Percentage vs Flat Amount in Referral Rebates

When setting up your event's referral rebate, after it has been enabled at the Premium level, you may find yourself asking: should we use a percentage, or flat amount?

Whether it is best to use the percentage or flat rate is completely based on your own individual organization. When making the decision, it is best to consider the following:

1. The Event's Registration Price:
   • Your individual registration starts at $85. If you tell me (the participant) that I will receive a 5% rebate, I’m thinking “5% is nothing, it’s not worth my time.” If you tell me I will receive $5 I’m more likely to think “Yeah, I want that. I need to buy lunch tomorrow.” When the registration price goes up to $110, 5% all of a sudden sounds like a whole lot more. In reality, 5% of $110 isn’t much different than $5 (just 50 cents difference).
   • Note: It is within your organization's interest to never set the rebate amount (percentage or flat fee) as more than 10% of your event's registration price
2. Your Organization's Projections, Predictions, and Revenue Planning:
   • If you use a percentage amount, the rebate amount increases as the price increases - if your event does not have any price increases, this may not be an issue. A 5% rebate on my $85 registration isn’t as much as a 5% rebate on my $110 registration. While your organization is making more money per registration as event day approaches, your organization will also be giving more back in rebates. It’s all proportionate. While $5 is more than 5% of 85, it’s slightly less than 5% of $110. With a flat amount, people may be incentivized to sign up earlier to reap the benefit of a higher “percentage” rebate. As a participant, hearing I will get $5 back pushes me to sign up sooner than later, more so than knowing that I’ll get 5%, regardless of my registration price.
   • With a flat amount, it can be assume that everyone is going to get the same dollar amount, this will make crunching numbers and making predictions on revenue and rebate amounts a much simpler process. 
3. How The Amount Will Look To The Registrants:
   • You may have noticed, with every topic mentioned above, a constant is the opinion of your possible registrants. The amount chosen for rebates needs to be seen as “worth it” to participants. If they’re going to see value in investing their time to recruit more participants, they’re going to want more than a dollar or two to put towards a pack of gum. Time is money!