Commission and subscription: what each model does to a school's channels
Two ways to pay for international recruitment, and they lead to different places. This is about how the structures behave, not about any particular company.
What a commission model optimises for
In a per-placement model the platform is paid when a student enrols. That single fact determines almost everything else: the platform's revenue rises with volume of placements, so its product is built to maximise placements, and the relationship it most needs to own is the one with the family or the agent — not with the school.
This is not a criticism of anyone's integrity; it is what the incentive structure does. A platform paid per placement has no financial reason to tell a school that a particular partner is a poor fit, and every reason to keep the introduction flowing through its own system where the fee can be attributed.
The practical consequence for a school is that the relationship is rented rather than owned. If the school stops paying, the channel goes with the platform, because the agent's commercial relationship was with the platform all along.
What a subscription model optimises for
A flat subscription inverts the incentive. Revenue does not move with placements, so there is nothing to gain from pushing a marginal introduction, and nothing to lose from telling a school that two thirds of the database has no confirmed licence.
It also changes who the relationship belongs to. If a school finds an agent, contracts with them directly and pays them directly, the relationship survives the school cancelling its subscription. That is the point of the model, and it is also the reason a subscription platform has to be worth renewing on its own merits rather than on lock-in.
The honest trade is that a subscription is a cost before it is a return. A commission model costs nothing until a student enrols; a subscription is a line item a school approves at the start of the year against a result it has not yet seen.
The question underneath both
Whichever model a school chooses, the load-bearing question is the same: when this arrangement ends, what does the school still have? A list of agents it has contracts with and a record of what each one produced is an asset. Access to a marketplace is not.
That is the whole reason RecruitEarth records partnership terms and attribution even though it moves no money and takes no commission — so the school ends the year holding the record, not us.
Where this argument works against us
- A subscription is paid whether or not it produces an enrolment. A commission model is not. For a school running a very small international programme — a handful of students a year — paying per placement may simply be cheaper.
- We do not move money, so we cannot guarantee an agent gets paid, and we cannot escrow anything. A school that wants payment handled for it needs a different kind of provider.
- Our database is early and regionally narrow. A large marketplace with years of operating history has more partners in more countries than we do today, and pretending otherwise would be exactly the overstatement this page is arguing against.