Connect to the Network
The OpenPartner Network is a creator marketplace that sits in front of your brand. Once you connect:
- Your programs with
shareOnNetworkenabled appear in creator discovery - Creators apply to promote you through their portal
- Approved creators get federated into your brand instance as Partners with a single, program-scoped Link
Connecting is one click on the hosted tier. Self-host has an extra email-verify step.
Connect (hosted tier)
Admin → Network → List my brand on the Network.
The button signs you up using a server-side admin key the hosted deployment holds. No email verification, no extra config. About 5 seconds later you’re connected.
Once connected, the panel shows:
- The Network host you’re listed against (
network.openpartner.dev) - Your vendor display name as creators see it
- Status (
active,suspended,cancelled) - Active partner count
- A Push update to marketplace now button
Pushing updates to the marketplace
The Network learns about your brand state — display name, partner count, last event
timestamp, brand logo — through an hourly heartbeat from your instance. Most of the
time you don’t think about it; the cron fires at :07 past every hour and your marketplace
listing stays fresh.
Three things short-circuit the wait:
- Push update to marketplace now — synchronously fires a heartbeat and reports the
result inline (
Sent/Failed: <reason>). Use this after changing your logo, name, or any other field that’s mirrored to the marketplace. - Loading the Network admin page —
/admin/network/meopportunistically fires a heartbeat in the background each time you load it. - Uploading a new logo —
/uploads/logofires a heartbeat in the background after the file write succeeds, so a fresh upload propagates immediately.
If Push update reports a failure, the inline message tells you exactly what’s wrong
(e.g. network 401: invalid_token, local_partner_count_failed: <details>) — useful for
catching things that would otherwise die silently in the cron logs.
Connect (self-host)
Self-hosters don’t have the admin key, so they need email verification. Admin → Network → Self-host? Use the email-verify flow instead:
- Enter your contact email + display name
- Click Send verification email
- The Network emails you a link
- Click it → you’re connected
Same end state as the one-click flow.
Auto-enroll new partners
Once connected, you’ll see an Auto-enroll on partner create + signup toggle. With it on, every Partner you invite (or who joins via partner-self-signup) is automatically pushed to the Network and dedup’d against existing creators by email.
The dedup is the point: a creator who’s already on the Network from another vendor doesn’t become a duplicate identity in your brand — they get linked to their existing Network creator. Across the OpenPartner Network, one email = one creator, one identity, one set of stats.
You can leave auto-enroll off and use the Backfill button (below) for one-shot pushes instead. Off is fine if you want manual control over what hits the Network.
Backfill existing partners
If you turn the Network on after onboarding partners, click Backfill now to push your existing roster through the same dedup. Pre-existing creators come back with a flag so you can see their cross-vendor presence; brand-new partners get fresh Network creator identities.
The backfill is idempotent — running it twice doesn’t double-push. Failures get queued for retry by the scheduler (every 5 minutes).
What happens when you disconnect
There’s no “disconnect” button on purpose. If you want out:
- Pause discovery: turn off
shareOnNetworkon each program (Programs page) - Stop new applications: pending requests can’t reach you when you have no published offerings
Your Network vendor row stays so existing approved partnerships keep working — the federation calls back into your instance for analytics + click reporting. Hard-deleting your Network presence requires support — partner accounts on other brands’ instances reference your vendor row.
Why connect at all?
Most brands invite their first 5–10 partners directly (people they already know). Past that, the Network is the cheapest source of new partners — creators are actively browsing, not just waiting for outreach. The Network charges:
- Hosted tier: bundled with your subscription
- Self-host tier: $29/month + 3% of attributed GMV from Network-sourced partners
(Direct-invited partner attribution is free regardless of tier — only Network-sourced GMV is metered.)