Maclear Bonuses Explained: €15 Welcome, €30 per €500 and What They Really Pay

If you search for the Maclear bonus, you will find a lot of pages that still say “€30 welcome bonus”. That is not what the platform’s own terms say in 2026. Maclear currently runs five euro-denominated bonus programmes plus a token track, they stack, and the headline numbers are real - but three of the six do not pay out as cash, and the platform’s own 2024 accounts show that the whole bonus machine was funded at a loss. This guide goes through each programme with the exact conditions from Maclear’s own FAQ (updated 3 August 2026), the crediting mechanics, and the caveats we think an investor should price in. Reading time: about 8 minutes.

TL;DR

• The welcome bonus is €15, not €30: it requires a first investment of €50 or more within 7 days of registration, and it is credited as a separate bonus investment in the same project, not as withdrawable cash [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026].
• The €30 per €500 promotion is a different programme: €30 for every €500 invested in native projects, capped at €300 per project, also paid as a bonus position that follows the project’s repayment schedule.
• The 3+3 referral (3% to inviter, 3% to the invited investor, on primary-market investments within 90 days) and the 3% cashback for new investors are the two programmes that pay actual cash to your account balance.
• The loyalty bonus adds +1.5% to +3% per year to your interest rate from a €5,000 active portfolio upwards; on top sits a weekly 8LNDS token track that vests over 10 months.
• Who pays for this: Maclear’s own unaudited FY2024 report shows CHF 297,583 of bonuses, roughly 36% of everything paid to investors that year, against a net loss of CHF 122,941. Generous is not the same as free - we explain what that means below.

The six bonus tracks at a glance

Maclear’s FAQ lists five euro programmes and one token programme, all of which can be active at the same time [source: Maclear FAQ “Maclear bonus programs overview”, 03.08.2026]:

The rest of this guide takes them in order of how most readers meet them: as a new investor, then as a growing portfolio.

The €15 welcome bonus: smaller than advertised elsewhere, and not cash

The conditions are simple: register, pass verification, and make a first investment of at least €50 within 7 days. The €15 arrives as a separate line in My Investments, marked as a BONUS position in the same project you invested in [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026]. That has two practical consequences. First, you cannot withdraw it on day one - it repays according to the project’s schedule, like any other investment, with interest. Second, bonus positions are excluded from Maclear’s secondary market under the rules the platform published in June 2026, so there is no early exit for that slice [source: Maclear blog, 24.06.2026].

Is €15 worth planning around? At the €50 minimum it is a 30% boost, which is unusually strong for the industry. At a more typical first deposit of €500 it is 3%. Our honest read: it is a pleasant rounding error, not a reason to choose a platform. The reasons to choose or avoid Maclear are its 14.5-14.9% realised yields, its collateral model and its Swiss SRO supervision with all the limits that entails - we cover those in our safety analysis and the yields explainer.

€30 per €500: the biggest number, with a cap

This is the programme most often confused with the welcome bonus. It applies to all investors, not just new ones: every €500 invested in a native Maclear project adds a €30 bonus, cumulative, capped at €300 per project [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026]. Invest €5,000 in one project and you reach the cap; €2,500 earns €150. Like the welcome bonus, it is credited as a separate bonus investment in the same project the moment your investment enters Reserved status, and it pays out with the project’s repayment schedule.

Run the arithmetic and the effect is material: €30 per €500 is 6% of the invested amount, on top of a coupon in the 13-15% range. That is also exactly why we tell readers to treat it with some suspicion rather than excitement, which brings us to the accounts section below.

Cashback and referral: the two that pay actual cash

The 3% cashback for newly registered investors and the 3+3 referral programme are the two tracks that credit withdrawable cash to your account balance, once the relevant project reaches Funded status [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026]. The referral maths: you invite a friend, the friend invests €10,000 on the primary market within 90 days, and each of you receives €300.

Maclear itself explains the economics openly: paying investors who bring funded outcomes is cheaper than paying ad networks, and it puts its own referral rates well above the market - the platform’s FAQ compares PeerBerry, Crowdpear and Nectaro at 0.5%-1% in similar windows [source: Maclear FAQ, referral economics article]. That matches what the platform reportedly told partners about customer-acquisition costs of €2,000-5,000 per investor through Google ads [source: Maclear-full §9]. One note of caution: an earlier version of the referral FAQ restricted the public invite-a-friend programme to Switzerland residents [source: Maclear-full §15]. The current overview page does not repeat that restriction, and we could not confirm it either way - check the live terms on the referral page before you count on it.

Loyalty bonus: the only track that changes your rate

From €5,000 of active portfolio, Maclear adds a loyalty premium to the interest rate on all investments, paid monthly together with interest [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026; Maclear-full §15]:

For larger portfolios this is the track that matters most, because it compounds across every project rather than arriving once. An Alpha Plus investor on a 14% project is earning 17% before defaults and taxes. If that number sounds high, it should: we walked through the drags that bring headline rates down to a realistic net figure in Maclear Yields Explained, and they apply to the loyalty-boosted rate too.

The 8LNDS token track: optional, and read the small print

In parallel with the euro programmes, investments and referrals accumulate bonus points that convert into 8LNDS tokens (the token of the affiliated 8lends ecosystem) every Saturday. The rate is 1%-5% of the investment depending on loyalty level, tokens vest over 10 months at 2.5% per week, and they can be sold for USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, through the platform [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026]. Two things to know: the programme requires one-time activation in the Bonuses section, otherwise points simply do not accumulate; and a token vesting over 10 months is a promise about the future of an affiliated crypto ecosystem, not money. We treat the euro programmes as the real bonus and the token track as a lottery ticket.

Who pays for all this? The FY2024 answer

Here is the part a bonus page will not tell you. Maclear’s own unaudited FY2024 report, published on 3 June 2026, shows investors received CHF 827,849 during the year while borrower interest received was CHF 464,322. Bonuses accounted for CHF 297,583 - roughly 36% of everything paid out to investors - and the gap was covered from the company’s revenue of CHF 758,222, with the year ending in a net loss of CHF 122,941 [source: Maclear FY2024 report via Maclear-full §7; our analysis in P2P Lending Fees Explained].

We stated it in the fees guide and it holds here: this is a trade, not an accusation. Maclear has chosen to spend its marketing budget on investors instead of advertising, and as an investor you are on the receiving end of that choice. But a bonus machine funded by a loss is sustainable only while shareholders keep funding it, and our dossier flags the aggressive bonus stacking as one of Maclear’s open risk signals precisely because nobody outside the company can check whether acquisition cost stays below customer lifetime value [source: Maclear-full §18]. Take the bonuses - and size your total Maclear allocation on the platform’s fundamentals, not on the sweeteners.

📊 CrowdIndex highlight: Maclear ranks #3 of the 44 European platforms we track (8.4/10): realised yields of 14.5-14.9%, the highest in our coverage, roughly €99.6 million funded, about 0.15% defaults, collateral plus a 2% provision fund, and the industry’s most stackable bonus programme - €15 welcome, €30 per €500, 3% cashback and loyalty up to +3%. Read the platform card → | Visit Maclear and claim the bonuses →

FAQ

Is the Maclear welcome bonus €15 or €30?

The welcome bonus is €15, for a first investment of €50 or more within 7 days of registration. The €30 figure belongs to a different, ongoing programme: €30 for every €500 invested in native projects, capped at €300 per project. Both are credited as bonus positions inside the project rather than as withdrawable cash, and both can be active at the same time [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026].

Can I withdraw Maclear bonuses immediately?

Only the referral and cashback bonuses arrive as cash on your account balance, once the project reaches Funded status, and those can be withdrawn or reinvested at any time. The €15 welcome and €30 per €500 bonuses are separate investments that repay on the project’s schedule, and bonus positions are excluded from the secondary market, so there is no early exit for them.

Do Maclear bonuses stack?

Yes. All five euro programmes plus the token track operate independently and can run simultaneously. An Alpha Plus loyalty investor who was referred by a friend and invests €500 in a native project can collect the rate addition, the referral cashback and the €30 per €500 bonus on the same investment [source: Maclear FAQ, 03.08.2026].

How does the loyalty bonus work?

From €5,000 of active portfolio the interest rate on all your investments rises: +1.5% (Beta, over €5,000), +2.0% (Beta Plus, over €15,000), +2.5% (Alpha, over €40,000), +3.0% (Alpha Plus, over €75,000). It is paid monthly together with your regular interest, and it is the only bonus track that changes your rate rather than paying a one-off amount.

Are generous bonuses a red flag?

They are a signal to examine, not a reason to run. Maclear’s FY2024 accounts show the bonuses were funded at a net loss, which the company frames as marketing spend redirected from ad networks to investors. That is plausible and the terms are real, but it depends on shareholders continuing to fund growth. Our advice: collect the bonuses if you invest anyway, and never increase your allocation because of them.

What to read next

• P2P Lending Fees Explained - the other side of the ledger: what platforms charge, and the FY2024 worked example behind our “bonuses funded by a loss” reading.
• Maclear Yields Explained - how 14.9% APR becomes a realistic net return, which matters more than any bonus.
• Is Maclear Safe - the safety analysis: what Swiss SRO supervision covers and what it does not.
• Maclear Strategy 1k 10k 50k - portfolio plans where the loyalty tiers actually change the maths.