Fees and commission

The platform operator’s cut of a sale is called commission.

This page is for anyone who has to explain a figure on a billing row to someone else. Commission is configured by the platform administrator; an organization’s own employees see its effect on each billing row and in their settlement report.

One thing, two names

Most of the interface calls it commission; a few screens and reports say fee.

They are one concept and one number. This documentation says commission throughout, and names the other only when pointing at a screen or a report that uses it.

How a commission is expressed

A commission is a percentage, and it is entered as a decimal fraction.

A commission of twenty percent is entered as 0.2.

Alongside the fraction, one of the four configuration levels also carries an optional minimum: an absolute amount below which the commission on a single sale is not allowed to fall. When the computed commission comes out under the minimum, the minimum replaces it.

What it is applied to

Commission is applied in one of two directions, depending on whether a price is being quoted or a sale is being settled.

Taken out of a winning bid. A bid is a gross, commission-inclusive amount. The operator’s share is the bid divided by one plus the commission, and the commission is what is left:

commission rate  = 0.2
winning bid      = 120.00
operator's share = 120.00 / 1.2 = 100.00
commission       =  120.00 - 100.00 = 20.00

Added on top of a quoted price. When a price is being offered — a floor price sent to demand partners, a price from the automated guaranteed price list, a programmatic guaranteed campaign’s price list — the operator’s price is what the operator wants, and the commission goes above it:

commission rate  = 0.2
operator's price = 100.00
quoted price     = 100.00 + (100.00 x 0.2) = 120.00

The two are consistent: a bid of 120.00 against a quoted price built this way returns the operator its 100.00. Where a minimum applies and the computed amount falls below it, the minimum is used when a sale is settled and when a booked price is quoted, but not in the floor price sent to demand partners in real-time bidding, which adds the rate alone.

All amounts are in the deployment’s single currency — see Deployment model.

Per deal type

Every level of configuration holds four commission values, one per deal type, so the platform can take a different cut on auction traffic than on booked business.

Deal type Applies to

Real-time bidding

Ordinary auction traffic.

Programmatic guaranteed

Programmatic guaranteed campaigns.

Automated guaranteed

Automated guaranteed campaigns.

Private deal

Private deals.

The order the settings are consulted

When a commission is needed, four levels are tried in order and the first one that has a value wins. That level alone decides.

  1. The organization’s exception for one demand partner. Where the organization has set one.

  2. The face. The inventory tariff attached to that face, where one exists. This is the only level that carries a minimum; at the other three the minimum is zero.

  3. The organization. The organization’s own commission.

  4. The platform default.

If no level has a value for that deal type, the commission is zero, the sale is settled with no cut for the platform and the operator sees the whole bid.

Traffic arriving from an exchange

Where an organization’s inventory is supplied through a connected exchange rather than sold directly, a parallel chain of the same shape is used: the organization’s settings for that exchange, then the face, then the exchange’s own protocol settings, then the platform default for exchange traffic.

Because inventory drawn through an exchange is always traded as real-time bidding, only the real-time bidding rate applies to it; the other three deal types play no part in exchange traffic.

When the commission is fixed

The four levels are consulted at different moments for different sales models, and this is what decides whether a later change to the setting affects business already agreed.

Sales model Commission resolved

Real-time bidding

At the moment the winning bid is recorded, for that demand partner, that face and that deal type. A change to the setting affects everything sold after it.

Programmatic guaranteed campaign

When the campaign’s prices are quoted, and then frozen onto the campaign. A later change to the setting does not alter a campaign already booked.

Automated guaranteed campaign

When the campaign is booked or re-agreed, and then frozen onto the campaign’s booking lines.

CoT

Not used. CoT deliveries are charged at the flat price on the organization tariff instead — see What gets billed.

Private deal

At the moment the delivery is recorded.

The organization tariff, and the zero rule

Every organization also has an organization tariff: a single set of commercial terms holding one commission fraction, one minimum, the organization’s minimum floor price, and the flat CoT price.

The tariff commission gates live trading. Before any bid opportunity is offered for a face, the platform checks the tariff commission for that face — the face’s inventory tariff if it has one, otherwise the organization tariff — and if that fraction is zero or below, the request is rejected and no demand partner is asked. This check uses the tariff commission whatever the other three levels hold.

A newly created organization’s commission starts at zero, so raising the organization tariff above zero is part of bringing a new organization live — see Getting started. Only the platform administrator can raise it. Inventory supplied through an exchange is not subject to this check.

See Bid floors for the minimum floor price.

Where commission shows up

  • On each row of the billing list, next to the bid and the operator’s share.

  • As an increase in the amount the organization owes the platform, on the Balance tab.

  • As a column in the monthly settlement report, per campaign and per face.

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