Commission rules

A commission rule decides what a sale earns. The model is worth thirty seconds before the first one: a sale is judged by the first active rule that applies, top to bottom. Inside a rule, the first matching branch sets the rate; if no branch matches, the rule's own fallback rate does. One rule can therefore hold a whole commission structure. A three-tier ladder that would be three separate rules elsewhere is one rule with three branches here, and the plan quota counts rules, not branches.

Creating a rule

Rules, then New rule. You pick a template first; each is a working rule you then adjust, and the branches it creates are ordinary branches you can edit.

The wizard then walks four steps.

General

Name, an internal description, who it applies to (every partner, one group, or one partner), and priority, which sits under "Advanced: priority and tie-breaks" and opens on its own from your second rule onwards. Lower priority runs first; new rules start at 100. When two rules tie on priority, a partner rule beats a group rule, which beats a program-wide one, so an individual deal wins without any configuration. You can also drag rules 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 rule 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 rules. It tells you how many commissions it would have produced and their total, which sales matched but earn nothing, which sales a higher-priority rule takes instead, and which partners are most affected. It is the difference between believing a rule and having watched it run.

Editing a rule

A change applies from the moment you save it, to everyone. The rate is read fresh on every payment, so the next renewal of a customer referred a year ago is priced by the rule as it stands today, not as it stood when that partner joined. The same is true of deactivating or deleting a rule: from then on, sales it used to price earn nothing.

Nothing already earned moves. A commission keeps the amount it was created with, forever, along with a record of the exact rule that priced it, so lowering a rate never claws anything back and never rewrites a partner's history.

That combination is deliberate, and it puts a duty on you. If you recruited partners on 20% and you want to keep them there while new partners join at 15%, do not rely on the old rate lingering. It will not. Make a second rule scoped to those partners or their group at 20% and give it a lower priority number so it wins, then set the program-wide rule to 15%. Both rates are then visible on the rules page, and you can retire the older one whenever you have told those partners.

Run Preview against recent sales before saving any rate change. It prices your draft against your last 90 days and shows which partners are most affected, which is the closest thing to seeing the change land before it lands.

Answering "why this commission?"

Every commission records which rule 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 rules; Grow and above are unlimited. Because one rule holds many branches, three rules go a long way: a full tiered structure, a launch bonus and a per-partner override fit in the quota. The rules page shows your usage next to New rule when you are near the cap.