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Multi-level IB Management

Direct, level-based and offer-based structures

What actually goes wrong

Seven ways to lose a good partner

Almost never the rate. Almost always the arithmetic.

Partners do not leave because a competitor offered two dollars more per lot. They leave because the payment was late, or wrong, or arrived with no way of checking it — and because every time they asked, somebody had to go and work it out by hand from a report that took a day to produce.

The failures below are all versions of the same thing: a commercial relationship being run on a spreadsheet that only one person understands. What fixes it is not a better spreadsheet. It is the tree, the rules and the payout living in the same place the trading actually happened.

  1. 01

    The rebate run lived in one person’s spreadsheet.

    Commission is calculated from the trades as they close, against the plan the partner is actually on. The month’s figure is available on the second of the month because it was accruing all through the first, not because somebody spent two days building it.

  2. 02

    A partner claimed a client the system could not confirm.

    The introducing partner is written onto the lead when it arrives through their link and stays on the client through every stage. Attribution is read off the tree rather than argued from a claim, and a disputed introduction has a dated answer rather than two recollections.

  3. 03

    Sub-partners were handled by paying the top one more.

    Real multi-level structures: a partner introduces partners, who introduce clients, and each level earns on its own terms. Direct, level-based and offer-based plans can run side by side, because the master IB who built a network should not be on the same arrangement as the affiliate who sends traffic.

  4. 04

    One rate covered every instrument.

    Plans vary by symbol group, account type, platform and volume band, so metals and majors do not have to pay the same, and a partner whose clients trade the products you actually want can be paid for it without renegotiating everything else.

  5. 05

    Partners had to email to find out where they stood.

    The partner portal shows their tree, their clients’ activity, what has accrued this month and what has been paid, in their own branding on your domain. Most of what a partnerships desk answers by mail is a question the partner could have answered themselves.

  6. 06

    Payout day meant forty manual transfers.

    Accrued commission becomes a payable that runs through the same approval tiers and checks a client withdrawal does, released as a batch rather than keyed in one at a time on the last Friday of the month by whoever is still in the office.

  7. 07

    Nobody could say which partner was actually worth it.

    Cost per acquisition, client retention, deposit volume and net revenue by partner, read from the same records the desk works in. The partner who sends many clients who never fund stops looking like the partner who sends few clients who stay.

What is in it

The tree, the plan, the portal, and the payment

Four pieces. A partner programme that is missing any one of them is being run on trust.

  1. Part one

    The tree

    Who introduced whom, to any depth, with the attribution written at the moment of introduction rather than reconstructed later. Moving a client or a sub-partner is a recorded action with a reason on it, because in a commission structure an unexplained move is the beginning of a dispute.

    • Unlimited levels of sub-partner
    • Attribution captured on the referral link
    • Partner ID held through the lead lifecycle
    • Client and sub-partner reassignment with a trail
    • Master IB and regional structures
    • Tree visible to the partner and to you
    • Historic tree state retained
  2. Part two

    Commission plans

    The commercial terms, expressed precisely enough that nobody has to interpret them at month end. Plans attach to a partner, a level or an offer, and more than one can apply as long as the order of precedence is explicit — which it is.

    • Per lot, per trade and spread share
    • Revenue share and CPA
    • Rates by symbol group and account type
    • Volume bands and tiered rates
    • Level-based and offer-based plans
    • Platform-specific terms
    • Effective dates on every change
  3. Part three

    The partner portal

    Your brand, your domain, their numbers. A partner who can see their own tree and their own accrual stops asking a person for it, which is most of the partnerships desk’s inbox and all of the friction in the relationship.

    • Live tree and client activity
    • Accrued and paid commission
    • Referral links and campaign tracking
    • Marketing assets and banners
    • Sub-partner registration
    • Payout history and statements
    • White-labelled on your domain
  4. Part four

    Payouts

    Accrual becomes a payable, a payable runs through the same controls client money does, and the partner sees the result without asking. Clawback and negative carry are handled rather than quietly ignored until they become an awkward conversation.

    • Scheduled or on-demand runs
    • Batch payouts through the same approval tiers
    • Minimum payout thresholds
    • Clawback on chargebacks and reversals
    • Withholding and fee deductions
    • Statements per partner and per level
    • Full trail on every adjustment

Who signs in

One tree, six points of view

Including the partners themselves, which is the one most programmes forget to design for.

  • Partners. Their own tree, their clients’ activity, what has accrued and what has been paid — in your branding, on your domain, without a single mail to a person.
  • Sub-partners. The same portal, scoped to their own branch. They see what they earned and nothing about the level above them, which is usually a commercial requirement rather than a nicety.
  • The partnerships desk. The whole tree, the plans behind it, and what each partner is owed this month, without a spreadsheet standing between the relationship and the number.
  • Finance. Payables arriving through the same approval machinery as client money, with clawback and thresholds applied before anything is released.
  • Sales. Which of their clients came from a partner and on what terms, so a rebate is never quietly competed with by a discount nobody costed.
  • Compliance and management. Who was paid, for what, on which plan and approved by whom — plus which partners are actually worth their cost.

Partners rarely leave over the rate. They leave over a payment nobody could explain.

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Questions about the module

Before you move your partners across

What a partnerships desk wants settled before the network changes systems.

  • As deep as your programme needs. A partner introduces partners, who introduce partners, who introduce clients, and each level earns on its own terms rather than on a share of the level above. Direct, level-based and offer-based plans can run alongside each other, which matters because a master IB who has built a regional network and an affiliate who buys search traffic are not the same commercial relationship and should not be forced onto the same plan.

  • They can, and in practice they should. A plan sets rates by symbol group, account type, platform and volume band, so metals and majors need not pay alike and an ECN account need not pay what a standard one does. Rates can be per lot, per trade, a spread share, revenue share or CPA, and tiered so a partner moves up a band as volume grows. Every change to a plan carries an effective date, which is what stops a renegotiation in June quietly repricing everything that happened in March.

  • By the rule you set, applied at the moment of introduction and written onto the record then rather than worked out afterwards. The partner ID arrives on the referral link, travels with the lead through every stage and stays on the client after conversion. If a client later has to be moved between partners, that is a recorded action with a reason and a date on it — because in a commission structure an unexplained reassignment is where disputes start, and the record of who moved it is usually what ends them.

  • Their tree, their clients’ trading activity, what has accrued this month, what has been paid and when, their referral links and campaign performance, and the marketing assets you have made available. All of it in your branding, on your domain, with our mark nowhere a partner can see it. Sub-partners get the same portal scoped to their own branch, so they see what they earned without seeing the terms of the level above them — which is usually a contractual requirement rather than a preference.

  • Clawback, and it is handled rather than left to an awkward conversation. A reversal, chargeback or cancelled trade reverses the commission it generated, and the adjustment appears on the partner’s statement with its reason attached rather than as an unexplained shortfall in the next run. Where the clawback exceeds what is currently accruing, the negative carries forward against future earnings on the terms your agreement specifies. The partner can see all of it in the portal, which is the difference between a deduction and an argument.

  • Yes, with the tree intact. Partners, sub-partners, the clients attached to each and the plans they are on come across together, along with the accrual position so nobody is paid twice or missed in the month of the move. Historic payout statements migrate alongside, which matters more than it sounds: a partner whose statement history disappears on the day you change systems will assume the worst, and asking them to trust a new number with no past to check it against is the fastest way to lose the ones you most want to keep.