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This page explains where your campaign money goes, from the moment you fund a campaign to the moment you get unused budget back.

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The short version

  1. You pay the campaign’s full budget up front, by card.
  2. Each time a creator drives a qualifying sale, their commission is taken from the budget and held. Held means set aside but not yet paid to the creator. On Shopify campaigns, the Freeq Growth Network’s platform fee is taken from the budget at the same time.
  3. If the order is refunded or charged back while the commission is still held, the commission and the platform fee come back to your budget.
  4. After the holding period, the commission is released to the creator.
  5. When the campaign is complete, you can withdraw whatever budget is left.

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Reading your budget

The Budget & Performance card on each campaign page shows: Spent goes down again if a held commission is cancelled because of a refund or chargeback. The platform fee for that order comes back with it. The card also shows Cost per new customer (spend divided by new customers) and Effective cost per order (spend divided by every order, including returning customers). Both include the platform fee.

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What earns commission

A sale earns commission only when all of these are true:
  • The shopper clicked a creator’s link for the campaign, and that creator is credited with the sale. If the shopper clicked several creators’ links, the most recent click wins. See How credit is decided.
  • The order contains the campaign’s product. An order without that product earns nothing, even if the shopper came through a creator’s link.
  • It is the shopper’s first order in this campaign. Later orders from the same customer (matched by email address) are tracked and shown as Returning, but they don’t earn commission.
  • The campaign still has budget.

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What commission is charged on

Commission is a percentage of the whole order total, the amount the shopper paid at checkout:
  • every item in the order, not only the campaign’s product
  • after discounts
  • including shipping
  • including tax
The campaign’s product decides whether the order qualifies. Once it does, the whole order counts. Example. Your campaign promotes a $40 water bottle at 10% commission. A shopper buys two bottles and a $25 bag, with $5 shipping and no tax. The order total is $110, so commission is 10% of $110 = $11.

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When the budget runs out

Commission can never be more than the budget that’s left. On Shopify campaigns the platform fee comes first:
  • If the budget left can cover the whole platform fee for the sale and at least the smallest unit of the campaign’s currency in commission (one cent or one penny for most currencies), the fee is taken in full and the commission takes the rest, up to its normal amount. So the last sale may earn only part of its commission.
  • If the budget left can’t cover that, the sale books nothing: no fee and no commission. The order is not paid.
You can’t add budget to a live campaign, so create a new campaign if you want to keep going. Shopify campaigns end on their own when the budget runs out. That happens when a sale takes the budget to zero, or when a sale can’t be booked because there isn’t enough budget left. In the second case a small amount can be left in the budget; you can withdraw it once the campaign is complete. You and the campaign’s creators get an email when the campaign ends this way.

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Holding periods

Commission is held before the creator gets it, so returns and fraud can be caught first. Most sales are held for 30 days. Riskier sales can be held longer, up to 120 days, once risk checks are switched on. See Holding periods and disputes.

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Returns and refunds

When you refund an order in Shopify, we see it automatically. You don’t need to tell us. While the commission is still held:
  • Full refund: the commission is cancelled and goes back into your campaign budget, along with the platform fee for that order.
  • Partial refund: the commission is reduced by the same share of the order that was refunded, and the difference goes back into your budget. Any refunded item counts, as does refunded shipping. For example, refunding half the order value takes back half the commission. The reduction uses the rate in force when the shopper bought. The platform fee for that order is reduced by the same share.
After the holding period has ended: the commission has already been released to the creator. It is not returned to your budget, and neither is the platform fee.
Process returns promptly. Refunds made inside the holding period are the ones that return commission to your budget.

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Chargebacks

A chargeback is when a shopper asks their bank to reverse a payment.
  • If the chargeback happens while the commission is still held, the commission is cancelled and goes back into your budget, along with the platform fee for that order.
  • If it happens after the commission was released, the commission is recovered from the creator’s reserve (or from their FREEQ stake, if they claimed that reserve early) and goes back into your budget. Only a shortfall beyond that isn’t recovered. The platform fee is not returned.

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Get unused budget back

You can withdraw unused budget once a campaign is Completed. That’s a few days after it ends; see Campaigns.
  1. Open the campaign, or its ⋮ menu in your campaign list.
  2. Choose Withdraw Funds and confirm.
  3. The money is refunded to the card you paid with. You see Refund initiated — your balance will update once it settles.
Good to know:
  • Only the person who created the campaign can withdraw its funds.
  • If you see “Some recent sales from this campaign are still being finalised”, wait a few minutes and try again.
  • If commission is cancelled later (for example, a refund comes in while a commission is still held), more budget becomes free. Withdraw Funds appears again, and you can withdraw that too.
  • If a card refund isn’t possible, for example because the original payment is too old, contact support. The leftover balance can still be settled with you.

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Fees

On campaigns for a Shopify store, the Freeq Growth Network takes a platform fee for each sale it credits to a creator. The fee is a percentage of the order total (currently 3%), worked out on the same order total as the commission.
  • It is taken from your campaign budget at the same time as the creator’s commission, on top of the commission. It is not taken out of the creator’s commission.
  • Your Budget & Performance card shows it separately from creator commissions, under Budget Spent, with the current rate.
  • If the order is refunded or charged back while the commission is still held, the fee comes back to your budget with the commission (in proportion, for a partial refund).
  • Once the commission has been released to the creator, the fee is kept.
  • When the budget is nearly used up, the fee comes first. See When the budget runs out.
The fee applies only to credited sales on Shopify stores. An order in a different currency from the campaign’s isn’t charged a fee, because it isn’t booked to the campaign at all. A small number of older orders, booked under a commission rule that has since been retired, were not charged the fee either. Anything left in the budget when the campaign is complete comes back to you. Example. A sale with an order total of $110 at 10% commission takes $11 commission plus a $3.30 platform fee from the budget: $14.30 in all.
Depending on your account, using the Freeq Growth Network may need a paid plan for the app on Shopify, or a FREEQ stake. This is not switched on for every account yet. See Team and access.