Commission architecture and payout terms for partner programs

The most expensive line in an affiliate P&L is rarely the rate. It is the cookie window. On a program whose eightieth-percentile lag from click to order is four days, a thirty-day last-click window routes something close to a quarter of all commission to partners who arrived after the decision had already been made. We set the window from your own lag distribution first, then build everything else around it. How the rate ceiling gets derived: We start in your margin data, not in a competitor's rate card. Contribution margin by SKU or plan, refund rate by cohort, and the share of orders that are genuinely first-time customers. From that comes a ceiling: the rate above which a partner-sourced order is worth less to you than no order at all. Published rates sit below it with deliberate room to negotiate upward for named partners. In industrial programs the unit is a qualified quote rather than a click, so the same calculation runs on close rate and average order margin instead, and the number that matters is cost per quote that reaches a proposal. Partner classes, priced apart: A publisher who writes a comparison page that ranks and a browser extension that fires on your checkout page are doing different work. Paying both the same is the single reason most programs cannot demonstrate incrementality to a CFO. We define three to five classes with published rates, a first-time-customer uplift, and volume tiers that step on incremental orders rather than gross. In gaming we will write hybrid CPA and revenue share, and we will tell you plainly whether negative carryover belongs in your terms or is going to cost you every partner worth having. Clawback set from the refund curve: We plot when refunds and chargebacks actually land in your data, then set the locking period so commission clears after the curve flattens rather than at a number somebody picked. For education programs sold through Hotmart or Eduzz, the platform's guarantee window drives that date and the payout calendar has to follow it. Partners tolerate a longer lock they understand far better than a surprise reversal on money they have already spent. Paying partners in Brazil: PIX to a CPF or CNPJ settles same day and costs almost nothing, which changes what a sensible minimum threshold looks like. Individual affiliates need RPA handling and IRRF withholding; PJ partners issue a nota fiscal and your finance team needs to know that before the first invoice, not after. Cross-border payouts through Wise, Payoneer or Tipalti carry IOF and transfer fees, and the terms say who absorbs them. We write these into the participation terms rather than leaving them to be discovered at the first payout run. What you receive: A one-page rate card. Terms of participation in English and Portuguese. A payout runbook your finance team can execute without asking you. And the model behind the ceiling, so the next rate decision does not require us. What we will not write: Most-favoured-nation clauses. Unlimited unilateral rate changes. Forfeiture of accrued commission at termination. Terms permitting you to hold an earned balance past ninety days. Serious partners read these clauses, and they decline. Not for you if: Your rates are set by a network you cannot override, or the margin file is not available to us. Without it this is guesswork with a nicer document attached.