Selling through partners
Affiliates, deals, and the two things that surprise everyone: escrow, and commission that has to mature before it pays.
Other people can sell your products for a cut. eCrate has a marketplace where you publish your terms, partners find you, and the commission is tracked and paid without either of you keeping a spreadsheet.
Two things about it surprise nearly everyone, and they are both about when money moves. They are at the bottom of this page and they are the part worth reading.
Publishing your terms
Marketing → Affiliates is where you list. You choose one of two modes:
- Whole catalog — one rate across everything you sell.
- Selected products — you list individual products, each with its own rate.
Publishing is instant. There is no approval queue and nobody reviews you.
You can also list a single product straight from its own product form: tick Affiliates on the Sales channels card and an affiliate terms card appears.
Published commission rates are capped at 50%. A private deal you negotiate with one partner can go higher.
Deals
A deal is a private arrangement with one partner, made at Dashboard → Deals, and it overrides your public terms for that partner. A deal can pay a commission, a one-off flat fee, or both.
The flat fee is held in escrow
This is the first surprise.
When a partner accepts a deal with a flat fee, your card is charged immediately and eCrate holds the money. It is not sent on yet.
It is released to the partner when you confirm the work was delivered — or automatically 14 days after the charge if you have not confirmed and have not disputed. If you dispute it, it stops and a person at eCrate resolves it, either releasing to the partner or refunding you.
So: the money leaves your card at acceptance and reaches the partner at delivery. The gap between those is the point of it.
Commission has to mature before it pays
This is the second surprise, and it is the one that generates the most questions.
When the order is paid
Recorded
The commission exists and the partner can see it. Refund now and it is simply reversed — nothing has left the platform.
30 days later
Matured
It becomes payable. A refund after this point cannot be silently clawed back; it is flagged for a person instead.
The next payout run
Paid
It is transferred to the partner’s own Stripe account, less eCrate’s cut.
- A flat fee on a deal follows a different clock: it is charged when the partner accepts and released on delivery, or automatically 14 days later.
A commission is recorded when the order is paid — not when the shopper clicks a link, and not when the order is placed. It is then pending for 30 days before it becomes payable, and a payout run picks it up after that.
The 30 days exist because of refunds. If you refund the order during them, the commission is simply reversed: nothing left the platform, and nobody is chasing anybody. If you refund the order after the commission has matured or been paid, it cannot be silently clawed back from the partner — it is flagged for a person to sort out instead. That is a deliberate choice: taking money back out of somebody's earnings without telling them is not something software should do on its own.
Partial refunds work the same way, scaled.
Getting paid as a partner
If you are on the other side of this, your commission goes to your own Stripe account, and eCrate keeps a 10% cut of the commission. You need to have finished Stripe onboarding before a payout can reach you; if you have not, the payout waits for you rather than failing.
What it costs you
Commission and any flat fee are what you agreed. eCrate's ordinary 2% on the order is unchanged and there is no extra platform charge for selling through a partner. See What eCrate charges.