All offers / Investing / M1
Examined Jul 27, 2026 $10,000 minimum Friend's link only $75 in cash, $10,000 to get it, and an affiliate link quietly disqualifies you.
Three waiting periods stand between the signup and the money: $10,000 deposited within 30 days, held for another 30, and then a further 90 days in which the $75 itself cannot leave. Roughly five months from signing up before the bonus is genuinely yours, on the highest price of admission in this category. It is cash rather than stock, which is refreshing. And one clause decides whether you are eligible at all before any of that begins: the kind of link you arrived on.
What pays what
| New client, using a friend's personal referral link, funding $10,000 | $75 cash |
|---|---|
| The friend who referred them | $75 cash |
| You, referring friends, per calendar year | Up to $750 (ten bonuses) |
| Signing up through an affiliate link | $0 |
| Funding $9,000 instead of $10,000 | $0 |
| Withdrawing the bonus inside its 90-day lock | Forfeited |
| Anyone who has ever been an M1 customer | $0 |
| Holding under $10,000 at M1 afterwards | $3 a month |
The $10,000 minimum applies to every account type M1 lists: individual, joint, custodial, trust, and traditional, Roth, or SEP retirement accounts alike. On the last row: M1 charges a $3 monthly platform fee, or a $3 monthly individual retirement account fee, and waives it if your total M1 assets reach $10,000 for at least one day in the billing cycle, or if you hold an active M1 personal loan. So a qualifying referee is fee-free on day one, but if the balance later slips under $10,000 the $3 starts, and twenty-five months of it erases the entire $75.
Do this, in this order
- Get the link from a person, not a page. An existing M1 client generates a personal referral link inside their account. That is the only kind that pays, and nothing later fixes a signup made through an affiliate link, a banner, or a social post.
- Check you are eligible before you move money. The offer is for US citizens and certain eligible legal US residents aged 18 or over who have never been an M1 customer. M1 employees and people at other FINRA member firms are excluded from monetary referral bonuses. The offer cannot be combined with other promotions and is not transferable.
- Deposit $10,000 within 30 calendar days of signing up. The clock runs from the sign-up date. There is no trade requirement, so funding is the whole job.
- Keep that balance for another 30 days. The initial funding amount has to stay in the account for a further 30 calendar days after funding. It can be invested; it just has to remain at M1.
- Open a Payment Account, or the bonus has nowhere to land. M1 pays referral bonuses into an individual or joint brokerage account only, never a retirement account, and it does not need to be funded. M1 states that without a valid Payment Account you will not be able to receive referral bonuses.
- Then leave the $75 alone for 90 more days. The bonus arrives within 14 business days and is locked for 90 days from payment. Any withdrawal or external transfer request during that window forfeits it, automatically and with no partial credit.
The fine print that can still cost you the bonus
The end date is not published, so do not assume there is none. The terms condition eligibility on signing up before the last day of the "Promotion Period" and never define that date anywhere on the page. All we can see is a start date of March 27, 2024, and no last-updated stamp. Check the live page the day you sign up.
The cap can move. Ten referral bonuses per calendar year is $750 at today's rate, and M1 reserves the right to limit or change the maximum number of times a referral link can be used, at any time, without prior notice.
M1 can pull it back. The terms reserve the right to terminate the offer at any time and to refuse or recover any award M1 determines was obtained under wrongful or fraudulent circumstances or on inaccurate or incomplete account-opening information.
It is taxable, and you cannot double up. M1 treats referral bonuses as miscellaneous income, reportable to the tax authorities on Form 1099-MISC or, where applicable, Form 1042-S. You cannot earn more than one bonus per referral, and M1's own FAQ answers "Can new clients partake in the referral bonus?" with a flat no.
Is it worth your time?
If $10,000 was going to M1 anyway, yes, take the $75. The money can be invested the whole time, so the real cost is committing to keep it at M1 for a couple of months and then not touching a $75 payment for another three. If you are considering moving $10,000 you had other plans for, purely to collect $75, do the arithmetic first: that is three quarters of one percent, once, spread over roughly five months, and a $1,000 deposit at tastytrade currently pays more.
- What M1 wants deposited before it pays you $75$10,000
- What tastytrade wants deposited before it pays you $100$1,000
Both deposits are named on this page. The tastytrade offer expires Aug 31, 2026.
