# Gift access

Membership comes with something to share: any member can **gift a friend
access to the co-op**. A gift is **$5 of AI usage for 60 days** — the friend
gets their own account and spends it in the chat and the API, with a
dashboard showing what's left.

The gift doesn't come out of your own balance. You can send one gift every
30 days, and an address can receive one gift ever — gifts are for people new
to the co-op.

## How to send a gift

Email [info@inference.coop](mailto:info@inference.coop) with your friend's
name and email address. They get an **invitation email** from the co-op,
naming you, with a link to set up their account — it takes about a minute.

## What your guest receives

- **The invitation email** with their setup link.
- **$5 of credit** for the chat and the API, ready on their first login. The
  $5 is a hard cap — usage stops when it's spent.
- **Their own dashboard** at
  [dashboard.inference.coop](https://dashboard.inference.coop) showing what's
  left.
- **The weekly newsletter** by email.
- **These docs** — public to everyone already.

Their access runs for **60 days**; the credits themselves don't expire early.

## What guests can't do

A gift is not membership. Guests don't get Matrix, the governance forum, or
any vote in the co-op — the chat, the API, the dashboard, the docs and the
newsletter are the whole gift. On their dashboard, a **Become a member**
button sits where members see the credit-pack option.

## When the gift ends

The gift ends when **the $5 is spent or the 60 days are up**, whichever comes
first, and your friend gets an email saying so. Access stops, but **the
account and its data are kept** — if they become members later, everything
picks up where it left off.

## Cancelling early

A guest can end their own gift at any time, with the **Cancel gift access**
link on their dashboard. Unspent credit returns to the co-op; the account and
its data are kept.

## From gift to membership

Becoming a member works the same for a guest as for anyone: contribute on
[Open Collective](https://opencollective.com/inference-cooperative/contribute)
and the account converts automatically — same login, same dashboard. Any
unspent gift credit carries over onto the member balance. See
[Become a member](getting-started.md#1-become-a-member) for how membership
works.