The Nous Portal referral program is live as of 2 September 2026: every Portal user now gets a unique referral code that gives new users 15 dollars off a Plus plan, and every successful referral adds a 10-dollar credit to your account. That comes straight from Nous Research's announcement on X, and the framing was pure Nous — share Hermes Agent, get rewarded for it. No affiliate dashboard, no payout threshold to decode: a code, a discount for them, a credit for you.
📺 Watch: How to Run Hermes Agent FREE Forever!
🔥 Get the Agent OS as a free bonus: AI Profit Boardroom members get the full Agent OS zip, prompt libraries, daily tutorials and weekly live coaching calls. → Get inside
I have covered Hermes Agent on this blog almost daily for the past fortnight, and this is the first time Nous Research has put actual account credit behind word of mouth. Given what shipped last week, the timing is no accident — more on that in a minute. Here is how it works, what both sides get, and where the free, open-source agent fits in.
What is Nous Portal?
Quick context if you are new here. Nous Portal is Nous Research's hosted platform built around Hermes — the place where you use Hermes-powered chat and agent features without wiring up keys, servers or config files yourself. It is also where Nous runs its promotions: when LongCat-2.0, the model behind the Owl Alpha stealth run, went free for a week, Portal was where it happened — my Hermes LongCat breakdown covers that episode.
One thing worth saying plainly up front: Hermes Agent itself is free and open source, and it stays that way. Portal and its Plus plan are the hosted route — the convenience layer on top. This referral scheme is about growing that hosted side, not about putting the agent behind a paywall.
How the Nous Portal referral program works
The mechanics are about as simple as referral schemes get. Three moving parts: a code, a discount, a credit.
Your unique referral code
Every Portal user gets a unique referral code. Not a waitlist, not an application form, not an invite-only creator tier — if you have a Portal account, you have a code. That is a deliberately low bar, and it means the scheme scales with the entire user base rather than a hand-picked list of influencers.
What the new user gets: 15 dollars off a Plus plan
Anyone who signs up using your code gets 15 dollars off a Plus plan. Nous did not publish Plus pricing in the announcement, so I will not guess at percentages — but 15 dollars off a hosted AI plan is a real discount rather than a token gesture, and it lowers the cost of trying hosted Hermes for anyone who has been sitting on the fence.
Building an audience around AI agents like this? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom I share the exact Hermes workflows and content systems I use to turn releases like this one into traffic — join me in the AI Profit Boardroom. You can also book a free SEO strategy session and I will map the plan out with you personally.
What you get: a 10-dollar credit per successful referral
Every successful referral adds a 10-dollar credit to your account, per the announcement. It applies per referral, so it stacks: three signups is 30 dollars of credit against your own Portal usage. Note that this is account credit, not cash — which keeps the incentive honest. The reward for sharing Hermes is more Hermes.
Where to find your code
Codes and details live on the official Portal referrals page. I am deliberately not describing menus or buttons here, because interfaces change and that page is the source of truth. The announcement also does not spell out expiry, stacking or eligibility fine print, so check the official referrals page for the current terms before you build any plans around the credits.
The two-sided maths
Referral schemes usually favour one side heavily. This one is reasonably balanced: the new user saves 15 dollars, the referrer banks 10 dollars of credit, and both numbers are meaningful against a typical subscription bill. Nobody is being asked to spam a link for pennies.
Where it gets interesting is for anyone with an audience. If you run a community, a YouTube channel or a newsletter — anywhere people already ask you about AI agents — the credits compound with every signup. Ten successful referrals is 100 dollars of Portal credit. That is not an income stream — it is account credit — but the numbers are real. For community operators and creators who were recommending Hermes for free anyway, it is the difference between advocacy costing you time and advocacy funding your own usage. My whole stack runs on Agent OS with Hermes doing the heavy lifting, so credit against the hosted side is genuinely useful rather than a gimmick.
Why Nous is doing this now
The timing is the tell. Hermes Agent v0.21 — the Pantheon release — shipped on 31 August from Nous Research, and it was the biggest release yet: persistent named agents and bot-to-bot communications. I covered the full changelog in my Hermes v0.21 breakdown, and my Hermes bot mode guide digs into what agent-to-agent messaging actually unlocks.
So attention on Hermes is at a peak, and Nous Research is converting that attention into distribution while it is hot. A referral push launched into a quiet news cycle limps along; one launched two days after your biggest release lands on an audience already primed to talk about you. Teknium, Nous's cofounder and lead engineer on Hermes, has been shipping at a relentless pace — this scheme is the growth layer bolted onto that momentum.
Free Hermes vs Portal Plus, honestly
Here is the bit I always insist on, because it would be easy to read "15 dollars off a Plus plan" and conclude that Hermes costs money. It does not have to. The open-source Hermes Agent is free, full stop — you can run it with your own API keys or entirely on local models. I have walked through both routes: my guide to using Hermes Agent for free covers the zero-cost setups, and my free API for Hermes Agent piece lists the keys that cost nothing.
So what is Plus actually for? Convenience. The hosted route on Nous Portal means no keys, no setup, no maintenance — and a 15-dollar discount simply lowers the price of finding out whether that convenience suits you. If you go self-hosted instead, model choice becomes the real decision: my best API for Hermes Agent comparison covers the trade-offs, and which brain I actually run inside Hermes comes down to my Goldie Bench testing rather than vibes. Either way, the agent stays free — the referral scheme only changes the economics of the hosted lane.
How to get started
Keeping this conceptual, because the referrals page is the definitive source.
- Already a Portal user? Visit the referrals page and grab your unique code.
- New to Portal? Sign up with someone's code and take the 15 dollars off a Plus plan.
- Share your code where your audience actually lives — a community, a video description, a newsletter — rather than cold-posting it into the void.
That last point matters most. Referral credit follows trust, and the people who earn meaningful credit from the Nous Portal referral program will be the ones whose recommendation of Hermes was credible before there was a credit attached.
The referral scheme at a glance
| Who | What they get | How |
|---|---|---|
| New Portal user | $15 off a Plus plan | Sign up using an existing user's referral code |
| Referrer | $10 account credit per successful referral | Share the unique code from the Portal referrals page |
| Everyone | Current terms and conditions | Listed on the official Portal referrals page |
FAQ
What is the Nous Portal referral program?
It is Nous Research's referral scheme for Nous Portal, announced on X on 2 September 2026. Every Portal user gets a unique code; new users who sign up with one get 15 dollars off a Plus plan, and the referrer earns a 10-dollar account credit for each successful referral.
How do I get a Nous Portal referral code?
Your Nous Portal referral code comes from the Portal referrals page once you are a Portal user. Every user gets one automatically — there is no application or approval step mentioned in the announcement.
How much do I earn per referral?
A 10-dollar account credit per successful referral, per the announcement. It is credit against your Portal account rather than a cash payout, and it applies for each referral rather than being a one-off bonus.
Is Hermes Agent itself free?
Yes. The open-source Hermes Agent stays free — you can run it with your own keys or on local models at no cost. Plus is the paid hosted plan on Nous Portal, and the referral discount only applies to that hosted route.
Where do I check the terms?
On the official referrals page at Nous Portal. The announcement covers the headline numbers, not the fine print — treat that page as the source of truth.
My verdict on the Nous Portal referral program
This is a clean, two-sided scheme with honest numbers, launched at exactly the right moment. New users get 15 dollars off a Plus plan, referrers get 10 dollars of credit per signup, and it rides the biggest Hermes release to date. The one thing I would push back on is any suggestion that you need Plus to use Hermes — you do not. If the hosted route appeals, use a code and save the money. If it does not, run the free agent and lose nothing. Either way, Nous Research just gave every one of its users a reason to talk about Hermes — the smartest kind of marketing, because it only costs them when it works.
Want my full Hermes playbook rather than just the discount? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom I break down every release like this and turn it into working systems you can copy — join the AI Profit Boardroom here. Prefer one-to-one? You can book a free SEO strategy session and I will personally show you where AI agents fit in your SEO.
