Canadian carrier referral programs, verified
Every figure below was read from the carrier's own website on 2026-09-01. Where a carrier's pages contradict each other, that is shown rather than resolved.
| Carrier | Account type | New customer gets | Referrer gets | When it's paid | Plan minimum | Cap | Forgotten code recoverable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FizzQuebecor | Prepaid-style monthly plan | $40 outside Quebec, $25 in QuebecFizz's own pages conflict: the program page says $25 in every region, while the plan-page FAQ advertises $40 in a block tagged for Alberta, Ontario, BC and Manitoba. A real Ontario cart applied $40 on 2026-07-16. | $25 | After the new member completes two months of service; the referrer is paid on their following payment | $20/mo for the new member, before taxes and after discounts | None — "You can invite as many friends as you want" | No — "We cannot retroactively apply a referral code" |
| KoodoTELUS | Postpaid and prepaid — two separate programs, credits do not cross between them | $25 postpaid, paid as $5/month × 5 months. Prepaid: $5 on activation, then $5 per additional month the friend stays, up to 5 months | The same as the new customer, in both programs | Postpaid: within 4–8 weeks of the referral completing. Prepaid: first $5 within 24 hours, second after 30 days | Postpaid: none stated. Prepaid: plans greater than $15 | Postpaid $150/year (6 referrals). Prepaid up to $75/year, 3 referrals per 365 days | No — postpaid requires pre-registration; the prepaid code must be entered at activation |
| Public MobileTELUS | Prepaid-style 30-day subscription | $10 one-time bill credit | 1 Public Point per 30 days that each referred line stays subscribedPublic Mobile does not publish the cash value of a point on any current page. The commonly quoted "1 point = $1" traces to a staff forum post from January 2022. | The $10 appears 4–8 weeks after activation, per Public Mobile's posted terms. Points accrue at the end of each 30-day cycle | None stated ("eligible rate plans") | None stated in the standing terms | No — the terms exclude past activations, though support has added forgotten codes by ticket |
| Freedom MobileQuebecor | Prepaid and postpaid | $25 one-time service credit | $25 one-time service credit per successful referral | Within 45 days of the referral completing, and the new account must first stay active 30 days. Postpaid: pre-tax bill adjustment. Prepaid: pre-tax top-up | $25/mo with the Digital Discount applied — both parties | $250 per calendar year (10 referrals), including the $25 you received if you were referred in. 20 referrals lifetime | No — activating before claiming the offer voids both rewards |
| chatrRogers | No referral program — ended 31 May 2023. Carrier's own page | ||||||
| FidoRogers | No referral program — ended 2 July 2024. Carrier's own page | ||||||
| Lucky MobileBell | No referral program — ended 9 June 2025. Carrier's own page | ||||||
| Virgin PlusBell | No referral program — ended 9 June 2025. Carrier's own page | ||||||
What this shows
Half the industry has left. Bell closed both of its flanker programs on the same day (Virgin Plus and Lucky Mobile, 9 June 2025) and Rogers closed both of its own earlier and separately (chatr 2023, Fido 2024). Every surviving program belongs to TELUS or Quebecor. Referrals are now a challenger tactic, not an industry norm — and every survivor sits at the prepaid or self-serve end of the market.
The live programs trade size against speed. Freedom pays the largest single amount on the slowest, strictest clock — 30 days of good standing, then up to 45 days to pay. Koodo Prepaid puts $5 on the account within 24 hours and drips the rest over five months. Public Mobile's $10 is the smallest headline here, but it is the only one that keeps paying the referrer for every 30 days the friend stays, so a long-lived referral eventually outearns a one-time $25.
Not one live program lets you add a forgotten code afterwards. Freedom voids both rewards if the friend activates before claiming, Fizz says outright it cannot apply a code retroactively, and Public Mobile's terms exclude past activations. "Claim before you activate" is the single rule that costs readers the most money when missed.
Headline amounts overstate what lands on a bill. Koodo's credits are tax-inclusive, so a $5 credit shows as about $4.42 in Ontario. Both Koodo and Fizz reserve the right to vary the amount by province.
Sources
7 of 8 carriers verified against the carriers' own websites on 2026-09-01. Third-party sources were not used for any figure.
- Fizz — https://fizz.ca/en/invite-friends
- Koodo — https://www.koodomobile.com/en/services/refer — Credits are tax-inclusive, so a $5 credit shows as about $4.42 in Ontario.
- Public Mobile — https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/get-help/articles/refer-a-friend
- Freedom Mobile — https://refer.freedommobile.ca/common/terms?locale=en — There is no shareable code. The referrer sends an invite to a named person, who must claim it before activating. The terms permit referring only "individuals with whom you have a personal relationship". Your account also stops being eligible if you change your number or port away.
- chatr — https://www.chatrwireless.com/support/refer-a-friend/
- Fido — https://www.fido.ca/support/mobility/refer-a-friend-program
- Lucky Mobile — https://www.luckymobile.ca/referral-program-rules
- Virgin Plus — https://www.virginplus.ca/en/support/raf-program-rules.html
Referral-code aggregators currently publish live-sounding offers for Virgin Plus and Fido. Both programs ended in 2024–2025. Those figures were rejected rather than repeated.
Use this data
The table above is published as an open dataset — JSON and CSV, every record carrying the source URL it was read from — at github.com/YZAHMED/canadian-referral-programs. It is licensed CC BY 4.0, so you may use it anywhere as long as you credit this page. Corrections are welcome as issues.
Not on this list: travel eSIMs
This table covers Canadian carriers — the plan you use at home. It deliberately excludes travel eSIMs, which are a different product bought for a different reason, and folding them in would make the comparison above dishonest. We cover one separately: Roamless, a pay-as-you-go travel eSIM that pays US$5 to each side with no cap on referrals.
Our own guides
We publish detailed guides for two of these carriers, and we share a referral code on each — so treat those two rows as the ones we have an interest in, and check them against the carrier links above.