Why Paying Full Commission Upfront Can Be a Problem
When an affiliate drives an annual subscription sale, the commission can be significant. A 30% commission on a £99.99 annual plan means you owe your affiliate £30 straight away — even though your customer's value is spread across the entire year.
For growing apps, this creates a cash flow challenge. You're paying out large lump sums before you've collected the full subscription revenue. Multiply that across dozens of affiliates and high-value products, and it adds up quickly.
Introducing Auto Chunk Payments
Auto Chunk Payments is a new Enterprise feature that solves this by letting you split affiliate commission into smaller scheduled payments. Instead of one large payout, the commission is broken into equal chunks that become available over time.
For example, that £30 annual commission can be split into 12 monthly payments of £2.50. The first chunk is available immediately when the sale happens, and each subsequent chunk appears on the 1st of each following month.
How It Works
The setup is straightforward. In your Settings page, scroll to the Auto Chunk Payments section and add a chunk rule:
- Enter the IAP Product ID — this must match exactly how it appears in your RevenueCat transactions (e.g. com.yourapp.annual_subscription)
- Set the number of chunks — anywhere from 2 to 20 (12 is the default, perfect for splitting annuals into monthly payments)
- Choose a schedule — either monthly on the 1st of each month, or a custom interval in days
Once saved, any new transaction matching that product ID will automatically have its commission split according to your rule.
What Your Affiliates See
Affiliates only see chunks that have become available. If you split an annual commission into 12 monthly chunks, the affiliate sees one chunk appear each month on their dashboard. Future chunks are completely hidden from their view.
This means their total owed balance always reflects what is currently payable — no confusion about money they can't access yet.
What You See as an Admin
As an admin, you get the full picture. The Chunked Payments tab on the affiliate search page shows:
- Available chunks — ready to be paid, with the same Mark as Paid and Stripe payment options as regular transactions
- Scheduled chunks — future chunks shown greyed out with their scheduled dates
- Summary cards — quick overview of available, paid, unpaid, and scheduled totals
You can click the info icon next to any chunk to see all chunks for that transaction grouped together, making it easy to track the full payment schedule at a glance.
Refunds Are Handled Automatically
If a customer requests a refund for a chunked product, the system creates matching negative refund chunks. Each refund chunk has the same available date as the original chunk it offsets, so they appear together and net to zero. Nothing is hidden or deleted — the full audit trail is preserved for both you and your affiliates.
A Practical Example
Say you run a fitness app with an annual subscription at £79.99 and a 25% affiliate commission (£20.00). You set up a chunk rule with 4 quarterly payments:
- Chunk 1 (£5.00): Available immediately on purchase day
- Chunk 2 (£5.00): Available on the 1st of the next month
- Chunk 3 (£5.00): Available two months later
- Chunk 4 (£5.00): Available three months later
You only pay what's currently due. If the customer cancels after two months, the refund chunks offset the remaining balance automatically.
Getting Started
Auto Chunk Payments is available on the Enterprise plan for RevenueCat transactions. To set it up:
- Go to Settings in your Insert Affiliate dashboard
- Scroll to Auto Chunk Payments
- Add a rule for each high-value product you want to chunk
- Save — new transactions will be chunked automatically
If you use a different purchase verification method and would like this feature, you can request it directly from the Settings page.
For full details on configuration options, viewing chunked payments, and how refunds work, check the Auto Chunk Payments documentation.