Before real partners start selling, you can check what your commission plan would cost you. A test creates a demo team and demo sales, runs your real commission engine over them and shows what each level, each partner and each pool would pay. Your live partners, orders and commissions are not touched.
Before you start
The Testing tab sits under Affiliates > Settings and is only available in advanced mode, which you switch on with Program mode under General. In simple mode the page cannot be opened, not even by its link. You can open it with View Affiliates. Running and ending a test needs Manage Affiliate Settings.
The box Before you test checks your setup first:
- Your program has to be switched on under General. If it is off, the test cannot run.
- Your plan has to include the partner program. If it does not, the box says "Your current plan does not run a partner program. Upgrade to the Business plan before testing." and the test cannot run.
- Levels: you need at least one commission level. Without one, the test cannot run.
- Ranks and pools: the box lists how many ranks and revenue pools are simulated.
- Webhooks: your active webhooks are not called during the test.
While a check blocks the test, the Run test button stays disabled.
Picking a scenario
The box Scenario offers three starting points. Pick one, then adjust anything you like.
- Small team: "A handful of partners, flat structure, steady sales." 6 partners, 2 levels deep, 3 per partner, 30 orders over 30 days, sales spread evenly.
- Rank pressure: "Mid-sized team with uneven sales, to see who ranks up." 25 partners, 3 levels deep, 2 per partner, 150 orders over 90 days, most sales by a few partners.
- Deep downline: "A large network several levels deep, a few top sellers." 40 partners, 5 levels deep, 3 per partner, 200 orders over 90 days, most sales by a few partners and 5% refunds.
The depth of a starting point never goes deeper than your deepest level. As soon as your values differ from all three, the box shows Custom with "Your own settings."
Demo team and demo sales
In the box Demo team you set up the partners:
- Partners: from 2 to 50.
- Downline depth: from 1 to your deepest level. As the help text says, partners deeper than that earn nothing.
- Team width: how many partners each partner recruits, from Chain (1 per partner) to Wide (5 per partner).
- Sales distribution: Even spreads sales across all partners. Top-heavy (80/20) gives most sales to a few, which is closer to real teams and makes ranks meaningful.
In the box Demo sales you set up the orders. Values are net, before tax and shipping.
- Orders: from 5 to 250, in steps of 5.
- Period: Last 30 days, Last 90 days or Last 12 months. The orders are spread across this period.
- Lowest order value and Highest order value: each order gets a value between the two, 49.00 and 199.00 to begin with.
- Product: Generic demo product uses your level rates. Pick one of your products to see its real effect, because a product can use its own commission rate. Products marked (no commissions) pay nothing.
- Refund rate: from 0 to 30%. Refunded orders claw their commissions back.
Running the test
Click Run test in the header. The test takes a moment, then shows its result. Only one test runs at a time. If the test produces no commissions at all, it says so and asks you to check your levels.
Reading the result
The top shows the share of net revenue your partners earn, from level commissions and pools together, with a verdict:
- Healthy below 25%.
- Worth watching from 25% to 40%.
- Unsustainable above 40%.
Below it are five figures:
- Net revenue of the demo orders, before tax and shipping.
- Commission cost: what the levels pay, with the number of commissions.
- Pool cost: what your pools pay.
- Left after partners: net revenue minus both, before your own costs.
- Payable now: what could already be paid out, and to how many partners.
When your previous test used exactly the same scenario, Net revenue, Commission cost, Pool cost and Left after partners show the difference to it, in green when it is better for you and in red when it is worse.
Warnings follow, for example when your partners earn so much it is unlikely to be sustainable, when a deeper level costs more than the one above it, when every partner or no partner reached a rank, or when levels and pools add up to more than your revenue. If Payable now is zero, the warning explains that commissions only become payable a number of days after the sale. Rank thresholds are amounts of money, not points, which is a common reason why every partner reaches the top rank.
Three tables show the details:
- What each level costs: for each Level its Rate, the Partners paid, the Cost and the Share of revenue, after refund clawbacks.
- What each partner earns: each Affiliate, indented by their position in the team, with Own sales, Downline sales, Earned, the Rank they reached and the Next rank. The last column shows what is still missing for it, such as how much more own sales they need, or Top rank reached.
- Pool payouts: for each Pool what it Requires, its Share, the Pot, how many partners Qualified and the amount Per partner. Pools are funded from your total revenue for the period and split equally among qualified partners.
If you change your levels, ranks, pools or affiliate settings while a test is shown, a notice asks you to run it again to see current numbers.
What the test does not touch
The test runs in a separate, isolated sandbox. It sends no emails, calls no webhooks and creates no payouts. Your real partners, orders, commissions and payouts stay exactly as they are, and the demo data never shows up in your lists or figures.
Ending a test
A test stays visible until you end it or until it ends automatically one day after it ran. While it is active, a notice tells you when that happens.
To end it yourself, click End test in the header. The dialog End test? names how many demo partners, demo customers and demo orders it removes, together with every commission calculated from them. Confirm with End test. The result summary is kept, so your next test can be compared against it.
If a test fails, the page shows an error such as "The test could not be completed." and the demo data of that run is removed. You can then run a new one. If the demo data could not be removed completely, the page says "The demo data could not be removed completely. Your live data is untouched. Please try ending the test again." and the header shows End test again. If you leave it, the next automatic cleanup removes the rest.