Q: Should I offer private rates to big affiliates or keep one public rate?

Q: Should I offer private rates to big affiliates or keep one public rate?

Keep a clean public rate and negotiate privately above it — never below. The moment a partner discovers someone earns more for the same traffic on your standard terms, you've lost trust you can't rebuy.

How to run it:

— Publish one fair baseline everyone gets.
— Offer private uplifts tied to something earned: committed volume, exclusivity on a placement, a hybrid CPA-plus-rev-share, or a co-funded campaign.
— Document why each private deal exists so it's defensible if it leaks.

Caveat: private deals proliferate quietly and become impossible to audit. Set a rule that any rate above baseline expires and gets reviewed quarterly against actual performance. A custom rate that was justified last year for a partner now sending half the volume is just margin leaking out the back. Treat private rates as renewable contracts, not gifts.

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