Honestly, six months ago I added a new tab to my Notion dashboard labeled "AI Affiliate Side Hustle." I was tired of guessing whether my content was actually making money, so I started logging every click, every signup, every commission payment down to the cent. What follows is everything — the wins, the duds, and the math I wish someone had shown me before I started. Quick context: I work a 9-to-5 as a backend developer, write a small dev blog on weekends, and run a barely-active newsletter. I'm not a guru. I'm a spreadsheet guy who treats side income like a side project. Why I Picked This Niche in the First Place Every dev I know is building something with AI right now. Slack channels are full of people wiring up LLM endpoints, building RAG pipelines, prototyping chatbots. So when I started looking at affiliate programs, AI APIs were an obvious fit — I was already writing about them for my own learning. I tested three programs before settling on Global API .…