars in a two-week window. If you were planning to reach the upgrade by sharing a link with friends, that is the number to plan against.

The sub-affiliate layer

There is a second tier: 10%[src] of the fees generated by users that your referrals refer. MEXC's own example is that if a direct referral generates 100 USD in fees you receive 70, and if that person refers someone else you receive 10% of the new person's fees.

Worth noting because it is included in the advertised "up to 70% in referral and sub-affiliate commissions". The two things are described together, so the headline covers both layers rather than promising 70% and then 10% on top.

How to apply

The application itself is short and free. MEXC asks for your full name, your MEXC UID, your account manager's name if you have one, and contact details, and states that it completes the review within seven business days.

1. Open a MEXC account and complete identity verification. You need a UID to apply, and you need verification for withdrawals later. My beginner's guide covers what each verification level actually unlocks.
2. Find the Affiliate Center in your account and submit the application form.
3. Wait out the review window. Seven business days is MEXC's stated maximum, not a queue position.
4. Once approved, take your referral link from the portal. The portal is also where the tier status, the valid-user count and the daily commission settlements are visible.

MEXC describes the audience it is recruiting as content creators with 500 or more followers, crypto websites, and promotional agencies. It does not publish a rejection policy, so I cannot tell you what a declined application looks like or how common it is.

What I would tell someone before they start

Three things, none of which are in MEXC's documentation.

• Most referral links earn nothing. The programme pays on fees, the fee only exists if someone trades, and the majority of people who click a crypto referral link never deposit. This is not passive income; it is a small share of other people's trading costs.
• Disclosure is not optional. If you promote a link you have to say you are paid for it. That is a legal requirement in most jurisdictions and, more practically, the thing that lets a reader weigh what you wrote. Every page on this site carries the disclosure for that reason.
• You are recommending an exchange, not a product you built. Before you point anyone at MEXC, read what the regulators have published about it. That is not a detail to bury in a footer.

On that last point: eight regulators have published warnings about MEXC, the Seychelles regulator has taken enforcement action against the company it names as the operator of mexc.com, and that same regulator has stated it is not in a position to help users recover funds. If you are going to send people there, send them there knowing that.

What I have not verified

I have not published the exact percentage attached to each individual tier, because MEXC does not publish a tier-by-tier table in any document I could find. The 50% floor, the 70% ceiling and the upgrade requirements are all published; the steps in between are not, and I would rather leave a gap than fill it with a plausible guess.

I have also not published my own commission rate. It is visible on the MEXC registration page when someone arrives through my link, and it tells you about my account rather than about the programme. If you want to know what the fee side of this looks like from the other direction, the trading fees guide has the rates your referrals will actually pay.