Public Mobile Refer a Friend: The Full Program, Explained

Updated 2026-07-14 · fact-checked against official Public Mobile sources

What each side gets

Public Mobile’s refer-a-friend program is simple and has two halves:

One point is worth $1 when redeemed, and the headline redemption is 15 points for $15 off your bill. So every referral is worth about $1 a month to you — indefinitely.

One thing worth saying plainly: every referral code pays exactly the same. There is no “best” code, no matter what other sites claim. A code from a stranger’s website gives the new customer the identical $10 that a code from their sister would.

Where to find your referral code

Log in to My Account. Your code appears at the top of the overview page under a banner that says “Sharing is caring.”

A few facts about the code itself:

• It’s 6 characters, letters and numbers (something like A1B2C3).
• It never changes and never expires as long as your account stays active.
• Unlimited people can use it. It doesn’t get “used up.”

You can share the bare code, or send friends a link that pre-fills it at checkout:

https://publicmobile.ca/en/{province}/plans?referral=YOURCODE

Swap {province} for your friend’s two-letter province code (for example, on for Ontario) and YOURCODE for your actual code.

How the points add up

The referral point is small on its own but it compounds because it’s uncapped and ongoing:

A customer with 10 active referrals pays about $120 a year less — on the $24/5GB plan, that’s five free months. There’s no ceiling: the community has confirmed there is no maximum number of referrals (official thread).

Points stop for any referral who leaves. That includes friends who take TELUS up on its Fast Switch offer to move from Public Mobile to Koodo — once they switch, their monthly point stops. Points can also be spent on add-ons and contest entries, not just bill credit; the full breakdown is on our Public Points guide.

How your friend uses your code

The short version (the full walkthrough has screenshots):

1. They pick any plan on publicmobile.ca — the $10 credit applies on every plan, from the $22 talk & text to the $50/150GB 5G plan. Our plans page has the current lineup.
2. At Step 4 (Payment) of activation, they enter your code in the “Referral Code” field. This is a separate box from the “Promo code” field — and yes, both can be used together.
3. They pay and activate. The $10 lands within 72 hours.

Two warnings worth passing along:

• Enter the code before paying. After payment it’s too late to add it in the checkout — though a support agent can still add it retroactively via ticket with the referrer’s name, phone number, and code (confirmed by Public Mobile staff in December 2025).
• Stay on publicmobile.ca. TELUS now runs Koodo “Fast Switch” ads inside Public Mobile’s own signup and login pages, and some referred friends have been confused into activating with Koodo instead — where referral codes do not work.

Bonus promotions come and go

Public Mobile occasionally layers limited-time bonuses on top of the standard offer. In 2025 there were four rounds:

• Three “$15 bonus” rounds (May 13–19, June 3–9, and June 24–July 2, 2025): on plans $29 and up, both the referrer and the friend got an extra $15 — so the friend received $25 total. Limit one bonus per referrer, paid within 45 days.
• One “$10 referrer bonus” round (September 17 – October 6, 2025): on plans $35 and up, the referrer got a $10 credit per referral, limit five.

As of July 13, 2026, no bonus promotion is active. The standard $10-for-the-friend, 1-point-for-you offer is what’s on the table. Any site advertising “up to $40” or “$50” for a referral code today is inflating history — no promotion has ever given a single new customer more than $25, and the number right now is $10. We keep the current offer page updated when that changes.

A short history of the program

The referral reward has outlived every other perk Public Mobile has cut:

• Bill-credit era (until January 2022): referrers earned $1 per 30 days per active friend as a direct bill credit, alongside autopay and loyalty credits. The friend’s $10 credit existed even then.
• Public Points era (from January 25, 2022): points replaced credits. Referral earning became 1 point per 30 days — same nominal value, but redeemed manually. The launch also brought 5% points-back on payments and 10-point anniversary bonuses (official announcement).
• May 2024: customers still on the old rewards program were force-migrated to Public Points. The backlash was large — over a thousand forum replies and a wave of CCTS complaints.
• October 15, 2025: points-back on payments was cut from 5% to 2% and the anniversary bonus from 10 to 5 points. The referral rate — 1 point per 30 days — was left untouched.

If you’re weighing whether the program will last: referral earning is the one reward that has survived unchanged since 2022.

Who you’re allowed to refer

The fine print matters here, so we’ll state it as written:

• New activations only. Codes don’t work for existing customers, and you can’t refer yourself.
• Personal relationships. Public Mobile’s referral terms have stated that you agree to share your code only with people you have a personal or family relationship with, in line with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). CASL applies to commercial electronic messages — so mass-texting or emailing your code to strangers is the kind of thing it covers. Posting codes inside Public Mobile’s own community forum is treated as spam and removed by moderators.
• Credits are discretionary. Public Mobile’s terms say referral credits are discretionary, include applicable taxes, and won’t be awarded for past activations that didn’t follow the program terms.

The authoritative sources are Public Mobile’s refer-a-friend help article (which contains the current terms and conditions) and the My Referrals help article covering tracking.

Tracking referrals — and what to do when one goes missing

The My Referrals section of My Account shows your referral count and updates daily. Points land at the end of each 30-day cycle, so a referral that activates the day before your renewal counts in the next cycle, not the current one.

If your friend’s $10 doesn’t appear within 72 hours, or your point never shows up, don’t wait it out — the code sometimes fails to register silently. Our fix guide walks through exactly what to send in a support ticket.

And if you’ve read this far without a code of your own to share: you can still collect the $10 as a new customer. Use the referral code on this page during activation, or open Public Mobile’s plans with the code already applied.

Frequently asked questions