Checklist: Hard cap vs soft cap — choosing the cutoff style

Checklist: Hard cap vs soft cap — choosing the cutoff style

A cap stops sending traffic to an offer. How it stops matters.

Hard cap (instant cutoff at limit):
☐ Use when the advertiser charges you for over-cap leads
☐ Use when over-delivery burns the relationship
☐ Risk: traffic slams into fallback at the exact second, spiky

Soft cap (taper as you approach):
☐ Use when you want smooth delivery, no cliff
☐ Implement by dropping weight 100% → 50% → 25% in the last 20% of cap
☐ Use when the offer rewards consistent daily pacing

Step — Add a time dimension. Daily cap resets at advertiser's timezone midnight, not yours — confirm or you'll over-deliver by a full day's drift.

Tradeoff: hard caps protect you legally; soft caps protect your EPC by avoiding fallback dumps.

Review cap style per offer at every payout renegotiation.