Unilevel, or "linear" plan, is characterized by simplicity and is best suited for online affiliate programs when you want participants to be able to understand the marketing plan very simply and quickly.
Usually this plan is positioned as a "fair" distribution, because the distribution of percentages from sales is as transparent as possible.
However, it is not a "leadership" marketing plan, it motivates entry-level and mid-level participants, but not leadership, because it does not reward from the full depth of the structure.
The principle of this marketing plan is very simple: each generation of the personal invitation structure pays a percentage of the turnover of that generation. Usually counts on a monthly basis.
Recommended for startups and companies focused on a network of consumers.
| You can change the parameters and numbers (highlighted in red) according to your business concept |
There are 4 types of bonuses in this plan:
- Affiliate discount. Instant rebate for purchases based on status.
- Customer bonus. A percentage of purchases made by personal customers.
- Team bonus. A percentage of the turnover of the structure up to 10 levels deep.
- Career bonus. A fixed amount for the achievement of a certain rank.
Enrollment
Registration in the system is free and possible under any account.
Account Status
Each account has a status:
- Customer
- Affiliate
Customers do not receive bonuses, but their purchases are counted in the system to pay bonuses to affiliates who invited them.
Only affiliates receive bonuses.
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Depending on your business, you can use a condition for a user to get "Affiliate" status. This could be, for example, the purchase of a certain product ("Starter Kit"). If you don't separate customers from affiliates in your business (i.e. everyone who is registered immediately participates in the compensation plan and receives bonuses), you can set up the plan so that any purchase will make the user an "affiliate". Thus, "clients" will be those users who have only registered but have not done anything else. |
Volumes
All bonuses are paid based on incoming sales (purchases). Each product or service in your business can give a certain volume, which is measured in points (CV).
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The points for each product may be different from their value if you use such a system in your business. |
The incoming volumes are summed up on the network for subsequent calculation of ranks and bonuses on their basis:
- CV (Commissionable Volume) – total volume of personal purchases of the account for the month
- APV (Accumulated Personal Volume) – total purchases of the account over all time
- PV (Personal Volume) – the volume of personal purchases of the affiliate and all his personally-invited clients (per month)
- NV (Network Volume) – the volume of the entire downline network for the month
- ANV (Accumulated Network Volume) – the total volume of the entire downline network over all time
Ranks
This plan uses a system of career levels, or ranks.
A rank is attained when certain conditions are met. Ranks are calculated at the end of a period (month).
The system uses 3 indicators for working with ranks:
- Qualified Rank (QR)
- Achieved Rank (AR)
- Non-Dropping Rank (NDR)
The qualified rank is the rank in a particular period. There can be a situation when the qualified rank of this period is less than it was in the previous one, because some conditions may not be fulfilled.
The maximal achieved rank is saved in the system, and may be shown e.g. in a member's back office, used in promo and so on.
To achieve a rank an affiliate must fulfill a number of conditions:
- Perform a certain Personal Volume (PV) for a period, i.e. he and his personal customers in total must make a certain amount of purchases in that period
- Reach a certain Accumulative Network Volume (ANV) for the whole period. This is the volume of the entire lower structure accumulatively.
- Reach a certain Qualification Volume (QV) in this period.
Thus, a cumulative system is used to achieve the rank, with monthly confirmation.
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Option: in your business you can decide to use only the cumulative criterion for reaching a rank, or vice versa, to remove the cumulative criterion and use only the volumes of the current period. To do this, simply set the corresponding criteria for the rank to zero. |
Below is a table of the ranks, the conditions for achieving them and the size of the career bonus for each of them:
| # | Rank | PV | ANV | QV | Career bonus (See below) |
| 0 | No rank | – | – | – | – |
| 1 | Active Partner | 10 | – | – | |
| 2 | Manager 1 | 10 | 500 | 500 | 10 |
| 3 | Manager 2 | 10 | 3000 | 1500 | 25 |
| 4 | Manager 3 | 10 | 10000 | 4500 | 35 |
| 5 | Manager 4 | 10 | 30000 | 12500 | 100 |
| 6 | Manager 5 | 10 | 50000 | 20000 | 200 |
| 7 | Senior Manager 1 | 30 | 100000 | 30000 | 300 |
| 8 | Senior Manager 2 | 30 | 250000 | 50000 | 500 |
| 9 | Senior Manager 3 | 30 | 500000 | 100000 | 1000 |
| 10 | Senior Manager 4 | 30 | 1000000 | 200000 | 2000 |
| 11 | Senior Manager 5 | 30 | 1500000 | 300000 | 3000 |
| 12 | Director 1 | 50 | 3000000 | 500000 | 5000 |
| 13 | Director 2 | 50 | 5000000 | 750000 | 7500 |
| 14 | Director 3 | 50 | 7500000 | 1000000 | 10000 |
| 15 | Director 4 | 50 | 10000000 | 1750000 | 17500 |
| 16 | Director 5 | 50 | 15000000 | 2500000 | 25000 |
| 17 | Executive Director 1 | 50 | 30000000 | 5000000 | 50000 |
| 18 | Executive Director 2 | 50 | 50000000 | 7500000 | 75000 |
| 19 | Executive Director 3 | 50 | 75000000 | 10000000 | 100000 |
| 20 | Executive Director 4 | 50 | 100000000 | 15000000 | 150000 |
| 21 | Executive Director 5 | 50 | 150000000 | 25000000 | 250000 |
| 22 | Vice President | 50 | 250000000 | 30000000 | 300000 |
Non-Dropping Rank (NDR) is used as a reference on Rank calculation so that Qualified Rank cannot ever be less than NDR. NDR is set up manually by an admin.
Qualification Volume
Note, it is not just Network Volume (NV), but Qualification Volume (QV) that is used to achieve the rank.
Network Volume vs. Qualification Volume
While Network volume represents the total sales volume generated by an affiliate's entire downline, Qualification volume has a specific rule. To calculate Qualification volume, the contribution from each individual branch within the downline is capped at a certain percentage of the total Network volume.
MAX_BRANCH_PERCENTAGE (Cap)
This capping percentage, defined by the parameter MAX_BRANCH_PERCENTAGE (typically 70%), limits how much volume from a single branch can contribute to an affiliate's rank qualification. If a branch generates more than 70% of the total network volume, the excess is not counted towards rank advancement, although bonuses are still earned on the entire volume.
Customizing the Cap
The MAX_BRANCH_PERCENTAGE is adjustable. Setting it to 100% effectively removes the cap, making the Qualification volume always equal to the Network volume.
Purpose of Qualification Volume and Capping
The qualification volume and capping mechanism serve to:
- Encourage affiliates to build a well-rounded network with multiple active branches (at least 2 or 3).
- Discourage "network parasitism," where an affiliate relies heavily on the efforts of a single recruit.
- Given that the largest branch isn't identified until month-end, the system calculates qualification volume and ranks during the period close.
Types of Bonuses
The Unilevel plan calculates four types of bonuses:
| Bonus | Period | Source volume |
| Affiliate discount | Realtime | CV of personal purchases |
| Customer Bonus | Realtime | CV of customers' purchases |
| Team Bonus | Month | CV of affiliate's downline |
| Career Bonus | Month | – |
To receive all types of bonuses, the account must be in the "Affiliate" status.
Affiliate discount
Paid on all personally made purchases.
The bonus is calculated and credited to the wallet in real time at the moment the points arrive at the calculation core (i.e., at the moment of purchase).
The bonus is calculated as a % of the points received for the purchase. The size of the percentage depends on the rank:
| Account Type | Affiliate discount |
| 0 - Customer | 0% |
| 1 - Affliate | 5% |
| Option: if you don't want to use affiliate discount in your project, just set all percentages to zero. |
Customer Bonus
This bonus also counts in real time: when any customer makes a purchase, the bonus is paid to his superior affiliate.
The bonus counts as a percentage of the points received for the purchase. The amount of the percentage depends on the rank:
| Account Type | Customer Bonus |
| 0 - Customer | 0% |
| 1 - Affiliate | 20% |
| Please note: only affiliates get the affiliate discount, i.e. the percentage will be deducted from their purchases; affiliates get the customer bonus from their customers' purchases, i.e. the percentage will be deducted from the customers' purchases. So these two bonuses don't add up, with each purchase your company will pay out either one or the other bonus, but not both at once. |
Team Bonus
The Team Bonus (or UNILEVEL Bonus) is paid by genealogy, that is, by the personal invitation tree, as a fixed percentage from each generation of depth from the volumes of those below.
The bonus is counted at the close of the period (monthly).
The percentage depends on the generation (it may be different from each generation of depth).
The depth of the sample depends on the rank, which is already counted at the time of closing:
| Active Partner | Manager 1 | Manager 2 | Manager 3 | Manager 4 | Manager 5 ( and higher) |
| 10% | 10% | 10% | 10% | 10% | 10% |
| 7% | 7% | 7% | 7% | 7% | 7% |
| 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% | |
| 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | ||
| 2% | 2% | 2% | |||
| 2% | 2% | ||||
| 2% | |||||
| 0% | |||||
| 0% | |||||
| 0% |
Career Bonus
Career (or Rank) bonus is calculated and credited to the wallet at the end of a period (month).
It is paid as a fixed amount when a certain rank is reached (i.e., if the rank at the end of the period is higher than it has ever been before).
If a rank has become higher by several steps at once, the bonus is paid for each step.
The amount of payment for each rank is adjustable (see the table of ranks above).