$250 or $500? How to read your own referrer figure instead of guessing

Search the referrer reward and you will find $250 and $500 asserted with equal confidence, often on pages that look equally careful. Both cannot be current. This site's position is that the honest output of a contested input is a method, not an average.

Why the disagreement exists

Three ordinary reasons, none of them scandalous. The programme has changed repeatedly inside one year — the terms carry a 24 February 2026 revision date, and Model S and Model X left the programme in March 2026. Amounts have differed by market and by product. And referral content ages badly: a page written correctly in 2025 is wrong now and rarely says when it was written.

Where your account states it

1. The Tesla app, referral or rewards section. This is where a granted benefit appears with a balance and a date. A pending referral shows there too, before the Grant Date.
2. The 30-day expiry email. When credits are approaching their deadline, Tesla emails a warning — which necessarily states what you are holding.
3. The Loot Box. Redemption is where a balance meets prices, so it is the least ambiguous view of what your credits are worth in practice.

Why this site does not average the two figures

Averaging contested inputs produces a number that is definitely wrong rather than possibly wrong — $375 would describe no account anywhere. Picking the higher figure flatters the site and misleads the reader; picking the lower one is safer and still unsourced. The only defensible outputs are the mechanism, which is not disputed, and the location of the authoritative number, which is your own account. That is a less satisfying answer than a dollar figure and it is the one that stays true after the next programme revision.

What is not in dispute

The mechanics are stable even where the amount is not, and the mechanics are what a decision actually needs:

• The referrer is paid in Tesla Credits, not cash. They cannot be transferred, reissued, or redeemed for money, and they are not valid for gift cards or alcohol.
• The cap is the first 10 successful referrals per calendar year.
• Credits expire 12 months from the Grant Date; charging distance expires in 6 months.
• A further referral extends the whole balance to 12 months from the newest Grant Date.

The buyer's side is not contested at all

Worth separating, because the two halves of the programme get mixed together constantly. In North America the buyer receives 3 months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) — about $297 at the published $99 monthly rate, and roughly half that for a prior Enhanced Autopilot owner paying $49. That figure is arithmetic from a published price, not a contested report, which is why this site quotes it and not the referrer number.

How to treat any page that states a bare figure

Including this one. Ask three questions: does it carry a date, does it distinguish the referrer's reward from the buyer's benefit, and does it distinguish North America from Europe? A page that fails those tests is not necessarily wrong — it just gives you no way to check, and the referral terms have moved twice this year.

Related: the three dates a referrer tracks, and the value arithmetic in referral value as a share of the deal.