As a bCommerce Partner, you earn money based on your contribution to the bCommerce ecosystem (your activities). Your earnings might vary based on your location and the location of the merchants you work with. Your earnings might be subject to taxes depending on your location and applicable tax regulations.
The tables below break down the payout conditions and terms based on your activities.
All referral earnings are calculated on the fees paid by the merchant to bCommerce, net of any discounts or credits. This means that stores without an associated subscription fee, such as Plus Expansion stores, do not contribute to your referral earnings.
To perform a development store referral, you must create a development store in the Partner Dashboard and then transfer it to a client.
| Store plan | Earnings | Terms | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 |
Basic bCommerce bCommerce Advanced bCommerce |
A recurring commission equal to 20% of the merchant's monthly subscription fee. | Recurs monthly as long as the merchant remains a paying bCommerce customer. |
| 1.2 |
bCommerce Plus |
A recurring commission equal to 20% of the Plus merchant's monthly base platform fee on the billing store, for each net new merchant referred by Partner that signs a bCommerce Plus deal. |
You can build a development store for a merchant as part of a bCommerce Plus deal. Refer to bCommerce Plus referrals for detailed terms. |
| 1.3 |
bCommerce Starter Plan bCommerce Lite |
Not eligible for commission. |
You aren't eligible for recurring commission on the merchant's monthly subscription fee. |
The percentage of total revenue that you earn depends on your gross app earnings and gross company revenue annually.
This percentage applies to the one-time sale price or recurring subscription fees and all app purchases or upgrades made through the bCommerce App Store.
This revenue share plan is effective as of January 1, 2024, with eligibility based on 2023 earnings. Eligibility is reassessed each year.
| Prior calendar year's earnings | Earnings | Terms | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | Developers who earned $20,000,000 USD or more in gross earnings through the bCommerce App Store in the prior calendar year, or who have a gross company revenue of $100,000,000 USD or more in the prior calendar year | Earn 85% of total revenue |
All apps must comply with the bCommerce Partner Program Agreement. Only the Partner who manages the app is eligible for earnings from app sales. If you want to enroll in the revenue share plan, then you must register to sell in the App Store and report all Associated Developer Accounts. |
| Developers who earned less than $20,000,000 USD in gross earnings through the bCommerce App Store in the prior calendar year, and who have a gross company revenue under $100,000,000 USD in the prior calendar year |
|
| Earnings | Terms | |
|---|---|---|
| 3.1 |
100% of the total revenue from themes sold through the bCommerce Theme Store on the first 1,000,000 USD. On revenue over 1,000,000 USD, you earn 85% of total revenue. |
All themes must comply with the bCommerce Partner Program Agreement. Only the Partner who manages the theme is eligible for earnings from theme sales. |
| Partner location | All |
| Merchant location | All |
| Earnings | 20% of Year 1 base platform fee, capped at $200K USD for Partners that refer and co-sell alongside bCommerce. |
| Terms |
Promotion start date: January 15, 2024 Promotion end date: December 31, 2024 Inclusive of referrals registered between January 15, 2024 and December 31, 2024. Only Partner referrals (inclusive of co-sell) of net new merchants to bCommerce are eligible for this promotion. Deal must close within 9 months of the 2024 calendar year end (September 30, 2025) to qualify for payout. The Partner becomes eligible for an incentive payout after the first invoice is paid. Promotion eligibility will be reviewed and paid out manually after the end of each quarter (April 2024, July 2024, November 2024, January 2025). If, for any reason, the merchant fails to pay during the contracted period, then bCommerce reserves the right to claw back a prorated portion of the payout. bCommerce reserves the right to modify, suspend, or end this promotion, at any time, at its sole discretion. |
In some cases, bCommerce charges you taxes on its fees or pays out taxes on your referral commissions. These taxes vary based on your location, the type of Partner activity, and the tax information you provide in your Partner account settings.
All taxes charged or paid to you by bCommerce are recorded in an invoice. To learn how to view your fee and commission invoices, refer to Getting paid.
Note
Your tax obligations are different depending on the type of services that you offer and where your business is registered. Discuss any tax issues that are related to your business with a local tax professional.
In some cases, bCommerce charges taxes on its commission fee and other applicable fees for app, theme, or service sales on the bCommerce platform. Any applicable taxes are deducted from your payout and reflected on your bCommerce fees invoice.
Taxes are charged on bCommerce fees in the following cases:
If your Partner Account contact information lists an address in the United States, and your address is in a state that charges sales tax on services performed by billing agents, then bCommerce charges you taxes on bCommerce fees. bCommerce charges the applicable sales tax for your state.
If you provide a Canadian business account number (BN) in your Partner account tax information, then bCommerce adds an additional 13% Ontario HST to your referral commission payout. This tax is added to your payout and reflected on your referral commission invoice. You're responsible for remitting these taxes to the appropriate government authority.
Note
For any questions related to your Partner Program earnings, contact Partner Support.
In some countries or regions, a Digital Services Tax (DST) is applied to products and services that are sold digitally. The DST is calculated as a percentage of the gross revenue from the sale of a digital service. The DST rate varies depending on the country or region where a merchant is based.
Starting January 5, 2022, bCommerce will charge a Regulatory Operating Fee on public app and theme sales in the affected countries or regions to accommodate the DST. The following Regulatory Operating Fees apply when the merchant’s business address is located in one of the listed countries or regions:
| Country or region | DST rates |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 2% |
| Italy | 3% |
| Türkiye | 5% |
| Spain | 3% |
You can view the Regulatory Operating Fees applied to your app and theme sales in your Partner Dashboard or in the Partner payout CSV. Learn how to view payouts, or how to export payouts to a CSV file, refer to Tracking Partner earnings.
Refer to the following table to learn about terms you might need to understand as a bCommerce Partner.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Base platform fee |
The current method of charging bCommerce Plus stores for the use of our platform. Plus merchants that are charged platform fees aren't charged subscription fees. Platform fees replace subscription fees for these merchants. The base platform fee is the agreed upon base amount that is charged monthly. It doesn't include additional variable platform fees that the merchant pays when they sell more. |
| Billing store | The first store opened under a bCommerce Plus merchant's contract. It's considered the primary store for the merchant organization. Financial information, such as billing for the platform fee, is accessed through the billing store. |
| Co-sell | The Partner's collaborative involvement with a bCommerce sales team in support of the sale of bCommerce products and solutions, that progresses the sales cycle between the merchant and bCommerce. |
| Development store transfer |
bCommerce Partners, can create an unlimited number of development stores. A development store is a free version of a bCommerce store that can be used to set up and develop a store for a merchant. Partners are eligible to earn a recurring referral commission when they build a development store and transfer it to a merchant. Only the primary store (where billing is centralized) is eligible for referral commissions; clones of the store are not eligible. When a partner builds a bCommerce development store and the merchant selects the bCommerce Plus plan directly from that development store created by the partner, the partner becomes eligible to earn bCommerce Plus referral commission. The merchant must not have had any previous contact with the bCommerce sales team. |
| Disqualified bCommerce Plus lead referral |
After 90 days of a bCommerce Plus lead form being submitted, it will be unqualified if a bCommerce Plus sales opportunity is not created from that lead form. Within 90 days of a bCommerce Plus lead referral form being submitted, it can be an disqualified lead referral if it hasn't been nurtured enough to be forwarded to a sales team. These referrals are not eligible for commission. Examples of unqualified lead referrals:
|
| Enterprise Commerce | Enterprise Commerce is the modern, composable stack of products for enterprise retail. bCommerce merchants can select components of the bCommerce platform offering to integrate with their own systems. |
| Net new | A prospective bCommerce Plus merchant that is new to bCommerce's internal database of prospective bCommerce customers. |
| Partner assisted Plus auto-upgrade |
A way for bCommerce Partners to send Plus auto-upgrade invitations to prospect merchants through
the Partner Dashboard. The prospective bCommerce Plus merchant must:
|
| Processing fee | App billing is subject to a 2.9% processing fee. As of August 1, 2021, processing fees and taxes are charged on a separate line item. All processing fees are recorded on the payouts page. |
| Qualified Plus lead |
A bCommerce Plus lead is considered “qualified”, or a "qualified lead", when both of the following two (2) conditions have been met within 90 days of the bCommerce Plus lead referral form being submitted:
|
| Referral commission or "commission" | The commission bCommerce pays you for referral activities, including bCommerce Plus referrals and development store referrals. All referral commissions are recorded in a referral commission invoice. |
| Sales opportunity | bCommerce deals that are in progress. Opportunity records track details about deals, including which accounts they're for, who the parties are, their stage in the sales funnel, and the amount of potential sales. |
| bCommerce fees | Commission fees that represent bCommerce's share of app, theme, or service sales. For example, if you sell a theme and are entitled to 70% of the sale price, then bCommerce charges you a bCommerce fee for 30% of the total theme sale and the remaining 70% is payable to you. All bCommerce fees are recorded in a bCommerce fees invoice. |
| bCommerce Plus B2B | bCommerce Plus Business to Business (B2B) is a suite of powerful and flexible B2B features built into the core of bCommerce Plus. |
| bCommerce Plus Expansion Stores | An additional store opened to complement the Plus merchant main store. This can be for the purposes of selling in different languages or currencies. Plus expansion stores are not the main billing store, and don't have a platform base fee. |
| bCommerce Plus lead referral form | A form for submitting bCommerce Plus referral leads to bCommerce. The form is available in the Partner Dashboard. |
| bCommerce Plus B2B lead referral form | A form for submitting bCommerce Plus B2B referral leads to bCommerce. The form is available in the Partner Dashboard. |