Revshare Tier Ladders: Counting Rules, Boundaries and Cliffs

A tiered revenue-share ladder looks like a rate card: so many players, so many percent. It is really a set of counting rules, and the rules decide more of your income than the top rate does. Eight programs in the program directory publish a ladder. Read side by side, they disagree on what is counted, on which step a boundary number belongs to, and, in one case, on whether the rate covers the whole month or only the revenue above a threshold. None of that shows in a headline like "up to 45%".

This guide takes the four questions every ladder has to answer, applies them to the published ladders, and works out what each answer is worth in an ordinary month.

What the ladder counts

Seven of the eight ladders count players, and they use different words for the player they count:

• New customers: 10bet Partners and PlayMillion Partners.
• First-time depositors: SmartPlay Partners, Duelbits Partners (clause 7.1 of its terms counts monthly FTDs) and Oshi Affiliates.
• New depositing players per month: Metal Casino Affiliates.
• First depositors: 7StarsPartners, with one ladder for casino and a second one for sportsbook.

The eighth, Galaxy Affiliates, counts money instead. After an introductory 50% for the first three months, its rate is set by net revenue a month, in pounds, with steps at GBP 5,000 and GBP 15,000.

The noun matters because a new customer and a first-time depositor are not automatically the same person. A registration that never deposits is a new customer under some definitions and nothing at all under others. If the ladder counts registrations, a page that brings sign-ups without deposits still pushes you up the steps; if it counts depositors, it does not. The definition sits in the agreement, usually in the opening section, and it is worth reading before you estimate which step you will reach. The glossary entry for FTD gives the standard meaning; the contract's own definition is the one that pays.

The period matters as much as the noun. 10bet, PlayMillion, Duelbits, Oshi and Metal all state a monthly count. SmartPlay's and 7StarsPartners' published ladders do not name a period. A monthly count restarts at zero on the first of every month, and that has consequences covered further down.

Boundary numbers that sit in two steps

A ladder is only unambiguous if every possible count lands on exactly one step. Three of the eight are written that way:

• 10bet Partners: up to 5 new customers at 10%, 6 to 20 at 20%, 21 to 40 at 30%, 41 and more at 35%.
• PlayMillion Partners: 0-5 at 20%, 6-10 at 25%, 11-25 at 30%, 26-50 at 35%, 51 and more at 40%.
• Duelbits Partners: 1-5 at 20%, 6-15 at 25%, 16-30 at 30%, 31-50 at 35%, 51 and more at 40%.

The other five name at least one boundary figure in two adjacent steps:

• SmartPlay Partners: 21-50 first-time depositors at 40% and 50+ at 45%. A month of exactly 50 fits both.
• Oshi Affiliates: 30% at ten FTDs or fewer, 35% between 10 and 20, 40% between 20 and 40, 45% between 40 and 60, 50% at 60 or more. The figures 10, 20, 40 and 60 each fit two steps.
• 7StarsPartners: casino 45% for 0 to 15 first depositors and 50% for 15 to 25; sportsbook 32% for 5 to 10 and 34% for 10 to 25.
• Metal Casino Affiliates: Gold at 51-100 new depositing players a month and Platinum at 100+.
• Galaxy Affiliates: 35% up to GBP 5,000, 40% from GBP 5,000 to GBP 15,000, 50% at GBP 15,000 or more.

How the statement software reads a boundary is a setting somebody chose, and the published text does not tell you which way they chose. The difference is not small. At SmartPlay, a month of exactly 50 first-time depositors producing EUR 9,000 of net revenue pays EUR 3,600 at 40% or EUR 4,050 at 45%. EUR 450 rests on how a hyphen and a plus sign are read.

Duelbits has the opposite gap. Its first step starts at one FTD, so a month with no new depositors, but with revenue from players referred earlier, has no step on the ladder as published. Ask what rate applies in that month before you have one.

Whole month, or only the revenue above the threshold

A player-count ladder, as published, applies one rate to the month. Oshi's terms say it directly: 30% "of NGR" when the month's FTD count is ten or below. 10bet's terms give a worked case: "If you refer 15 New Customers in one calendar month, you'll generate commission of 20% of their net revenue for that calendar month." One question is still worth putting to the manager in writing: whether that rate applies to the revenue of the players counted that month, or to every player on the account. On an account a year old, players referred in earlier months can produce most of the revenue, so the answer moves most of the money.

A revenue ladder raises a sharper version of the same question. Galaxy's bands can be read two ways:

• Whole-band: the month's net revenue decides the band, and that band's rate applies to all of it.
• Marginal: each slice of revenue is paid at its own band's rate, the way income tax brackets work.

Galaxy's published commission block gives the bands and not the method. Here is what each reading pays after the introductory three months:

Under the whole-band reading, the last GBP 100 between 14,900 and 15,000 is worth GBP 1,540 of commission. Under the marginal reading it is worth GBP 40. A month that lands just under a step pays far less than a month that lands just over it, by much more than the revenue difference, and one player's win or loss in the last days of the month decides which side you land on. Get the method in writing before you model anything, then run each band you might reach through the commission calculator as a separate case.

The cliff: what the player who crosses a step is worth

On a whole-month ladder, the depositor who moves you up a step is worth far more than their own play. Take PlayMillion's ladder and an illustrative month: 25 new customers and EUR 5,000 of net revenue across the account. At the 11-25 step that pays 30%, which is EUR 1,500.

Now add one more new customer who produces EUR 60 of net revenue in the month. The count is 26, the step is 35%, and the month pays 35% of EUR 5,060, which is EUR 1,771. The 26th customer added EUR 271 of commission. Their own play, at the new rate, accounts for EUR 21 of it. The other EUR 250 is the step: five extra points on the EUR 5,000 that was already there.

The same arithmetic runs in reverse. If two of those 26 are later removed as duplicate accounts, the month drops back to 30%, and most of the reduction comes from the step rather than from the two players removed. That is why an audit of a statement starts with the count, not with the rate.

The step is worth more when the account is older

The value of a step is the rate difference times the revenue it applies to. If the rate covers every player on the account, then on a three-month-old account with EUR 800 of monthly net revenue, PlayMillion's 30-to-35% step is worth EUR 40. On an account two years old with EUR 12,000 a month, the same step is worth EUR 600. A ladder that counts only this month's new players, applied to revenue from every player you have ever referred, rewards a mature site for acquisition far more than it rewards a new one. A new site should model the bottom two steps and treat anything above them as a later problem.

Calendar resets, and whether timing helps

A monthly count restarts on the first. Whether it pays to concentrate acquisition into one month depends entirely on where the steps sit. Take 10bet's ladder and an account with a steady EUR 3,000 of net revenue a month, and assume the rate applies to the whole account:

• 20 new customers in each of two months: 20% twice, EUR 600 + EUR 600 = EUR 1,200.
• 40 in the first month, none in the second: 30%, then 10%, EUR 900 + EUR 300 = EUR 1,200.
• 41 in the first month, none in the second: 35%, then 10%, EUR 1,050 + EUR 300 = EUR 1,350.
• 21 in each month: 30% twice, EUR 900 + EUR 900 = EUR 1,800.

Forty-two customers spread evenly pay EUR 450 more than forty-one bunched into one month. The lesson is neither "bunch" nor "spread". It is that the steps decide, not the total. Most of what an affiliate controls does not move between months anyway: search traffic arrives when it arrives. What can move is a newsletter send, the start date of a campaign, or the publication of a page tied to a fixture, and those are the levers worth planning against a ladder.

Questions to settle in writing before the first month closes

• What exactly is counted: a registration, a first deposit, or a first deposit above a minimum?
• Over what period, and does the count reset each calendar month?
• Which step does each boundary figure belong to?
• Does the rate apply to revenue from every player on the account, or only from the players counted that month?
• For a revenue ladder: whole-band or marginal?
• What rate applies in a month when nothing is counted?
• Where does the ladder live? The 7StarsPartners agreement defines its revenue-share commission as a percentage "as detailed on" a page of its website, so the ladder is whatever that page says. Keep a dated copy of the page you joined under.

Common questions

Is a higher top rate a better ladder?

Only if you reach the top step. The comparison in iGaming affiliate programs 2026, compared runs one month through four ladders and finds a 75% spread in pay for the same twenty depositors, decided by which step twenty lands on. Model the step you will actually reach in your first six months, not the one in the banner.

Is a flat rate easier to work with?

Yes. A flat rate has no cliffs and no boundary questions, so the statement is a single multiplication. 2RBO publishes a 35% default. A flat rate can still move, though: Cloudbet Affiliates' 25% default drops to 10% after three months without a new depositor, which is a ladder with one step pointing down.

Can a manager move me up a step without the count?

Sometimes, and the ask is easier with a monthly report in hand. Metal Casino Affiliates lists "Custom deals" on its Platinum tier, and 7StarsPartners keeps a VIP casino step at 60% on "Unique Conditions". Both say plainly that the top of the ladder is negotiated. How to make that ask is covered in working with your affiliate manager.

What we would do this week

1. Write down, for each program you send traffic to, what its ladder counts and over what period. Where the agreement does not answer it, send the question in writing.
2. Take last month's count and revenue for your largest program, find the step you landed on, and work out what one more and one fewer counted player would have paid.
3. If a program pays on revenue bands, ask whether the rate is whole-band or marginal, and file the answer with your copy of the terms.
4. Save a dated copy of every program page that carries a ladder, so a later change is something you can show rather than something you remember.