How Adspots Agents Earn: The Referral Commission Explained
A plain-English breakdown of Adspots agent commission — the real 10% payout mechanism, when it applies, when it stops, and how to start referring hosts and clients.
How Adspots Agents Earn: The Referral Commission Explained
Tutorwise Technologies LtdHow Adspots Agents Earn: The Referral Commission Explained
An Adspots agent earns 10% commission on every booking made by a host or client they referred, for as long as that booking comes through the platform — paid by Adspots out of its own take, not on top of what the host earns. A host who signs up through your referral link still keeps their full standard share of what their client pays. Your commission doesn't come out of their pocket. It's the clearest way to explain a system that a lot of referral programmes leave vague: what you actually get, when, and why it doesn't cost the person you referred anything.
If you already know people running a shop, a food van, a gym or a delivery round who have spare wall space, window space or a vehicle sitting idle between jobs — or local businesses who'd rather advertise by the hour than sign a long contract — that's the referral. This article sets out exactly how the money moves.
What an Adspots agent actually does
An agent doesn't manage bookings, handle the ad artwork or deal with proof-of-display disputes — that sits between the host and client, verified automatically by the platform (see How Adspots Verifies Every Local Ad Actually Went Up). An agent's job is simpler: bring a host or a client onto Adspots who wouldn't otherwise have found it, using a personal referral link from the Network tab of your account.
That could be a café owner you know who has an empty side window, a courier with a scooter box going spare on evening shifts, or a local tradesperson who wants to advertise around a specific event without committing to a monthly contract. You refer them once. The commission runs on every booking that follows, not just the first.
How the commission actually works
Adspots takes its standard platform commission from every booking, referred or not. When a booking comes from your referral, the platform pays your commission too — out of its own take, not by charging the host extra. The host still receives the same share of what the client paid as a booking with no referral at all.
Here's a real worked example from the platform's pricing model, using a typical evening slot:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Client pays for the booking | £32.00 |
| Host receives (90%) | £28.80 |
| Platform's 10% commission | £3.20 |
| — of which, paid to you as agent commission | £3.20 |
| Platform keeps | £0.00 |
The platform nets nothing on a referred booking — your commission is treated as the cost of bringing that host or client onto Adspots in the first place, not an extra charge stacked on top of the usual commission. That's why the host's share never moves: it stays the same whether the booking was referred or not.
Be clear-eyed about this: commission is only ever paid on real, completed bookings. There's no signing bonus and no guaranteed monthly figure — what you earn depends entirely on how much the people you referred actually get booked. Some referrals will book every week; some won't book at all. Treat any of the numbers here as illustrative of the mechanism, not a promise of income.
Where the commission stops — and why that's fair
If a client goes on to book the same host directly, outside the marketplace search — because they already have that host's number, say — that booking carries no commission for anyone, including you. That's the platform's own-relationship policy: once a client and host have an established relationship, Adspots doesn't take a cut of it, referred or not. It's the same rule that applies to every booking made off an existing relationship, and it means your commission is tied to bookings the platform itself is facilitating, not to a person you happened to introduce once.
In practice, most agent income comes from hosts you refer listing new surfaces and picking up client bookings through the marketplace itself — where the referral split applies every time.
What you're actually referring people into
It matters what a referral is walking into, so here's what's real on the platform right now: live Adspots listings currently price from £8 to £20 an hour, averaging around £13.70 — a shop window, a mobile scooter box or a static board, each booked in one-hour blocks (the platform's pricing guide covers the full range for a client sizing up a first campaign). That's real, current marketplace pricing, not a projection — and it moves as more hosts list and more areas fill in, so treat it as a snapshot rather than a fixed rate card.
For a host, that means turning space that currently earns nothing — a spare window, a quiet wall, a delivery box between drop-offs — into an hourly rate they set themselves. For a client, it means testing local advertising in a specific area for a few hours rather than committing to a month of spend they can't easily walk back. Either side is a straightforward pitch if you already know someone with the problem.
Who converts — the honest read
The referrals that turn into real commission tend to share one thing: an existing asset or existing demand, not a cold sell. A host with wall or window space that's currently doing nothing is a much easier referral than someone you have to talk into finding space they don't have. A local business that already spends money on flyers, local Facebook ads or a sandwich board is easier to convert than one that's never advertised locally at all — you're offering a cheaper, more flexible way to do something they already do, not a new habit.
Referring a host is usually the stronger long-term earner: one host with a good surface can pick up bookings from several different clients over time, and your commission runs on every one of them.
Referring at scale — organisations and agencies
If you're not a single agent but run an agency or a small team managing several local advertising relationships at once, Adspots supports that as an organisation rather than a single agent link. An organisation's commission split is configurable per relationship — the platform-wide default split still applies unless you and Adspots agree a different arrangement for that organisation, the same infrastructure that already handles multi-tier commission on the rest of the platform. That's a conversation with Adspots directly rather than something set from the Agent onboarding flow, but it means the single-agent mechanics above scale to a team without a different underlying system.
Two referrals, worked through
It helps to see the mechanism against real situations rather than the abstract rule, so here are two:
A host referral. You know someone who runs a small gym with a large, blank side wall facing a busy road. They've never thought of it as an asset. You send them your referral link; they sign up, photograph the wall, and list it. Over the next month it books out for eleven separate one-hour and half-day slots to five different local businesses. Every one of those bookings pays you commission, because your referral link is what brought that host — and by extension that wall — onto the platform in the first place. You did the introduction once; the commission runs on however many bookings that wall picks up afterwards.
A client referral. A friend runs a hairdresser's and has always wanted to try local advertising but never committed to a monthly contract with a traditional agency. You send her your referral link; she signs up, searches nearby surfaces, and books a few hours around a launch weekend. That booking pays you commission too — the same mechanism, from the demand side rather than the supply side. If she comes back and books again through the marketplace, that later booking still counts, because she's still finding and booking hosts through Adspots rather than going direct to one she's already used.
Neither of these needs you to manage anything after the introduction. The booking, the proof-of-display and the payment all run through the platform on their own.
How to become an Adspots agent
Add the Agent role to your account through Agent onboarding — it takes a few minutes and doesn't affect any other role you already hold on the platform. Once it's active, your unique referral link and a live pipeline of who's clicked, signed up and converted sit under the Network tab. Commission from a referral's bookings shows up in Financials the same way any other Adspots earning does, alongside the host payouts and platform fees on the same table.
FAQ
Do I need to be an Adspots host to become an agent? No. The Agent role is separate from the Host role — you can add it on its own, or alongside a Host or Client role you already have on the platform.
How do I know if someone actually signed up through my link? Your Network tab shows the full pipeline for every referral — click, signup and conversion — against your own referral link, so there's nothing to chase or ask a host to confirm manually.
Does the commission ever run out? No fixed end date — commission applies to bookings made through the marketplace by the host or client you referred, for as long as those bookings keep coming through it. It stops applying only if a booking moves to the no-commission own-relationship case described above.
What if the person I refer never books anything? Then there's no commission — the same as any referral programme. Commission is paid on real bookings only, never on a signup by itself.
Can I refer both a host and a client for the same booking? The agent commission applies once per booking, to whichever referral relationship brought that booking to the marketplace. Where both sides were referred, the platform's standard attribution rule decides which referral the booking counts against.
More on Adspots
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to be an Adspots host to become an agent?
No. The Agent role is separate from the Host role — you can add it on its own, or alongside a Host or Client role you already have on the platform.
How do I know if someone actually signed up through my link?
Your Network tab shows the full pipeline for every referral — click, signup and conversion — against your own referral link, so there's nothing to chase or ask a host to confirm manually.
Does the 10% commission ever run out?
No fixed end date — commission applies to bookings made through the marketplace by the host or client you referred, for as long as those bookings keep coming through it. It stops applying only if a booking moves to the 0% own-relationship case.
What if the person I refer never books anything?
Then there's no commission — the same as any referral programme. Commission is paid on real bookings only, never on a signup by itself.
Can I refer both a host and a client for the same booking?
The 10%/10% agent commission applies once per booking, to whichever referral relationship brought that booking to the marketplace. Where both sides were referred, the platform's standard attribution rule decides which referral the booking counts against.
