Commission is the payment an affiliate earns for each agreed outcome they deliver.
Definition
Commission is the payment an affiliate earns for each agreed outcome they deliver. It takes one of three shapes: RevShare, a percentage of the net revenue the referred players generate, paid for as long as the deal runs; CPA, a fixed sum for each qualifying action such as a first-time deposit; or hybrid, a smaller fixed amount plus a smaller revenue share.
The commission model and rate are the headline terms of any affiliate deal, but they are only the starting point for working out what an affiliate will actually be paid.
Effective commission — the amount that reaches the affiliate's bank account per player or per click — is almost always lower than the headline. RevShare deals are reduced by negative carryover (a losing month carried forward against future earnings), by bundled operating costs the operator deducts before calculating "net", by administrative or platform fees, and by chargebacks and fraud clawbacks.
CPA deals are reduced by qualification failure (conversions that do not meet the minimum deposit or activity bar) and by clawbacks for players later flagged as abusers.
In context
Because of this gap, experienced affiliates compare deals on realised earnings, not advertised percentages. Two 40% RevShare offers can pay very differently: one with no negative carryover, transparent net-revenue calculation and a brand that retains players for a year; another with monthly carryover reset, opaque deductions and a brand whose players churn in six weeks.
The first might net an effective 34% of gross; the second, an effective 22%. The only reliable way to know is to run a test cohort and measure what actually arrives.
Commission terms also shape behaviour. A pure CPA deal encourages an affiliate to maximise qualifying conversions and move on, with no incentive to send players who retain.
A pure RevShare deal aligns the affiliate with long-term value but exposes them to variance and slow payment. Hybrid deals and preferred terms exist to balance these incentives, and the negotiation over which model applies is often more consequential than the negotiation over the number attached to it.
Worked example
An affiliate signs a 40% RevShare deal. Over the first year, admin fees take 3 points, a two-month losing streak carried forward costs another 3, and chargebacks 1, so the effective share is 33% of gross revenue.
Knowing this, the affiliate models new deals at roughly 0.8x the headline rate when deciding where to send traffic.
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