Designing an IB and Affiliate Program That Partners Stay In

Start with what you can afford

CPA, revenue share and hybrid plans each suit a different partner. Revenue share rewards long-term partners with real audiences, CPA works for high-volume lead generators and hybrids sit in between. The common error is offering one plan to everyone instead of tiering by partner quality.

Work backwards from unit economics. Your blended partner cost per funded trader has to fit inside your CAC payback rule. A big headline commission that breaks payback isn't competitive, it is a slow wind-down. Write anti-abuse terms in from the start: minimum activity thresholds, clawbacks on churned accounts that were bonus-driven and a clear definition of a 'qualified' trader.

Give partners something to climb

Flat commission gets flat effort. Tiered rates, rising with volume and with sub-IB overrides for partners who recruit others, create a ladder that keeps strong partners ambitious. Publish the tiers. Nothing sours a growing partner like finding out rates were negotiable and they negotiated poorly.

Add benefits that aren't only financial: an account manager, early access to promotions, co-branded materials and priority support for their clients. Strong partners choose on overall value, which is much harder for a rival to undercut than a basis point.

Tracking and the portal decide how you are judged

IBs have been let down by lost cookies, misattributed clients and statements that don't reconcile. Your tracking has to be reliable, with client-level commission detail, real-time reporting and payout history they can audit themselves.

The partner portal is the shop window. If an IB can't see referred clients, follow earnings, download materials and request a payout without emailing you, you have a spreadsheet with a login page. Build it like a client-facing product, because for your best channel it is one.

Reliable payment matters most of all. IBs talk to each other constantly, and a late commission travels faster than any good news. Pay on a published schedule and treat a missed partner payment with the seriousness of a missed client withdrawal.

Recruit, enable and measure

Programs don't fill themselves. Productive ones actively recruit: finding successful IBs at competitors, attending the events where partners gather and, most effectively, turning your own profitable traders into IBs.

Then equip them with localized landing pages, honest marketing materials, market commentary to share and fast answers when their clients have problems. A referred trader waiting three days for support is a partner shopping for a new broker.

Run the program as a profit center: cost per funded trader by partner, 90-day retention of partner-referred clients compared with others, and concentration risk. If three IBs supply half your volume, that is key-person dependence dressed as diversification, so start building the next tier early.