In February, Alibaba sent 120 million of these in six days.
Anyone can send the red envelope
A red envelope is how China gifts money at Lunar New Year, cash inside, given for luck. Alibaba loaded theirs with a voucher you could only spend through its AI agent, and the country answered. ero is where you run the same thing. You set the reward. ero proves each completion and pays the money out.
Here's the whole campaign, sped up.
It ran inside a nine day holiday where tourism spend alone hit a record $116 billion.
Orders and demographics from Alibaba, 12 February 2026. DAU and retention from QuestMobile and AICPB. Unit costs derived from published totals. Holiday tourism spend per China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Rewards built the giants.
Alibaba ran the newest version of a play that's been building companies for twenty years. Pay people to act and they come.
$20 a signup
Cash for signups and referrals, about $60M of it, and 7 to 10% daily growth on the way to 100 million users.
3900% in 15 months
Storage as the reward. 100 thousand users became 4 million, with 2.8 million invites going out a month.
9 in 10 by referral
Acquisition runs near $5 a head while the banks around it pay $150 and up. 135 million customers so far.
40 points taken
Digital red envelopes carved 40 points from Alipay's 80% hold of a trillion dollar market, and the share never came back.
PayPal and Dropbox figures per published program histories. Nubank per company filings and disclosures. Payment shares via Analysys and the OECD. In the 2015 round, Alibaba announced 600 million yuan of holiday lucky money and WeChat countered with a larger pot inside half a day.
The brands you compete with already pay people.
REMUNERATION THIS YEAR
CARDHOLDERS IN 2024
ABOVE THE AIRLINE ITSELF
American pledged its rewards program as loan collateral because appraisers priced it above the whole airline. Rewards moved from the marketing budget to the balance sheet a long time ago. Every program on this page runs inside one company's walls, and ero takes the walls away.
Delta and Amex figure from Delta's guidance, January 2026. Cardholder rewards from the CFPB's 2025 market report. AAdvantage appraisals disclosed in 2020 at $19.5B to $31.5B against a market cap under $10B.
Four things were true at once.
Nobody sat this holiday out. ByteDance, Tencent and Baidu ran red envelope campaigns beside Alibaba's, more than a billion dollars between the four of them, because the users go to whoever pays. Qwen held its users better than any of them, and the reason sits in what Alibaba chose to pay for.
It covered everything
25 yuan paid for the whole cup, so nobody had to weigh it up first.
It was worth having
Alibaba paid for a real errand. Three in ten users stayed past the vouchers, and the category average was one in eight.
They watched it happen
Every order settled on a ledger they owned, so they knew it was real the way you know your own bank balance.
It landed at once
The voucher cleared at the counter, and the reward arrived while the action was still happening.
Mainstream Chinese AI apps averaged 12.8% retention at 30 days over the same period, per QuestMobile. Combined campaign spend estimated above $1.1 billion, with one industry tally near 10 billion yuan. Users drifted between apps as each platform's offers ended, per Reuters.
The Internet's Reward Program.
Every campaign joins one program the whole internet can earn from. Point it at people who've proven they qualify, and everything underneath is already built.
Where brands issue rewards
You arrive with an action worth paying for and a budget behind it. The campaign runs under your name inside the program.
Where the internet earns them
People open the app, pick your mission, and get paid in USD the moment their proof clears.
Pick what you'll pay for.
Missions land in one of four bands, priced by how much the action asks of the person. The same bands price a first order and a win back.
A signup, a follow, or a first download.
A completed purchase, or a review from someone who owns the thing.
Proof of a subscription or account status, read from the account itself.
One mission that checks two or more services at once.
Brands pool together on the platforms people already use. The user links an account once and the combined reward pays out on the spot.
You pay when the proof clears.
Your customer signs in the way they always do. ero sits inside that handshake and takes a cryptographic copy of what your server sends back, so the receipt carries your signature. A claimed completion with a missing proof costs you nothing, and each person is paid once per mission. Every payout traces to a verified human holding a receipt you can audit, which settles the fraud conversation before it starts. Each proof costs about a tenth of a cent and already works across 110 of the services people use every day.
Your customer consents to each proof before it runs. ero sees the answer to the one question you asked and nothing else in the session.
Send yours.
Alibaba's unit came out at $3.59. Set your own and watch the receipt build.
You pay when a proof clears, so this number is what you'll spend.
Start with one mission.
Bring us one action worth paying for. Inside a week you'll have a price and the reach we can put behind it. The mission goes live days after you sign off with spend capped at whatever you set, and every completion comes back with its receipt attached. Most brands open in a single country and widen once the receipts start arriving.