This page belongs with the comparison of a Lehman formula and a supplier-payout referral fee, where a success fee is the client's own cost. Here the job is to show the two cash flows plainly, with one agreed-compensation example a client can check.
Two payments, two statements
The clearest way to see the separation is to follow the paperwork. Each payment produces its own document, issued to a different person.
| Question | Flow 1: company compensation | Flow 2: referral reward |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays | SourceX | SourceX |
| Who receives | The referred company | The registered partner |
| Set by | The company's licensing agreement with SourceX | The referral program terms or a signed Schedule A |
| Document | The company's settlement or remittance statement | The partner's reward statement |
| Does it mention the other flow? | No | It cites the payout as the base, never as a deduction |
| When it is paid | On the schedule in the company's agreement | A reward becomes payable after SourceX has paid the referred company under its signed agreement and the payout conditions in the program terms are met, including finance approval and your tax and payment details. |
Flow 2 depends on Flow 1, because the reward is worked out from what the company is actually paid. Flow 1 never depends on Flow 2. That one-way link is the whole answer.
Agreed-compensation example: with and without a referrer (Illustrative)
Illustrative and fictional. A 230-person dental laboratory network agrees to license six years of case-remake records for $240,000, paid on completion. It also has $6,000 of data preparation costs reimbursed as a separately itemized line. Not a quote, a forecast or a completed deal.
| Line | Company applied on its own | Company introduced by a partner |
|---|---|---|
| Agreed compensation from SourceX | $240,000 | $240,000 |
| Itemized expense reimbursement | $6,000 | $6,000 |
| Deduction for a referral | None | None |
| Company receives in total | $246,000 | $246,000 |
| Separate payment to the partner | Not applicable | $62,000 |
The partner's $62,000 is the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of the $240,000 compensation, which here means USD 50,000 plus 5% of $240,000 because that beats 15%; the $6,000 reimbursement is excluded from the base. The transaction clears the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction and no cap applies. For the same agreed compensation the two columns match exactly, because nothing for the partner comes off what the company signed for, and a client can verify that from its own statement. The table holds the agreed figure constant; it does not show how an offer is priced, which SourceX does not publish.
What can reduce what the company keeps (none of it is the reward)
A company's net from a license can still be lower than the headline. Help the client see which costs are real and which are not.
- A success fee under the client's own engagement letter. If an adviser's letter defines a transaction broadly enough to reach a data license, the client could owe that adviser a fee. That is the client's cost under its own contract, unrelated to the SourceX reward.
- Taxes. The company's tax on its income is its own matter. Separately itemized taxes are also excluded from the reward's base.
- Later reductions. If the company's compensation is reduced or reversed, SourceX recalculates the reward on the reduced Actual Supplier Payout: it becomes the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of the reduced total, and any excess already paid is adjusted. The adjustment runs from payout to reward, never the other way.
- Its own preparation costs. Internal time spent on the rights review and data preparation is a cost to the company unless the agreement reimburses it.
The guide on telling a referral reward apart from the company's licensing proceeds walks through each line, and who pays the referral fee gives the short answer.
How to explain it to a client, and what to disclose
Not deducting a reward is different from not mentioning it. A client is entitled to know that its adviser may be paid for the introduction. CFA Institute's Standard VI(C), for example, requires members to disclose to clients and prospective clients any compensation or benefit received for recommending products or services, so the client can judge any partiality and the full cost of the service. Many professions have similar rules; follow your own.
A plain way to say it:
- "If you license data through SourceX, you receive the compensation in your agreement, in full."
- "SourceX may pay me a referral reward from its own funds, worked out from what you are actually paid, with no cap."
- "Nothing is deducted from your payment, and you can check that against your settlement statement."
Clients who ask whether their consultant is being paid can be pointed to is my consultant getting a referral fee; company owners asking about their own costs can read whether a company pays fees to license data through SourceX.
Before you introduce: what to confirm
The separation question only matters for a company that could qualify. Introduced companies need 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), documented operating history, rights to license the records and a CEO who can authorize a licensing discussion. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English. Confirm at metadata level which record types exist, which systems hold them and whether the CEO is willing to authorize a licensing discussion; never request raw records. Compensation, any reward and whether a deal happens at all remain unknown until SourceX reviews the company. For how the arithmetic looks on a larger payout, see the $400,000 worked example.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
If a client's main worry was losing part of its payment, the answer is settled; register as a partner, check the company against who qualifies, and share the program terms so the client can read the separate-payment clause itself.
No. The payout a company signs for in its Dataset Deal Confirmation is not trimmed to fund a partner. Section 4 of the program terms states: "The referral reward is paid separately by SourceX and is never deducted from the supplier's agreed compensation." A skeptical founder may still be asking something harder: whether the offer itself was shaped by the reward, what happens if the payout is cut later, and how to say no without awkwardness. The sections below take each one, using a payment flow the founder can check against its own paperwork.
Three worries hiding inside "will it reduce our payout?"
When a fund's operating partner raises SourceX with a portfolio founder, the question "does your reward come out of our money?" usually carries one of three fears. The comparison above settles the first; the other two need their own answers.
| Worry | What the founder pictures | Bounded answer | What settles it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netting | A line on the settlement moving money from the company to the partner | Does not happen: the partner is paid by SourceX in a separate payment | Program terms section 4, and the company's own statement |
| Pricing | An offer pitched lower to leave room for the partner | Not answerable from public documents, because SourceX does not publish its commercial terms | The exact figure in the signed Confirmation, seen before any data moves and free to decline |
| Exposure | A later quarrel between SourceX and the partner landing on the company | The program terms bind the partner and SourceX; when a payout falls, only the partner's figure is recalculated | The company's own agreement, which governs its money alone |
The pricing fear deserves respect rather than reassurance. In one U.S. market, lawmakers treated referral payments as something that can raise what the customer pays: the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act lists among its purposes ending kickbacks and referral fees that push settlement-service costs up unnecessarily, and 12 U.S.C. 2607(a) bars giving or taking a fee for referring business connected to a federally related mortgage loan (both paraphrased from the Cornell Legal Information Institute's text). RESPA covers mortgage settlements, not data licenses, so it sets no rule here; it shows only that the worry has a serious history.
So the founder's protection is documentary: SourceX's terms of service fix the exact payout in the signed Confirmation and put delivery after signature. A partner who claims to know how an offer was priced is guessing. The defensible line is narrower: the figure you sign is the figure you are owed, nothing comes off it for me, and you can test it against any other route first.
Payment-flow worked illustration: from signed Confirmation to a later cut (Illustrative)
Illustrative and fictional. A 410-person commercial HVAC service contractor in a venture portfolio signs a Confirmation fixing $680,000 for ten years of service-call and equipment-failure records, paid in two installments of $340,000. The fund's operating partner made the first valid introduction, and the CEO authorized the licensing discussion. Standard documents, no Schedule A. Not a quote, a forecast or a completed deal.
| Step | What happens | Company is paid at this step | Cumulative Actual Supplier Payout | Partner's cumulative amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The CEO signs the Confirmation fixing $680,000 | $0 | $0 | $0, with at most an estimate shown in the partner portal |
| 2 | Closing is recorded; the company invoices and is paid the first installment | $340,000 | $340,000 | $51,000, half of the $102,000 due on the $680,000 transaction, paid in step with the installment |
| 3 | The second installment is paid | $340,000 | $680,000 | $102,000, because 15% of $680,000 beats USD 50,000 plus 5% of it |
| 4 | Under its own agreement, the company's total is later lowered | Whatever its agreement now says | $420,000 | $71,000, because USD 50,000 plus 5% of $420,000 now beats 15%, and the $31,000 already paid above that is adjusted |
| 4, alternative | The same cut goes deeper | Whatever its agreement now says | $372,000 | $68,600, and the $33,400 already paid above that is adjusted |
Three readings a founder can verify:
- The reward follows the company's payout, never reduces it. There is no cap, so the partner's figure rises with the company's: the second installment pays the company $340,000 and adds $51,000 for the partner, and each figure is read off the company's own payout rather than off the other.
- The partner is never paid ahead of the company. Section 5 makes "payment of the underlying supplier compensation" a condition of any reward, alongside the Acquisition Partner's acceptance, its cleared funds, SourceX finance approval and the partner's tax details. The company runs on its own clock, due within 60 calendar days after SourceX receives a valid invoice following Closing, and section 8 keeps the two clocks apart: "a supplier's payment timetable, including any Net 60 clause, never determines when referral rewards are paid."
- A cut flows from the company's agreement to the partner, and stops there. In step 4 the partner's figure is recalculated on the reduced total and falls to $71,000, so the $31,000 paid above that is settled between SourceX and the partner, after payout where the law permits; in the alternative it falls to $68,600 and $33,400 is settled the same way. No step asks anything further of the company.
Partners who keep their own books can mirror this in separate ledgers for company payouts and partner rewards, and the case where an Acquisition Partner gets money back but the company keeps its payment is set out in payout reversal vs buyer refund.
What is known, what is conditional, and what nobody has reviewed yet
A founder deciding whether to take a first call should know which answers are fixed in writing today and which wait on events or on SourceX's review.
| Founder's question | Status today | Decided by |
|---|---|---|
| Will the partner's reward come out of our signed payout? | Known: no | Program terms, section 4 |
| Is our payout fixed before we hand over any data? | Known: yes, in the signed Confirmation, and delivery follows signature | sourcex.si terms, sections 4 and 5 |
| Did the introduction shape the offer? | Not published: SourceX keeps its commercial terms private | The figure you sign, compared with your alternatives |
| Will we be paid at all? | Conditional: only data that reaches Closing is paid, and SourceX may decline delivered data | sourcex.si terms, sections 4 and 5 |
| Does the partner earn anything if we say no? | Known: no, since credit needs your verified application and a lead or meeting earns nothing | Program terms, sections 2 and 5 |
| Are we a fit? | Not yet reviewed | SourceX's review of headcount (50 or more full-time employees at peak, contractors excluded), operating history, rights to license and a CEO able to authorize |
| What will the partner receive? | Conditional, and the partner should disclose it | Program terms, sections 4 to 6, or a signed Schedule A |
Method: each status reflects the clause named beside it, read on 2026-10-27 in the program terms (Version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04) and in sourcex.si's terms of service (last updated October 20, 2026). A signed supplier agreement, Schedule A or addendum that departs from the standard documents can change a row; this table does not cover those.
How four referral-fee models treat the seller's proceeds
Compared on four criteria: who pays the referrer, what the amount is computed on, whether it comes out of what the seller keeps, and where the seller can check. Sources checked 2026-10-27.
| Model | Who pays the referrer | Computed on | Comes out of what the seller keeps? | Where the seller checks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sell-side adviser's success fee | The seller, under its engagement letter | Transaction value, often in tiers | Yes, it is the seller's own cost | The engagement letter, as in the Lehman comparison |
| U.S. mortgage settlement referrals | No one lawfully: RESPA bars the payment for federally related mortgage loans | Not applicable | Removed by statute, with consumer cost as the stated reason | 12 U.S.C. 2607, and the purpose clause at 2601 |
| micro1 company referral | micro1 | $50K on enterprise data partnerships up to $700,000; 7.5% of deal value above that | Not addressed in the text we could verify | micro1's company-referral page |
| SourceX partner reward | SourceX, as its own payment | the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; the USD 50,000 floor applies once per referred company, and repeats within 12 months pay 15% | No, never deducted from the agreed compensation | Program terms, section 4 |
micro1's page also says, in our paraphrase, that no bonus is earned when a company merely registers or signs, only after its data is transferred and approved. A bigger headline figure does not answer the founder's question; the fourth column does. Where a program is silent on whether its referral pay touches the company's price, a founder should put that exact question to the program in writing.
One voluntary next step, and a clean way to decline
An operating partner's role ends with one offer and an easy exit. Something like:
- "Read section 4 of SourceX's program terms. If that separate-payment sentence holds up for you, the first assessment involves sharing no data, and with your CEO's go-ahead I can make the introduction."
- "If the answer is no, that closes it. I won't raise it again unless you do, and since nothing has been signed there is nothing to unwind."
- "Questions about your own money go to SourceX, not to me. I never see your application file, and I can't negotiate your figure."
The third line is more than modesty. Section 7 of the program terms says "Partners never receive access to other partners' records, applicant documents or confidential buyer information." If the founder's concern was ever about the adviser's own incentive, the disclosure questions in is my consultant getting a referral fee are the right next read.
Where this answer stops
- A signed Schedule A or addendum. Section 8 lets a signed Schedule A set a different reward rate, floor or base for the partner. The company's own agreement still governs its transaction.
- Older supplier agreements. Agreements executed under earlier forms keep their original terms, so a company already under contract should read its own documents.
- The founder's own advisers. A banker or broker whose engagement letter reaches a data license can bill the company, which is the company's contract, discussed in the comparison above.
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When a founder's worry was about losing money rather than about fit, hand them the payment flow above, then register for a partner link, check the company against who qualifies and point them to section 4 of the program terms.
Readers weighing SourceX as a company to invest in, rather than a program to introduce companies to, can request materials through the SourceX investor overview; that is a separate decision from any introduction.
This article is for information only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any offering by SourceX is made only to verified accredited investors through its offering documents.