a straight-up deal
We'll Run Your Email Promos. You Pay Us a Cut Only When It Works.
We take your monthly promotions off your plate, strategy, copywriting, sending, the whole thing. Our fee is a cut of the revenue we actually generate. If we don't print money for you, you don't pay a dollar.
15-minute call. No pitch. Zero obligation.
the short version
Commission-based email marketing is a pricing model where the agency charges no monthly retainer and is paid an agreed percentage of the revenue its campaigns generate instead. The standard agency model charges $3,000–$10,000 a month whether the emails work or not. This one charges nothing until they do.
CommissionBasedPromos.org runs monthly email promotions on that model strategy, copywriting, sending, A/B testing and revenue reporting, for e-commerce brands, coaches and creators who already have a list of 5,000+ subscribers and a product that sells. Our fee is 15–30% of the revenue we generate, agreed and fixed before we start. There is no retainer, no setup fee, and no minimum term.
Revenue is tracked with unique links, coupon codes and UTM parameters inside your own email platform, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, ConvertKit and most others, so the number we invoice against is one you can verify yourself. The first campaign typically ships 10–14 days after signing. We take on a maximum of three new clients a month.
For one client, monthly revenue attributed to email went from $375,647 to $1,329,322. Another collected $864,132 across a 25-day launch. The dashboards behind both are further down the page, with the date ranges and what each figure does and doesn't include.
before we show you the receipts
Four confessions from inside
the email agency business.
We know the playbook because we used to run it. Four things no retainer agency will ever put on theirs:
01You're not the client. You're the subscription.
They sell you "strategy." What they're actually selling is a recurring fee to themselves. Campaign results aren't the product, they're a byproduct. The business doesn't need your sales to go up. It needs your card on file.
02Open rates are makeup.
Your monthly report is a deck of percentages, open rates, CTRs, "engagement trends." Pretty numbers. Notice what never appears on those slides: revenue this agency generated for you, this month, in dollars. Because the real number would end the meeting in four minutes.
03You are a row on a spreadsheet.
Retainer overhead is brutal, office, account managers, Slack seats, the whole machine. They need ~30 clients to keep the lights on. Your "custom campaign" is a junior with a template, 45 minutes between two other clients' promos, and a Tuesday deadline. Not a project. A row.
04The contract isn't a commitment. It's a trap.
3-to-6 month minimums aren't there to "align incentives." They're there because by the time you realize it isn't working, you've already paid $18K–$60K. Sunk cost keeps you. Not results. They know this. It's priced in.
here's the part nobody wants in writing
A fixed paycheck makes your results optional.
That's the entire scam. We unfixed ours.
we've run both models. one is a con. the other is this.
↓ here's what the other one produces.
the receipts
Real dashboards.
Real numbers.
No open-rate trophies. Every figure below is a screenshot from a client's own reporting, with the date range and what it measures stated plainly, including where email is only part of the picture.
Monthly revenue attributed to email
A single client's monthly email revenue went from $375,647 to $1,329,322 roughly 3.5× with a peak month of $1,722,876.
Source: the client's own revenue reporting, monthly, September 2021 – November 2023. This chart tracks revenue attributed to email only, not total store revenue.
Challenge launch: 25 days
$864,132
Cash collected across a 25-day challenge launch, 830 sales, a 14.7% ascension rate, and $15,600 refunded.
22 January – 15 February 2024. Total launch revenue across all channels, email included.
E-commerce store: 6 months
$877,593
Gross revenue over six months while we ran the promo calendar, 1,410 orders from 5,430 leads.
27 September 2022 – 27 March 2023. Whole-store figure; $626,036 of it is recurring revenue, so this is not an email-only number.
“Y'all are the best”
On a promo email we wrote and sent for him.
Client
Muhammad Ozair, 315K followers
AI and business educator (@ozairjk), based in Islamabad, running a paid training programme to an audience of 315,000.
How we bill: a worked example
$19,950 of $391,215
That launch made $391,215 in total. Promo emails were tracked to $19,950 of it. We invoice a commission on the $19,950, not the $391,215.
This is the number most agencies would quote as their result. It's the one we bill against.
Upfront cost to start.
Performance-based.
Spots per month.
let's do the math
How Much Money
Is Sleeping In Your List?
Drag the sliders. See the number you should've been making. Then book a call and we'll actually make it.
You'd make / month
conservatively. this is the floor, not the ceiling.
12-month projection
watch it compound →Your keep
$11,880
Our cut
$2,970
Annual
$142,560
Based on 0.3% conversion rate, 2 campaigns per month. Real numbers usually run higher.
simple as it gets
How It Works
From "hey, let's talk" to money in your Stripe, exactly what happens.
first things first
We Look At Your List. Free.
Book a 15-minute call. We go through your list, your offer, your past campaigns. Then we tell you, honestly, how much revenue is sitting there untouched. No pitch. If it's not a fit, we'll say so.
then we go to work
We Take Over Your Promos.
Strategy, copywriting, sending, A/B testing, reporting, all of it. You stay 100% hands-off. We ship one to four monthly campaigns. You keep running your business.
this is the deal
You Pay Us From The Profit.
We take a pre-agreed commission on revenue our campaigns generate. You see every dollar tracked. If we make you $50K, we get a cut. If we make $0, we get $0. No revenue, no invoice.
Step one is a free 15-minute call.That's the whole commitment. No card, no contract, no pitch.
the playbook, line by line
Why This Deal Is Unfair. For Us.
You just read how the retainer model actually runs. Here it is next to ours, in dollars, then row by row:
The same year, priced both ways
Worked example: a 25,000-subscriber list, $99 average order, two promos a month, the same assumptions as the calculator above. Generates $178,200 over twelve months.
| Over 12 months | Retainer agency | Commission-only (us) |
|---|---|---|
| Paid upfront | $5,000/mo × 12 = $60,000 | $0 |
| Paid on results | Nothing extra, and nothing owed back | 20% of $178,200 = $35,640 |
| You keep | $118,200 | $142,560 |
| If the campaigns flop | You're out $60,000 | You're out $0 |
| Minimum commitment | 3–6 months, signed upfront | None. Leave any time. |
Illustrative figures. $5,000/mo is mid-range for a retainer email agency; 20% is mid-range for our commission. Your actual numbers get quoted on the call.
we only survive if you thrive. it keeps us honest.
Want your actual number instead of the example?We quote your exact commission on the call, and it's fixed before we start.
let's qualify each other
Is This For You?
✓ Yes, if you…
- ✓ Run an e-commerce store, coaching business or creator brand
- ✓ Have an email list of 5,000+ subscribers
- ✓ Sell a real, proven product or offer
- ✓ Are tired of paying retainers for "reports"
- ✓ Would rather ship than babysit campaigns
- ✓ Want a team whose incentives match yours
- →
✗ No, if you…
- ✗ Don't have a list yet (we don't grow them)
- ✗ Don't have a real product, just "ideas"
- ✗ Expect overnight 10× returns guaranteed
- ✗ Want to approve every comma before we send
- ✗ Just want to "pick our brains" for free
Waqar Haider
Founder, CommissionBasedPromos.org
I write and send the promos myself. You are not being passed to a junior, and there is no account manager between us, when you book a call, you're talking to the person who'll be writing your emails.
Commission-only email isn't a new idea. It's the oldest, most aligned deal in marketing. Almost nobody offers it, and now you know why. A fixed paycheck pays better than an honest one.
I've run the retainer model. A $5K monthly check covers rent, Slack seats and juniors whether the emails work or not, which is exactly why most agencies can't produce revenue on demand. They don't have to.
We don't eat unless the promos convert. That leaves room for precisely one skill, obsessively practised: writing emails that print money.
So: book the call. If there's money to unlock in your list, we'll both know inside 15 minutes. If there isn't, I'll say so, and you'll still leave with a clearer plan than you came in with.
the stuff you're thinking
Questions, answered.
Commission-based email marketing is a pricing model where the agency charges no monthly retainer and is instead paid an agreed percentage of the revenue its email campaigns generate. The standard agency model charges a fixed retainer, usually $3,000 to $10,000 a month, whether the campaigns produce revenue or not. Under a commission-only agreement, an agency that generates nothing invoices nothing. It's the same structure as a sales commission, applied to email.
There is no upfront cost. We charge 15% to 30% of the revenue our campaigns generate, with the exact percentage set on the call and fixed before any work starts. For comparison: a retainer agency typically runs $3,000–$10,000 a month plus a 3–6 month minimum, $18,000 to $60,000 committed before you know whether the emails work. Our model costs $0 until revenue lands.
5,000 subscribers or more, with a proven product or offer already selling. Below that, the revenue a promotion can generate usually isn't enough to make a commission split worth it for either side. We don't do list growth, we monetize a list you already have.
Klaviyo, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Beehiiv, and most other major providers. We work inside your existing account rather than migrating you, so attribution reporting stays in a dashboard you already own and can verify yourself.
No catch. We take a pre-agreed % of revenue our specific campaigns generate. We only onboard clients we're confident we can make money for, which is why we vet every applicant on the call. If we don't think we can move the needle, we'll tell you, and we won't take you on.
Depends on your list size, offer, and expected volume. Typically 15% to 30% of revenue generated by our campaigns. We quote an exact number on the call, and it's fixed before we start.
Every campaign uses unique tracking links, coupon codes, or UTM parameters (depending on your stack, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, etc.). You see exact revenue per email in your own dashboard. No "trust me bro" math.
No. That's the point. You're busy. We send a calendar of what's going out at the start of each month. If something needs flagging, you flag it. Otherwise we ship. Most clients stay completely hands-off after month one.
First promo usually ships within 10–14 days of signing. That includes the call, strategy, writing the first sequence, and warming up your domain if needed. No 6-week onboarding drama.
Then you don't pay us. That's the whole model. You risk nothing but your time. We risk our writing, sending infrastructure, and opportunity cost. If our promos flop, we absorb the loss. That's why we're picky about who we take on, and why we rarely miss.
Short agreement defining the commission %, attribution tracking, and payment terms, but no minimum term. End the engagement any time. Most clients don't.
your list is sitting on this
Stop Letting Your List Rot.
Let's Unlock It. Together.
Book a free 15-minute call. We'll tell you exactly what your list is worth, what we'd send, and what commission we'd take. No pressure. No pitch deck. Just honest numbers.
Only 3 new client spots open this month.