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Revenue

Commission clawback

A reversal that reduces or recovers commission after a refund, dispute, downgrade or invalid conversion.

Definition

A commission clawback is the negative adjustment applied when a commissionable event is later reduced or invalidated. In SaaS affiliate programs it commonly follows refunds, chargebacks, subscription downgrades, fraud reviews or cancellation windows.

B2B SaaS context

Recurring SaaS revenue can change after the original conversion, so a program without clawbacks may overpay partners against revenue the merchant never kept. The clawback rule makes gross-to-net revenue alignment explicit.

Operator note

State whether clawbacks affect only unpaid balances or can offset future payouts, and keep the audit trail connected to the original invoice, refund or webhook event.

Turn the definition into operating rules

RefCampaign helps recurring SaaS teams translate attribution, refunds and payout policies into a partner program that can be audited.

See the SaaS affiliate playbook