Commission flows
Multi-branch commission rules: how flows are judged, the six templates, conditions, priority, approval, and the preview.
A flow decides what a sale earns. The model is worth thirty seconds before the first one: a sale is judged by the first active flow that applies, top to bottom. Inside a flow, the first matching branch sets the rate; if no branch matches, the flow's own fallback rate does. One flow can therefore hold a whole commission structure. A three-tier ladder that would be three separate rules elsewhere is one flow with three branches here, and the plan quota counts flows, not rules.
Creating a flow
Flows, then New flow. You pick a template first; each is a working flow you then adjust, and the branches it creates are ordinary branches you can edit.
| Template | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| One-time | Pay on a customer's first payment only | 30% of the first payment, nothing on renewals |
| Recurring | Pay on every payment for as long as the customer stays | 20% of every payment, for life |
| Monthly vs yearly | A different rate for monthly and yearly plans | 20% on monthly, 15% on yearly |
| Time-based decay | A rate that steps down the longer a customer has been around | 30% in year one, 20% in year two, 10% after that |
| Tiered by customers | A higher rate for partners who have referred more customers | 20% up to 4, 30% from 5 to 19, 40% from 20 |
| Time-limited | Pay for the first N months after conversion, then stop | 25% for the first 12 months, then nothing |
The wizard then walks four steps.
General
Name, an internal description, who it applies to (every partner, one group, or one partner), and priority. Lower priority runs first; new flows start at 100. When two flows tie on priority, a partner flow beats a group flow, which beats a program-wide one, so an individual deal wins without any configuration. You can also drag flows into order on the list page.
Trigger
- New payment: a referred customer pays. First purchases and every renewal.
- New signup: a referred customer signs up, before any payment. Use it with a fixed amount to reward leads.
"One-time" is not a separate trigger: the template builds it as a branch on First payment is true with a fallback rate of zero.
Action
The flow pays a commission, and this step sets the fallback rate: a percentage or a fixed amount, used when no branch matches. Set it to zero to pay nothing outside the branches; a rate of zero books no commission row at all.
This step also sets approval: Approve automatically (approved on the sale, payable after the holding period like every commission) or Approve by hand (waits in the commissions queue until someone decides).
Branches
Branches are checked top to bottom, and the first branch whose conditions match sets the rate. Ranges include both ends: "5 to 19 customers" pays on 5 and on 19.
A condition is built from groups of all of these (and), any of these (or) and none of these, nestable, over fields in three families:
- Payment: amount, currency, billing type, billing interval, product id, product name, first payment, payment number, coupon code, tracked by
- Customer: months since conversion, customer status, customer country
- Partner: partner, partner group, referred customers, partner tags
with operators from is and is one of through between (inclusive), contains and starts with. Durations count whole months since conversion, and N means N; the editor shows the last qualifying date so there is never a surprise about where a boundary falls.
The preview
Before saving, Preview against recent sales runs your unsaved draft through the real pricing engine against your last 90 days of sales, alongside your existing flows. It tells you how many commissions it would have produced and their total, which sales matched but earn nothing, which sales a higher-priority flow takes instead, and which partners are most affected. It is the difference between believing a rule and having watched it run.
Answering "why this commission?"
Every commission records which flow and which branch priced it, and its page shows the trace. When a partner disputes an amount, the answer is a link, not an investigation.
Plan limits
The Launch plan includes 3 flows; Grow and above are unlimited. Because one flow holds many branches, three flows go a long way: a full tiered structure, a launch bonus and a per-partner override fit in the quota. The flows page shows your usage next to New flow when you are near the cap.