Paid on signed contract vs paid on collected revenue: when a referral reward is earned

The short answer: a SourceX reward follows the cash

A referral paid on collected revenue becomes payable when the money actually arrives, not when someone signs. SourceX works this way: a partner reward becomes payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee. An introduction, a qualification call, agreed terms or a signed license agreement are milestones, but none of them on its own triggers a payment.

Programs that pay on a signed contract pay earlier, and then need a rule for what happens if the customer cancels or never pays, which is where clawbacks come from. Programs that pay on collected revenue pay later but only against real money, so the reward tracks what actually happened.

Signed contract vs collected revenue side by side

When each model makes sense

Neither model is wrong in general; each fits a different kind of sale.

• Paying on signature fits short, standardized sales where the price is fixed at signing, billing starts straight away and cancellations are rare enough that a clawback rule is easy to run.
• Paying on collected revenue fits long, multi-stage deals where scope, selection or invoicing can still change after signing, and where the program's own income arrives only when the customer pays.
• A hybrid sometimes pays part at signature and the balance on collection, which needs both a clawback rule and careful tracking.

Data licensing sits firmly in the second group, for the reasons below.

Why data licensing suits payment on collected revenue

A data license has several moving parts after signature. The records are prepared to the redaction and de-identification spec the company approved, handed over only once the agreement is executed and the company authorizes it, and then chosen by the buyer. Invoicing follows that selection, and the company's one-time payment usually lands within roughly 60 days of the invoice. Paying a referrer at signature would mean paying on a figure that can still move.

There is also a structural reason. The partner reward is a share of SourceX's fee, and it is never deducted from what the company receives. Until SourceX has received that fee, there is nothing to share. Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company.

Where your referral stands at each stage

How long the attribution window runs, and what happens if two people introduce the same company, are covered in how long referral attribution windows are and first valid referrer vs last touch.

Booked, recognized and collected: three clocks that are easy to confuse

Finance teams treat bookings, recognized revenue and cash as three different things, and the difference matters when someone tells you a deal is done.

• Booked usually means a contract is signed. It says nothing about when cash arrives.
• Recognized is an accounting question for the company and its auditors. Deloitte's ASC 606 roadmap on the nature of a license explains that a right to use intellectual property as it exists when granted is satisfied at a point in time, while a right to access it throughout the license period is satisfied over time. How a data license is structured can therefore affect when the seller recognizes revenue, which the company should take up with its auditors.
• Collected means the money has been received. This is the only clock that matters for a SourceX partner reward.

What payment on collected revenue means for you

• Expect a real gap between introduction and reward, and plan your pipeline accordingly.
• Deals that stall after signature produce no reward, and rewards are not guaranteed.
• The cap is cumulative per referred company, so it applies across all of that company's eligible deals.
• The referral earnings calculator shows how the published reward formula works.
• Expect tax questions before any payment; the program terms govern what SourceX requires. In general, payers collect a Form W-9 from US payees so payments can be reported and a Form W-8BEN from foreign individuals, and the IRS explains when a business must report payments to independent contractors on Form 1099-NEC. Reporting thresholds have changed recently, so confirm the current rules with a tax adviser.

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own tax adviser before acting.

Illustrative timeline

Illustrative and fictional: a partner who works as a fractional COO introduces a 140-person freight software company in February. SourceX qualifies it in March, the company completes its inventory by May, and price and terms are agreed in June. Buyers review over the summer, the agreement is signed, data is delivered, and in September the buyer selects the data and is invoiced. The buyer pays within the usual window after invoicing, and only once SourceX has received its fee does the partner's reward become payable. Nothing was payable in February, at signature or at delivery.

Questions to ask any referral program about its payout trigger

• What exact event makes a reward payable?
• Is the reward a share of the program's fee or of the customer's total spend?
• Is there a cap, and is it per deal or per referred company?
• What happens if a payment is refunded or reversed?
• How is credit decided when two people introduce the same company?
• Is the reward ever deducted from what the customer receives?

For SourceX, this page answers the first, second, third and last questions; the rest are in the program terms and on the rewards page. Disclosure questions are covered in referral fee vs kickback.

Next step

If you know a US company with 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded) and years of records across many systems, register as a partner and make the introduction. For the mechanics of receiving money once a deal funds, read how to get paid for referrals.