How commissions are calculated

Every time a referred order is paid, the commission engine works out what each partner earns and books it straight away. This article explains the rules it follows, from the first payment to a possible refund.

Open Affiliates

Which orders earn a commission

An order earns a commission when all of these are true:

• The program is switched on with Affiliate program, which requires the Business plan.
• The payment has succeeded.
• A partner is attached to the order. That is either the partner whose referral link the buyer used, or the partner who brought this customer before. The first partner who refers a customer keeps them, so later orders without a link still count for that partner.
• The partner is active. Orders from an inactive partner's link fall back to the partner who brought the customer, if there is one.
• The product has Affiliate commissions switched on. You find the switch on the product's Affiliate tab. It is on for new products.

Subscription renewals are paid like any other order, so the partner earns on every renewal. How links and the attribution window work is covered in Affiliate links and tracking.

What the commission is based on

The commission is calculated on the order amount minus tax, shipping and anything already refunded. If those deductions take up the whole amount, no commission is created.

• A percentage is applied to that amount and rounded down to the smallest currency unit. 20 percent of 49.99 pays 9.99.
• A fixed amount is paid as it is, whatever the order value.

Commissions are always booked in the currency of the order.

Levels and the upline

In simple mode only the partner who brought the sale earns, at the rate in Commission per sale or at the product's own rate (see below).

In advanced mode the Levels page under Settings decides how far up the team tree a sale pays. Level 1 is the partner who brought the sale, level 2 is the partner who recruited them, and so on, up to 50 levels. Click New Level and choose a Commission type:

• Percent with a value from 0 to 100 under Commission percent (0-100).
• Fixed with an amount in cents under Commission amount (cents), for example 500 for 5.00.

Each level can only exist once. Inactive partners in the upline are skipped, and their level is simply not paid. The partners above them keep their own level and do not move up.

To pay a different rate for one product, open the product's Affiliate tab, switch on Commission per level and fill in the levels you want to change. Leave a level empty to pay its default rate.

If you move a partner to a new sponsor in the Team tree, the upline commissions on sales from the current calendar month are recalculated for the new structure. Older sales and commissions that were already paid out stay as they are.

Commission statuses

On the Commissions tab every commission shows one of four statuses:

• Pending: the commission was just created and is waiting out the Payout freeze period.
• Cleared: the freeze period has passed. This happens automatically every night.
• Paid out: the payout that contains the commission was marked as paid. Until then the commission stays Cleared, even after a payout run.
• Reversed: the order was refunded in full, or the commission went to another partner after a change in the Team tree or a reassignment of the order.

Only cleared commissions are paid out. The nightly run clears every commission older than the freeze period. To do that right away, use Lock pending now under Lock pending commissions in the settings, in simple mode behind Show advanced settings. It only clears commissions older than the Payout freeze period currently entered above it, so save a changed freeze period first. It needs the Manage Commissions and Conversions permission. Cleared commissions can still be reversed by a refund until they are paid out.

The commissions list

The Commissions tab lists one row per sale, newest first, with the Affiliate who brought it, the Commission (the total for all levels, with the rate or the number of commissions below it), the Order, the Status and the date under Created. If the commissions of a sale have different statuses, the row shows the earliest one. Click a partner's name to open their profile.

Filter the list by Status, by Type (the level that earned the commission), by amount, Currency, Order ID or date. Test commissions are hidden. The flask button Show test commissions adds them to the list and to the export, and a note reminds you that they are excluded from payouts and reports. Export CSV downloads the list with your current filters.

View commission, the eye button at the end of a row, opens the details:

• Calculation, for a sale with one commission, shows the Order value, the rate and the Payout amount. If the amount was adjusted after it was booked, Originally calculated and Adjustment show the first amount and the reason.
• Commissions, for a sale that paid several levels, lists each partner with their level, amount, rate and status.
• Attribution shows the partner, the Referral link the buyer used and the order.
• Timeline shows when the commission was created and, for a sale with one commission, when it was cleared, paid out or reversed.

Open order takes you to the order, if you may view payments.

Refunds and chargebacks

Refunds through Stripe or PayPal reduce commissions automatically:

• A partial refund reduces every commission on the order by the same share. If half the order is refunded, half of each commission is taken back.
• A full refund takes back the whole commission and marks it Reversed.
• A lost Stripe chargeback counts as a full refund. So does a Stripe payment that fails after the order was already booked as paid, such as a bank debit that never settles.

If the commission was already paid out, the amount taken back is deducted from the partner's next payout. See Affiliate payouts for details.

To see what the engine would pay before real orders come in, run a test in advanced mode, see Testing your commission plan.