Partner Federation — last updated September 2026

What Is Cashback? How Partner Cashback Programs Work

Cashback is a portion of a partner’s own earned commission that the partner chooses to pass back to the client who generated it — either as a fixed amount per lot or a percentage of what the partner was paid, credited per trade or on a set schedule. It sits on top of whatever partnership model the partner is already paid under; it isn’t a separate model in its own right, and the broker isn’t a party to it. This page covers how cashback actually works, what it does for client behavior, and where the money comes from.

• What is cashback?
• How cashback incentivizes clients to trade
• Broker-managed vs. manual cashback
• A worked example
• The 100% cap
• Typical rates and what drives them
• FAQ

What is cashback?

When a broker pays a partner commission that scales with a client’s trading — most naturally lot rebate or spread share, and also revenue share — the partner can choose to share part of that commission back with the client who generated it. That’s cashback: a rebate the partner funds out of their own earnings, not a separate payment from the broker. It’s typically expressed as a fixed amount per lot or a percentage of the partner’s per-trade commission, and paid out either immediately when a trade closes or aggregated on a schedule — daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on how the broker’s system (or the partner, if managing it manually) handles it.

Because CPA pays a flat, one-time fee per qualifying client rather than an ongoing amount tied to trading volume, it doesn’t map onto per-trade cashback the same way — cashback is almost always layered on a volume-linked model instead.

How cashback incentivizes clients to trade

Cashback effectively lowers a client’s net cost of trading: some of what they pay in spread or commission on every trade comes back to them, regardless of whether that particular trade was profitable. For clients who trade frequently or in size, that adds up, and it gives them a concrete reason to trade through a specific partner’s referral link rather than signing up with the broker directly (where there’s no one to share a rebate with) or through a competing partner offering less back. It can also become a point of competition between partners: in crowded markets, cashback rate is one of the few value-add levers a partner can offer beyond service and support.

It’s worth being deliberate about how a cashback offer is framed to clients: it rewards trading activity and volume, not trading skill or outcome, so it shouldn’t be presented as a way to make trading itself less risky — only as a partial offset to cost.

Broker-managed vs. manual cashback

Many brokers build cashback directly into their partner portal as a formal feature: the partner sets a cashback rate, often on a per-client basis rather than a single blanket rate, and the broker’s own system calculates and pays it automatically — either crediting the client the moment a trade closes or aggregating it into a scheduled payout, straight to the client’s trading account or an e-wallet. This is by far the more practical setup: it scales to any number of clients without extra admin, gives both partner and client a transparent, auditable record, and removes the risk of a missed or miscalculated manual payment.

Where a broker doesn’t offer a native cashback tool, a partner can still choose to rebate clients manually — tracking each client’s volume themselves and sending the cashback by bank transfer, e-wallet, or another payment method on their own schedule. It works for a handful of clients, but becomes a real operational burden once a partner has more than a few, which is exactly why cashback tooling is a meaningful factor when a partner is choosing which broker to partner with in the first place, if offering cashback is part of their business.

A worked example

Say a broker pays a partner $5 per standard lot traded in FX under a lot rebate arrangement. The partner sets a cashback rate that passes $2 of that back to the client per lot. On every lot the client trades: the client receives $2, and the partner keeps the remaining $3. Scaled up, a client trading 100 lots in a month generates $500 in commission for the partner, of which $200 goes back to the client as cashback and $300 stays with the partner. The same logic applies proportionally under a percentage-based structure, such as a cut of a revenue share or spread share payout, rather than a fixed per-lot figure.

The 100% cap

A partner’s cashback offer is bounded by what they actually earn from that client’s trading — a partner cannot pass back more than 100% of their own commission without funding the difference out of pocket on every trade, which isn’t sustainable. In the worked example above, the partner earning $5 per lot could theoretically offer up to $5 per lot in cashback (keeping nothing), but nothing beyond that. Brokers that offer a native cashback feature typically enforce this at the platform level, capping the rate a partner is allowed to set relative to their own commission rate so it’s structurally impossible to configure a loss-making cashback rate by mistake.

Typical rates and what drives them

Cashback passed to end clients typically runs somewhere in the range of 20% to 60% of the partner’s own commission, though the exact figure varies partner to partner and even client to client. What tends to move it:

• Value-add beyond the referral itself — partners who provide real service (education, market analysis, a trading community, dedicated support) generally keep a larger share and cashback less, since clients are paying for more than just access; partners competing mainly on price tend to cashback more.
• Client trading volume — higher-volume clients are often able to negotiate a better cashback rate, since the partner is earning more in absolute terms even at a lower percentage.
• Competitive pressure — in more commoditized corners of the IB market, some partners raise their cashback percentage specifically to compete for volume against other partners offering the same broker.

The rate itself, and the whole arrangement, is strictly between the partner and their client. The broker isn’t a party to it and doesn’t set, mediate, or guarantee it — the broker’s only commitment is the commission it pays the partner under whatever partnership model they’re on. What the partner then chooses to share with any given client, and on what terms, is entirely the partner’s call, within the 100% cap above.

Offering cashback transparently to clients you’ve already referred is a normal, disclosed commercial arrangement — a different thing entirely from running an undisclosed sign-up incentive scheme to generate leads, which is one of the fraud patterns covered on Partner Fraud & Prohibited Practices.

FAQ

Is cashback the same as a lot rebate?
No — they sit on opposite sides of the same payment. Lot rebate is what a broker pays a partner per lot traded. Cashback is what the partner then chooses to share with the client out of that payment. They can look mechanically similar (both are often quoted as a $ amount per lot) but they’re two different relationships: broker-to-partner, and partner-to-client.

Does cashback replace a partner’s commission model?
No. Cashback is layered on top of whatever the partner already earns under CPA, revenue share, lot rebate, or spread share — it’s funded from that commission, not a substitute for it. It pairs most naturally with revenue share, lot rebate, or spread share, since those scale with trading volume the way an ongoing cashback offer does; CPA’s flat, one-time fee doesn’t map onto it as cleanly.

Can a partner offer 100% cashback?
Only up to 100% of what they earn from that client’s trading — anything beyond that would mean funding the client’s cashback at a loss. Most brokers with a native cashback feature cap what a partner can set below that limit by default.

How do clients actually receive their cashback?
It depends on the broker. Where cashback is a built-in partner-portal feature, it’s usually credited straight to the client’s trading account or an e-wallet, either the moment a trade closes or on a set schedule such as daily, weekly, or monthly. Where the broker doesn’t support it, it falls to the partner to calculate and pay it manually.

Why would a partner give up part of their commission through cashback?
It’s a competitive and retention tool. A cashback offer can make a partner’s referral more attractive than signing up directly with the broker (which comes with no rebate at all) or through a competing partner offering less back, and it can encourage clients to trade more, which benefits the partner overall under whatever volume-linked model they’re paid on.

Is offering cashback the same as the undisclosed sign-up incentive schemes covered under partner fraud?
No. A disclosed cashback arrangement between a partner and their own referred, real clients is a normal and common commercial practice. The fraud pattern is different: running undisclosed “sign up and I’ll pay you” reward schemes specifically to generate leads, without telling the broker or the client what’s really happening — see Partner Fraud & Prohibited Practices for that distinction in full.

Related terms

Lot Rebate · Spread Share · Revenue Share · CPA Affiliates · Getting Paid · Partner Fraud & Prohibited Practices · Key Factors to Consider When Choosing an IB Broker