Two numbers define a promoter’s deal: what they earn per sale, and how many tickets they’re allowed to sell. Both are set in step 2 of the Assign a promoter wizard.
The two numbers pull in opposite directions. Commission is the incentive — set it too low and the promoter doesn’t bother. Allocation is the brake — set it too high and you pay commission on seats that would have sold anyway. A good deal is generous on the rate and conservative on the cap, then raised for whoever proves they can sell. Where these numbers sit in the overall lifecycle is covered in How promoters work.
Commission
Commission is what the promoter earns on the tickets they sell. It accrues as they sell and shows in the COMMISSION column on your roster, then rolls into the Commission owed card as Pending payout until you settle it.
Commission is tracked separately from your Stripe settlement — it is not deducted from your ticket revenue automatically. You pay it out yourself. See Promoter payouts.
Treat commission as a marketing cost and price it like one: what is a sale worth that you would not otherwise have made? A promoter with a genuine audience is bringing you buyers you couldn’t reach — that’s worth paying properly for. A promoter reselling to people who would have bought from your event page anyway is not.
Work out the commission against your net per ticket, not the headline price. After the service and processing fees, a 25ticketnetsyouaround23 — a commission set against $25 eats more of your margin than it looks like it will. See Service and processing fees.
Allocation and caps
The allocation is the number of tickets a promoter may sell for the event. It’s the cap that appears as the second half of SOLD / CAP on your roster, and it feeds the of N allocated figure on the Tickets via promoters card.
Allocation does two useful things:
- It bounds your commission exposure. You know the maximum you can owe before the campaign starts.
- It protects your direct sales. Allocating your entire capacity to promoters means paying commission on every seat, including the ones that would have sold anyway.
A promoter who reaches their cap stops selling against that event. To let them keep going, raise their allocation.
The common mistake is treating allocation as a target rather than a limit — handing a new, unproven promoter a huge cap because you hope they’ll fill it. The cap doesn’t make them sell; it only defines your worst-case bill. Start small relative to the capacity you set in ticket types, watch the roster, and raise caps for the people actually converting. Raising an allocation mid-campaign is routine; clawing back an oversized one from an underperformer is friction you can avoid by starting low.
Sell-through
SELL-THRU on the roster is the share of the allocation actually sold. It is the honest measure of whether a promoter is working:
- High sell-through, small allocation — give them more.
- Low sell-through, large allocation — the allocation is tied up in someone not converting. Reduce it and reallocate.
Sell-through only helps if you look at it while there’s still time to act, so build it into your routine — the reading rhythm and the roster’s other columns are covered in Track promoter performance. By the week of the event, reallocating from a 10% seller to a 100% seller is the single easiest thing you can do for the campaign.
Changing a deal
Deals can be adjusted after the invite goes out, from the promoter’s row in the roster.
The two adjustments are not the same kind of change. Raising an allocation is a reward — do it freely and promptly, because a capped seller is an idle seller. Changing the commission rate touches money the promoter is counting on, and deserves a conversation first.
Changing commission after a promoter has already sold tickets changes what they expect to be paid. Tell them before you change it — a surprise reduction is a fast way to lose a good seller.
