Multi-level affiliate tracking at the right depth: two levels

ViralPayouts tracks and pays two levels: the affiliate who made the sale, and the affiliate who recruited them. That is the depth that pays for growth without paying for a pyramid.

Every level past the second is paid out of the same sale, by someone further from the customer. It either raises your cost per sale or shrinks what your sellers earn, and it moves a program toward the multi-level structures that regulators and payment providers look at hard. Two levels gets you recruiters without any of that.

Levels paid
2
Paid for sign-ups
Never
Override on $100
$5
Monthly fee
$0

What every extra level does to one sale

An illustration on a $100 sale: the seller on 20%, and each upline paid 5% of the sale. A brand adding levels has two choices, and both hurt.

The same sale with more levels paid
Levels paidAdd 5% per level on top: cost per saleKeep a 25% budget: what the seller keeps
1$20$25
2 (ViralPayouts)$25$20
3$30$15
4$35$10
5$40$5

Left column: each level stacks onto your cost of every sale. Right column: hold the cost and the person who actually found the customer is paid less with each level, until selling is not worth their time. Two levels is where the recruiter is rewarded and the seller still earns properly. Your own rates will differ; the shape does not.

Why two levels and not more

General, well-known considerations. Not legal advice.

The money stays near the customer

On a $100 sale at 20% plus a 5% override, two levels already pay $25. A third level pays someone further from the customer, out of your margin or the seller's commission.

Recruiting is never the product

A recruiter is paid only on a recruit’s approved sales, never for signing someone up. Deep chains reward recruiting for its own sake, which is how multi-level marketing is usually described.

Deep chains draw scrutiny

Consumer regulators such as the US Federal Trade Commission look at whether a plan pays for recruiting rather than for sales to real customers, and payment providers commonly restrict pyramid-style and some multi-level businesses in their acceptable-use rules. A two-level program paid only on approved customer sales stays plainly on the affiliate side of that line.

Partners can check every cent

Each override is tied to one recruiter, the seller’s direct recruiter in the same program, and the ledger is checked for it. A partner can see who earned what on each sale. Nobody has to trust a chain they cannot see.

More in MLM versus two-tier and two-tier affiliate software.

Two levels against a deep multi-level plan

Two-level program against a deep multi-level plan
ViralPayouts: two levelsA plan three or more levels deep
Who is paid on a saleThe seller, and the person who recruited themThe seller and every upline in the chain
What you pay per saleCommission plus one override, plus 10% to 3% of payoutsCommission plus one payment per level
Paid for sign-upsNeverDepends on the plan
RefundsBoth levels and the fee reverse in proportionEvery level has to be clawed back
How it reads to partners and payment providersAn affiliate program with a recruiter bonusA multi-level compensation plan

Why brands choose ViralPayouts

Everything a recruiter structure should do, and nothing that turns it into a downline.

  • Two links per partner

    A customer link and a recruit link, kept apart, so a customer never becomes a recruit by accident. See sub-affiliate software.

  • Three ways to set the override

    A share of the commission, a share of the sale, or a fixed amount. A percentage can be 1% to 95%, and partner plus recruiter can never be more than the sale.

  • Both levels paid for you

    You fund the month; ViralPayouts sends the partner and the recruiter their money and keeps one ledger you can trace line by line.

  • You only pay when it works

    No monthly fee. 10% of what you pay partners, falling to 3% as the month's payouts reach $10,000. A refund takes the fee back too.

Questions brands ask before they switch

We want to reward people who build big teams.
They are rewarded. A recruiter earns an override on every partner they recruit directly, so someone who brings ten selling partners earns on all ten. What they do not earn on is people they never met.
What happens if a recruiter goes quiet?
Their override is simply not paid, and it is not passed up to anyone else. The brand keeps it. See tier compression.
Can we limit how long an override lasts?
Yes. A program can pay the override for a set number of days from when the partner was recruited, or for as long as the recruit stays active.
Is two levels enough to make recruiting worth it?
It is the structure most brands mean by a “two-tier” or “sub-affiliate” program. Try your own numbers on the split calculator.

Try it on test money first

Set your commission and recruiter override, see what each sale costs you, and run it on the test network before a real partner joins. No monthly fee.

Start a program See pricing

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